1 64 On the ORIGIN and STRUCTURE of 



ancient laws take notice of ordinances and judgments decreed 

 in fimilar conventions. One GYLASPIC MACSCOLANE we 

 find ordered to give fureties, or furrender himfelf, by an afleni- 

 bly of all the judices Scotise and Galividise. A judgment re- 

 fpecling the widows third of lands, rendered by the king in 

 his court, is marked by having been pronounced when many mag- 

 nates were prefent, and, therefore, no doubt of the greater au- 

 thority; and ALEXANDER II. iflues ordinances, fometimes 

 ' comrnuni confilio comitum fuorum," and fometimes along 

 with the " comites barones et judices Scotiae;" or, more general- 

 ly, as in a cafe formerly quoted, " Recordatio facia coram do- 

 " mino rege per omnes judices Scotiaz f." 



# * * # 



THE opinion, that the towns had reprefentatives, in the an- 

 cient European diets, deferves particular examination, not fo 

 much on account of any argument or evidence produced in its 

 favour, as becaufe men of ingenuity have maintained it, and 

 that the difcuffion of the merits of it tends to throw light 

 on the fources from which this privilege was, in after ages, de- 

 rived. 



AND considering, that the fupporters of this opinion gene- 

 rally hold, that the vaflals of fubjeds, and even thofe tenants 

 in capite, whofe property was lefs than a knight's fee, had no 



place 







pendence of the counties. For, after relating the judgment of the generale placitum, 

 it thus proceeds : " Poft base, infra odtavum diem convenerunt iterum ad Northampton, 

 " et congregata ibi tola provincia five vicecomitatu, coram cunftis iterum caufam fu- 

 " pradiftam patefecerunt. Qua patefada ac declarata, ut praejudicatum erat apud 

 " Lundoniam, judicaverunt et ifti apud Northampton." 



f IT is natural to confider, as the remains of this ancient inftitution, the known 

 royal prerogative in England, of holding conventions of peers, though no parliament 

 is in exiftence ; and the praftice which appears from the Scots (latutes to have obtained 

 in Scotland, of the peers iffuing ordinances without the concurrence of the other eflates 

 of parliament. 



