an argument, which I conceive to bear a strong testimony to
itself, though taken out of a late writing that conceals the
author. "It is well known," says he, "that in every quarter of
the realm a great many boroughs do yet send burgesses to the
parliament which nevertheless be so anciently and so long since
decayed and gone to naught, that they cannot be showed to have
been of any reputation since the Conquest, much less to have
obtained any such privilege by the grant of any succeeding king:
wherefore these must have had this right by more ancient usage,
and before the Conquest, they being unable now to show whence
they derived it."

This argument, though there be more, I shall pitch upon as
sufficient to prove: First, that the lower sort of the people had
right to session in Parliament during the time of the Teutons.
Secondly, that they were qualified to the same by election in
their boroughs, and if knights of the shire, as no doubt they
are, be as ancient in the counties. Thirdly if it be a good
argument to say that the commons during the reign of the Teutons
were elected into Parliament because they are so now, and no man
can show when this custom began, I see not which way it should be
an ill one to say that the commons during the reign of the
Teutons constituted also a distinct house because they do so now,
unless any man can show that they did ever sit in the same house
with the lords. Wherefore to conclude this part, I conceive for
these, and other reasons to be mentioned hereafter, that the
Parliament of the Teutons consisted of the King, the lords
spiritual and temporal, and the commons of the nation,
notwithstanding the style of divers acts of Parliament, which
runs, as that of Magna Charta, in the King's name only, seeing