[419] "Dixit expresse, velut austero et protervo, quod leges sue erant in ore suo et aliquotiens in pectore suo. Et quod ipse solus posset mutare et condere leges regni sui." "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 419.
[420] Chéruel, "Dictionnaire des Institutions de la France," at the word Parlement. As early as the thirteenth century, Bracton, in England, declared that "laws bound the legislator," and that the king ought to obey them; his theory, however, is less bold than the one according to which the Commons act in the fourteenth century: "Dicitur enim rex," Bracton observes, "a bene regendo et non a regnando, quia rex est dum bene regit, tyrannus dum populum sibi creditum violenter opprimit dominatione. Temperet igitur potentiam suam per legem quæ frenum est potentiæ, quod secundum leges vivat, quod hoc sanxit lex humana quod leges suum ligent latorem." "De Legibus," 3rd part chap. ix.
[421] "Chroniques," ed. S. Luce, i. p. 337.
[422] "Mémoires," ed. Dupont, Société de l'histoire de France, 1840 ff., vol. ii. p. 142, sub anno, 1477.
[423] Unpublished letter to M. de Lionne, from London, July 6, 1665, Archives of the Affaires Étrangères, vol. lxxxvi.
[424] "Esprit des Lois," vol. xx. chap. vii., "Esprit de l'Angleterre sur le Commerce."
[425] A. Sorel, "l'Europe et la Révolution Française," vol. i. p. 337.
[426] Parliament reverts at different times to these mines in the fourteenth century: "Come en diverses parties deinz le Roialme d'Engleterre sont diverses miners des carbons, dont les Communes du dit partie ont lour sustenantz en grande partie...." 51 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum."
[427] 46 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 311. The king returns a vague answer. See below, pp. 515, 517.
[428] "They travaile in every londe," says Gower of them, in his "Confessio Amantis," ed. Pauli, vol. iii. p. 109.