The three last named places were summoned during the Commonwealth--also
Manchester;--when discontinued, not known. Greenwich was summoned 4th and
5th of Philip and Mary; discontinued 6th of Philip and Mary. The other
places were principally summoned and discontinued during the reigns of
Edward the First, Second, and Third. Calais, in France, was summoned the
27th of Henry the Eighth; discontinued 3rd of Philip and Mary.

In the reign of Edward the Third, an act of Parliament, made in the reign
of William the Conqueror, was pleaded in the case of the Abbey of St.
Edmundsbury, and judicially allowed by the court. Hence it appears (says a
writer on this subject) that parliaments, or general councils, are coeval
with the kingdom itself.

The first triennial parliament was in the year 1561; the first septennial
one, in the year 1716.

Henry the Eighth increased the representatives in parliament 38; Edward
the Sixth, 44; Mary, 25; Elizabeth, 62; and James the First, 27.

P.T.W.

* * * * *


ANCIENT BOROUGH OF LYDFORD.

(_For the Mirror._)


Lydford is a poor, decayed village, consisting of ragged cottages,