Modus Tenendi Parliamentu[m], In Two Bookes, Composed by Henry Elsing

[London?, c.1626]. A Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Copy of Elsynge's Definitive Guide to Parliament that Predates Its First Printing [Manuscript]. Elsynge, Henry (The Elder). Modus Tenendi Parliamentu[m]. In Two Bookes. Composed by Henry Elsing. Esquire, Clerke of the Parliament. The Catalogue of the First Booke-Modus Tenendi Parliamentum Apud Anglos in Two Bookes-The First of the Forme, & All Things Incident-Thirtunto. The Second of the Matters Handled in Parliament. The First Booke Hath Eight Chapters. [London?, c.1626-c.1660]. 82 pp. Folio (13-1/4" x 8-1/2"; 33.5 x 21.5 cm). Nineteenth-century flexible pebbled calf, gilt rules and fillets to boards, gilt title "Modus Tenendi Parliamentu" to center of front board, gilt fillets to spine, all edges gilt. Light rubbing and minor scratches and nicks to boards, moderate rubbing and light fading to extremities with wear to corners, chipping to spine ends, joints starting at ends, front hinge starting at foot, twentieth-century sheet of typewritten notes tipped-in to front endleaf. Moderate toning, faint dampstaining to first third of text block, light soiling in a few places. Text in a single secretarial hand within ruled borders on wide-margined leaves, main text preceded by table of contents, doodles and penmanship exercises in later hand to front endleaf and foot of p. 82. $4,000. * This rare pre-publication manuscript contains the first three chapters of Henry Elsynge's foundational manual on Parliamentary procedure: "Of Summons," "Of Appearances," and "Locus et Modus Sedendi." Written in 1626 during Elsynge's tenure as Clerk of the Parliaments, the work was considered so authoritative that it circulated extensively in high-level legal and political circles via professional scribes for decades before its eventual publication in 1660 as The Ancient Method and Manner of Holding of Parliaments in England. The text is executed in a precise, professional secretarial hand within ruled borders on expansive, wide-margined leaves-a format typically reserved for significant legal references of the era. This copy likely stems from the period of the work's greatest "underground" influence, during the tumultuous mid-17th century when parliamentary procedure was a matter of intense national debate. While Elsynge's son later edited and enlarged the work for the press, these contemporary manus.…