"{12]
[1] Mackintosh's Hist. of Eng., ch. 3. 45 Lardner's Cab. Cyc.,
354.
[2] "Forty shilling freeholders" were those "people dwelling and
resident in the same counties, whereof every one of them shall
have free land or tenement to the value of forty shillings by the
year at the least above all charges." By statute 8 Henry 6, ch.
7, (1429,) these freeholders only were allowed to vote for
members of Parliament from the counties.
[3] He probably speaks in its favor only to blind the eyes of the
people to the frauds he has attempted upon its true meaning.
[4] It will be noticed that Coke calls these confirmations of the
charter "acts of parliament," instead of acts of the king alone.
This needs explanation.
It was one of Coke's ridiculous pretences, that laws anciently
enacted by the king, at the request, or with the consent, or by
the advice, of his parliament, was "an act of parliament,"
instead of the act of the king. And in the extracts cited, he
carries this idea so far as to pretend that the various
confirmations of the Great Charter were "acts of parliament,"
instead of the acts of the kings.
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