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When Rome was erected: at the first establishing of a common weale, Romulus the founder of it, instituted a prime officer to gouerne the Citty, who was cald præfectus vrbis, i. the præfect of the City, whose vnconroulable authority, had power, not onely to examine, but to determie, all causes & controuersies, & to sit vpon, and censure all delinquents, whether their offences were capitall or criminall: Intra centessimum lapidem, within an hundred miles of the City, in processe of time the Tarquins being expeld, & the prime soueraignty remaining in the consuls. They (by reason of their forraigne imployments) hauing no leasure to administer Iustice at home, created two cheife officers, the one they cald prætor vrbanus, or Maior, the other peregrinus: The first had his iurisdiction, in and ouer the Citty, the

other excercised his authority meerely vpon strangers.

The name Prætor is deriued from Præessendo or Præeundo, from priority of place, which as a learned Roman Author writs, had absolute power ouer all publique and priuat affaires, to make new Lawes, and abolish old, without controwle, or contradiction: His authority growing to that height, that whatsoeuer he decreed or censured in publique, was cald Ius Honorarium, the first on whome this dignity was conferd in Rome, was spur: furius Camillus, the sonne of Marcus: And the first Præter or Lord Maior appointed to the Gouernment of the Honorable Citty of London, was Henry Fitz Allwin, aduaunced to that Dignity, by King Iohn, Anno. 1210. so much for the Honor and Antiquity of the name and place, I proceede to the showes.