on the ancient right of conducting his reader to the choicest curiosities of his cabinet: they will derive no additional credit from his boasting, and can suffer no injury from his silence.

These few observations premised, the Editor begs leave to state briefly the several sources whence the following papers have been obtained; the plan which he has adopted for their arrangement; and the means whereby he has attempted to elucidate their contents; and will conclude with some account of the four Earls of Shrewsbury, whose venerable remains have supplied the chief part of the collection.

The manuscripts, distinguished by the title "Talbot Papers," were extracted from fifteen volumes which are preserved in the library of the College of Arms, to which they were given, with many others of singular curiosity, by Henry, sixth Duke of Norfolk of the Howards. They contain upwards of six thousand original letters to, or from, the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, Earls of Shrewsbury; besides many valuable public papers which are foreign from the intention of this work; such as royal surveys, muster-rolls of several of the midland counties, abbey leases, and other topographical matters of importance. The chapter books of the College are nearly silent with respect to this splendid gift, and we must have contented ourselves with merely knowing that the collection still existed there, but for a MS. with the loan of which his Grace the late Duke of Roxburgh honoured the Editor. It consists of transcripts from several of the Talbot papers, and was probably once the property of the laborious Mr. Strype, as extracts from some of the letters contained in it are to be found scattered in his various works, and may perhaps be occasionally recognized by the reader of the following sheets. Two memoranda, which appear at the beginning of the book, afford us as much intelligence as the subject requires :

"I do humbly desire those that will take the pains "to read over or peruse these copies of letters following, "in respect of my age, and weakness of eyesight, to "pardon the bad writing, and to correct and amend the faults, errors, and mistakes therein. The twentieth "of October, 1676. "J. H. of L."

"The courteous reader is likewise desired to take "notice that, by the favour of the Right Honourable the "Earl of Norwich, I, having access to the evidences in "Sheffield Manor, 1671, at several tymes, from amids "multitudes of waste papers, and the havoc that mice, "rats, and wet, had made, I rescued these letters, and "as many more as I have bound up in fifteen volums, "and have more to get bound; wherby they may be perfected for the use of posterity, in my Lord Mar"shall's library, or where else his Lordship will please "to dispose of them. May 14, 1677.

"N. JOHNSTON."

To these persons then we find that Henry, Earl of Norwich (soon after Duke of Norfolk), committed the charge of examining and methodizing this great body of papers. The former was John Hopkinson, of Lofthouse, near Wakefield, Clerk of the Peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire: the latter, Nathaniel Johnston, a physician at Pontefract. Both were antiquaries of some eminence; * yet the Talbot Manuscripts are most confusedly arranged; and the dates, and even the signatures, are frequently mis-stated in the indorsements, which are written by Doctor Johnston.

In one of the foregoing minutes Doctor Johnston clearly points out the second division of our papers. He tells us that he had yet "more to get bound." From that residue, which has been above a century buried in the multiplicity of MSS. belonging to his Grace's family, the late Duke of Norfolk was pleased

* See Mr. Gough's Anec. of Brit. Topography, vol. ii.

to permit the editor to select those pieces which it has been thought fit to denominate "Howard Papers;" not only because they have been retained in the possession of that noble house, but on account of the large additions made to the original collection by Thomas, second Earl of Arundel. The whole consists of about five hundred letters; the superior importance of which, with regard to the secret history of Mary's imprisonment, as well as many passages on other delicate subjects in the Unpublished MSS., seem to indicate that the separation of them from the Talbot Papers was not merely accidental.

The Cecil Papers came about fifty years since into the possession of the Editor's father, as residuary legatee to a lady whose maiden name was Nelme; and who was first married to one of the ancient Surrey family of Byne, and afterwards to the Rev. William Hollier, Vicar of Carshalton, in that county. It may possibly be discovered from this statement how they fell into her hands, of which the Editor confesses himself to be wholly ignorant. They comprise about one thousand original MSS., which evidently appear to have been detached from the vast treasure of state relics at Hatfield, previously to the publications of Haynes and Murdin, and supply many links in the curious chain of correspondence which those gentlemen disclosed. They are of several dates, from the commencement of Sir William's Cecil's ministry under Edward the Sixth to the death of the first Earl of Salisbury; so seldom connected with each other; and of such various degrees of merit, that there can be little doubt of their having been hastily snatched from their proper repository by an illicit hand. Impressed with this opinion, the Editor did himself the honour of presenting them to the late Marquis of Salisbury, and they are now in the possession of his Lordship's noble successor.

From these united funds comes the selection which is here offered to the public. With regard to the arrange

ment of its ancient materials, and the general method of the work, a very few words will be necessary. The papers are placed, as nearly as their dates could be ascertained, in a precise chronological order; and are no otherwise divided than into four sections, by the several accessions of the monarchs to whose reigns they respectively belong. They were originally literally transcribed, even to the retention of their abbreviations; not with that whimsical taste which suffers inscriptions to remain illegible rather than remove the rust which obscures them, but for the sake of certain valuable intelligence with regard to our language which might be fairly expected from the observation of the varied orthography of a whole century. Those readers, however, to whom such a help may be necessary will meet with a key to such of these difficulties as still remain in a table which precedes the papers.*

In the notes will be found explanations of obscurities in the text; historical illustrations of important passages; notices of persons and places casually mentioned in the letters; and memoirs, at greater length, of the several writers. These numerous scraps of information were chiefly collected in the College of Arms; the Editor's official connection with which irresistibly tempted him to avail himself of those extensive aids to British history and biography, under the Tudors and the Stuarts, which its most curious library peculiarly affords.

It is in order to prevent an unreasonable increase of the marginal observations that the Editor proposes to make some some slight additions in this place to the many particulars of the illustrious house of Talbot which will be found in the following sheets.

George, Earl of Shrewsbury, with whose correspondence our collection opens, was the eldest son of John, the third Earl of his family, by Catherine, daughter of

* As the orthography, &c. has been modernized in this edition, of course it was unnecessary to retain the "table."

Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and succeeded his father, June 28, 1473. In 1487, being then in his nineteenth year, he fought, in the presence of Henry VII., at the bloody battle of Stoke, and, in the autumn of 1491, attended him in his warlike expedition to Boulogne. He is said to have been a Privy Councillor to that Prince; and Collins's Peerage, upon the weak authority of Polydor Virgil, informs us that he was sworn in 1485, which is most improbable, for he was then barely sixteen years old. In the following reign, however, we find him a member of that council with which it commenced, composed, as Lord Herbert says, "of scholars and soldiers." Henry VIII. likewise, at his accession, gave him the honourable office of Steward of the Household; in 1513, appointed him Captain of the Vanguard in the army which besieged Therouenne; and, in 1522, Lieutenant General of the North. He was an evidence in the great cause between the King and Catherine of Arragon, his deposition on which is preserved by the noble author lately quoted. It was favourable to the King's purpose, and consequently adverse to Wolsey, among whose enemies the Earl now ranked himself; and we accordingly find him a subscriber to the articles which were preferred against that prelate on the 1st of December, 1529, and also to that earnest letter of the 30th of July, in the following year, by which the Parliament conjured the Pope to pass the sentence of divorce. The Cardinal,

who was soon after arrested at his episcopal house of Cawood, was permitted, on his way towards London, to repose himself for a fortnight in the Earl's custody. During this sojournment in Sheffield Castle, where he experienced the most kind and delicate treatment, Wolsey was attacked by the disease which carried him off at Leicester Abbey. In 1536, the Earl, then nearly seventy years of age, appeared again in the field, and, by a timely, but dangerous service, had the