Arcana Parliamentaria: Or Precedents Concerning Elections..

1685. An Essay on Parliamentary Power Written Three Years Before the Glorious Revolution C., R. of the Middle Temple. Smith, Sir Thomas [1513-1577]. Arcana Parliamentaria: Or Precedents Concerning Elections, Proceedings, Privileges, and Punishments in Parliament. Faithfully Collected Out of the Common and Statute-Law of This Realm. With Particular Quotations of the Authors in Each Case. To Which is Added, The Authority, Form, and Manner of Holding Parliaments by the Learned Sir Tho. Smith. London: Printed for M. Gilliflower, 1685. [iv], 116 pp. 12mo. (5-3/4" x 3-1/4"). Recent period-style calf, blind rules and fillets to boards, raised bands, lettering piece and blind and gilt fillets to spine, endpapers added. Light fading to spine, moderate toning to interior, light soiling to title page, some edgewear to preliminaries after front free endpaper and final leaf of text, later annotation to front endleaf. A handsome copy. $750. * Only separate edition of a work represented as bringing together nineteen sources, including Bracton, Coke, Dyer, Fitzherbert, Fortescue, Littleton, and Plowden, as well as the Year Books, "With particular Quotations of the Authors in each Case." Written three years before the Glorious Revolution, this guide is notable for its assertive tone: "The Parliament abrogateth old Laws, maketh new, giveth order for things past, and for things hereafter to be followed, changeth Right and Possessions of Private men, legitimateth Bastards, establisheth Forms of religion, altereth Weights and Measures, defineth of doubtful Rights, whereof is no Law already made, do appoint Subsidies, Talies, Taxes, and Impositions, giveth most free Pardons and Absolutions, restoreth in Blood and Name: as the highest Court condemneth or absolveth them whom the Prince will put to Tryal: And to be short, all that ever the People of Rome might do, either Centuriatis Comitiis, or Tributis, the same may be done by the Parliament of England, which representeth, and hath the Power of the whole Realm, both in Head and Body" (2-3). English Short-Title Catalogue R36268.