Stowe MS 334-337

" AN ESSAY upon the ancient and modern government, conventions and parliaments of England. With abstracts of the most observable laws and the frequency of later parliaments, in which is treated principally of the Saxon and Norman constitution of government and the legislative (sic) and laws during the time of the Saxon and first six Norman kings. After which succeed several necessary observations on succeeding parliaments, their frequency and prorogations to the reign of Elizabeth." Four volumes. The author, who gives no clue to his identity, wrote the work at the desire of a patron whom he addresses as " My Lord," and to whom he writes in the opening paragraphs, "Having perused some late tracts you sent me, and finding them the products rather of byass or overweening confidence . . . I have set apart so much of my time as I could well spare to consult the best authors I have by me, in a series of time, to give an account of all those conventions in the Saxon times which had any appearance of Assemblies like our Parliaments, and so down from the Norman Conquest to the reign of Queen Elizabeth." The work, however, is incomplete. Vol. i. (ff. 317) ends with the death of Henry II.; vol. ii. (ff. 292) contains the reigns of Richard I. and John; and vols. iii. (ff. 320) and iv. (ff. 333) contain the reign of Henry III. Paper. xviiith cent. Folio.