4 pees de home vers le North la quele porte est assiz vers le North en joinant a la haute estree nostre seigneur le roy vers le North e joinant al estable del manoir avantdit;" and the deed done by a barbed arrow, “dont la teste fust de feer et dasser la longure de treis pouz de homme et la laure (largeur) deux pouz de homme," the arrow itself three quarters of an ell long, about two inches wide, and fledged with the feathers of the peacock bound on with vermilion silk. To the legal reader, this language will recall that of the early Year Books. Upon the coroners' rolls the causes of death are very illustrative of existing things. Such are the instances of a fall from an apple-tree in a garden overhanging Paternoster Row, down a well of which the sides were formed of so many barrels each three feet high; and other accidents of domestic life. Among that considerable series of documents, the value of which is so well known to all archæologists, the inquisitions, is a small section that has almost failed to attract attention, and which yet fully deserves it. These are the "Proofs of Age." They are the evidence brought forward by parties to establish the age of the heir, and they give the depositions of neighbours and friends upon the subject, and these show that the domestic system of chronology, which is not to be found in the "L'Art de vérifier les Dates," and which would establish the date of the battles of Waterloo or Königrätz by their knowledge of the date of the birth of a favourite child, and the king's advent to the throne by that of the purchase of a gay dress or hat, or the entering upon a new residence, is simply the

continuation of a habit of thought indulged in by English men and women of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Our collection of national monuments continued to grow and increase-increasing vastly in bulk as they diminished in interest-during the eight centuries which have passed since the Domesday Book was compiled. Many of the great steps in the progress of the country, of its increase in wealth and means, its changes in habits and customs, have produced great additions to different classes of records, or changes in them, with many variations, and subject to many accidents, and especially to that of the neglect of those into whose official charge they often fell as an incident of office, productive of far more trouble than profit or advantage.

Among Public Records are many objects of great curiosity and interest-letters of our sovereigns and great nobles, documents relating to matters of great public importance, golden and other seals, finely executed charters and other instruments. Special mention should be made of those fine volumes, elaborately bound in rich Genoa velvet and decorated with enamelled bosses and clasps, which contain the indentures of services for the soul of Henry VII., for the performance of which the beautiful chapel called after that sovereign was substituted for the "Lady Chapel " of Westminster Abbey.

It must be borne in mind, however, that such special instruments have come into the public collection in the ordinary course of its formation. Collectors have de

spoiled, not enriched it; and no authorities have been on the watch to fill up gaps by timely purchases. What it should have contained, had its integrity been preserved, we may see by the riches existing elsewhere.

At the latter part of the fifteenth century, when the country was beginning to recover from the effects of the terrible Wars of the Roses, our national muniments received an addition which tells the condition to which society at that time had been reduced. While the king's authority was acknowledged after many a struggle, the ordinary fountains of justice were tainted, and acts of cruelty, hardship, and oppression were committed almost with impunity. House was divided against house, family against family, and no redress for many a hard and savage wrong committed by the powerful over the weak remained, but that appeal to the highest court of the realm which must ever form a distinguishing and most valuable feature in the administration of a monarchy. At this time the equitable jurisdiction of the Chancery had its rise, and the almost analogous action of the King in Council was appealed to most extensively. Committees of that Council, sitting in certain chambers of the king's palace of Westminster-the one with a gay ceiling, decorated with stars, the other in a chamber where all the "requests" of petitioners of any rank or station were received-gave rise to "courts known by those two names. It is a mistake to suppose that, in its original constitution or action, the Court of Star Chamber deserved the obloquy which

its subsequent distortion undoubtedly merited.

But

then that distortion was in the minds of those who constituted that court. In its first operation, it aimed simply to correct the failure of justice which prevailed generally throughout the country. It is, however, certain that no good spirit existed in the courts of law, as regards this "equitable" jurisdiction. Making allowances for the language in which trained "solicitors" of suits (for it was in getting up such cases that the well-known profession had its rise) stated the cases of their clients, there can be no doubt that the social condition of the country was at the time of the accession of Henry VIII. reduced to a very miserable plight. The proceedings .of the Court of Star Chamber for that reign are very numerous, and they generally refer to acts of personal cruelty and oppression; those of the Court of Requests chiefly refer to cases of disputed right, in which the complainants urge that they cannot obtain redress by the ordinary process of law. There can be little doubt that the action of the Courts of Star Chamber and Requests was soon abused; and in the reign of Elizabeth the Attorney-General was a frequent plaintiff. In that reign the Court attained its full maturity, and it administered justice wisely and discreetly; the morale of the community at large being certainly unsound, and there being ample cause for its operation. The political persecutions of the time were performed in another Committee of the Council, which had no distinctive name. The actual bulk of the records of these two Courts is very considerable for

the period over which they extend, and they have not been examined or used to any great extent.

Besides these two Courts, there sprang up, in the reign of Henry VIII., another, which in its first operation was more oppressive than either, because it brought home to every man of family and property in the country the most rigid and extortionate exactions, and contributed greatly to that decay of regard for the royal authority which culminated in the succeeding century. Established by statute of the twenty-fourth of Henry VIII., the Court of Wards and Liveries had the duty assigned to it of "better serving" the King as regards all the incidents of feudality, which were so considerable a source of the royal revenue. Every device was put into action to prove that the property of any deceased was held of the King "in chief," and with that verdict followed fines and payments upon every imaginable dealing with that property, or the right to do so. Jurors hesitating to return a verdict for the Crown were subjected to all kinds of pressure; and the officers of the Court were particularly enjoined to be careful in the selection of such persons. Jurors then had to give their evidence upon the facts, and were selected for their supposed knowledge of them.

The proceedings of these three Courts still exist in very considerable bulk, and among them are large numbers of private deeds sent in as "exhibits" in cases in progress. That they are full of interest to the biographer and archæologist no one can doubt; but they are not at present capable of being carefully searched, as the greater portion of them are without