chancery by advice of the privy council, at least forty days before it
begins to sit. It is a branch of the royal prerogative, that no
parliament can be convened by it's own authority, or by the authority
of any, except the king alone. And this prerogative is founded upon
very good reason. For, supposing it had a right to meet spontaneously,
without being called together, it is impossible to conceive that all
the members, and each of the houses, would agree unanimously upon the
proper time and place of meeting: and if half of the members met, and
half absented themselves, who shall determine which is really the
legislative body, the part assembled, or that which stays away? It is
therefore necessary that the parliament should be called together at a
determinate time and place; and highly becoming it's dignity and
independence, that it should be called together by none but one of
it's own constituent parts; and, of the three constituent parts, this
office can only appertain to the king; as he is a single person, whose
will may be uniform and steady; the first person in the nation, being
superior to both houses in dignity; and the only branch of the
legislature that has a separate existence, and is capable of
performing any act at a time when no parliament is in being[h]. Nor is
it an exception to this rule that, by some modern statutes, on the
demise of a king or queen, if there be then no parliament in being,
the last parliament revives, and is to sit again for six months,
unless dissolved by the successor: for this revived parliament must
have been originally summoned by the crown.

[Footnote h: By motives somewhat similar to these the republic of
Venice was actuated, when towards the end of the seventh century it
abolished the tribunes of the people, who were annually chosen by the
several districts of the Venetian territory, and constituted a doge in
their stead; in whom the executive power of the state at present
resides. For which their historians have assigned these, as the
principal reasons. 1. The propriety of having the executive power a
part of the legislative, or senate; to which the former annual
magistrates were not admitted. 2. The necessity of having a single
person to convoke the great council when separated. Mod. Un. Hist.
xxvii. 15.]

IT is true, that by a statute, 16 Car. I. c. 1. it was enacted, that
if the king neglected to call a parliament for three years, the peers
might assemble and issue ou