I purpose, with the indulgence of the Society, to discuss an early chapter in the history of Britain; to examine the evidence we possess of the progress of civilisation among our primitive ancestors during the first half century of the Christian era, and thus to investigate the probable condition of this island previous to its becoming a Roman province.

There is no member of our Society to whom this brief letter could be more appropriately addressed than to yourself, not merely from the profession to which you are so honourably attached, but from the interest you must take in the subject, and the information you are so well qualified to supply. The latter, in my case, is peculiarly necessary, and if, on some future occasion, you shall be able to add any additional illustration, you will confer a favour not only upon me, who stand so much in need of it, but upon all Antiquaries, who cannot possibly be indifferent to the history of our Navy. My object is to bring the subject of the inclosed letter and report, by no less a man than Sir John Hawkins, into notice, in order that they may receive any explanation of which they are susceptible, and which I do not pretend to be in a condition to furnish.

Adverting to the Letter addressed to me by John Payne Collier, Esq. V.P. recently read to the Society, which accompanies a valuable statement from Sir John Hawkins, I perceive he mentions that excellent old seaman's having been called by his biographers “Treasurer of the Navy,” and also “Treasurer of Ships.” To these I take occasion to add a third official designation, namely, that of “Treasurer of the Queen's Majesty's Marine Causes,” as may be seen in the Cottonian MSS. Otho, E. IX. and elsewhere. In 1573 he seems to have succeeded the brave William Holstock as Comptroller of the Navy, a high and arduous office, the duties of which he discharged so ably that Sir William Monson, a man by no means given to flatter him, assures us, that he introduced more useful inventions and better regulations into the service than any of his predecessors had done.

The capture of the “Madre de Dios,” or, as it was generally termed in England, “The Great Carrack,” in 1592, was not merely an incident of unusual temporary interest, but even of permanent importance in the history of this country.

Among the many striking incidents which occurred during the trial of Robert Earl of Essex, in 1601, none seem to have more strongly attracted the attention of the people than those which relate to the evidence and conduct of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The testimony of Sir Ferdinando excited the impetuous Earl much more than the ungenerous selfishness of Bacon, and almost as much as the vituperation of Sir Edward Coke, or the sudden interference of Sir Robert Cecil. When I first heard, Mr. Vice-President, that you were engaged upon a life of the Earl of Essex, you may remember that I mentioned to you, that there existed in the Cotton Collection of MSS. a paper written by Sir Ferdinando, purporting to be his defence against the popular clamour raised against him for his conduct towards the Earl. I should have preferred that you should yourself have been the first to print this paper in your forthcoming work; but, upon your assurance that it will be more agreeable to you that I should communicate it to the Society of Antiquaries, I now send you a transcript of it, and will thank you to lay it before the Society. I shall accompany it with a comparatively brief comment, in the hope that the whole subject will shortly be fully treated by yourself.

Some time ago the Society of Antiquaries did me the honour of listening to, and printing in its Transactions, a few remarks on the Antiquarian excavations made by the monks during the middle ages; on the destruction of many ancient monuments by this process; and on the purposes to which the articles thus brought to light were turned. Perhaps I may be permitted to recall the attention of the members of the Society to this subject, which will be hardly considered an uninteresting one, in order to shew how much may be learnt on the subject of local monuments of antiquity in this country from a careful perusal of the legendary literature of the church. So general was the custom of turning old popular legends into religious legends, and so universally were such popular legends attached to ancient sites and monuments, that we need not be surprised at the great importance which these monuments often assume in the histories of the lives and miracles of saints, and at the numerous and curious descriptions of these monuments which we find in the peculiar class of literature to which I allude.

I will now endeavour to give you an account of the constitution of a Manor in Oxfordshire, which, as far as I can ascertain, is unique, and evidently bears the impress of antiquity.

You will probably trace, at first sight, a resemblance between the “four Grass-stewards and the Sixteens” of Cote, and the four Primarii Forestarii and the sixteen Theynes of the Swein-mót referred to in the Charta de Foresta of Henry I.; but possibly these customs may be remnants of the Anglo-Saxon Mark-mót, for traces of the hide of land “cum pertinentibus”—i.e. with a house and toft, the rights of estovers, of common for cattle, and of a portion of separate pasture for hay—may be traced before the Conquest, and will be hereafter noticed; and a Saxon interpreter of Bede, quoted by Ducange (voce Hida) remarks that a hide was “Domus cum adjuncta agri ad colendum portione.” The 64 “yeard-lands,” or 16 hides, of the manor, and the “Sixteens” as the annual representatives are called, with their 4 Grass-stewards (always chosen from the most influential of the yeomen), strongly resemble the inter-communal arrangements of the Anglo-Saxons, who frequently adopted, as Lappenberg remarks, some multiple of 8 in their cycles, &c. It is however but right to observe that the manor did not always consist of 64 yard-lands, for 9 yards were added, rather more than two centuries ago, from the neighbouring manor of Shifford, although they may notwithstanding have belonged to one community, for these lands were intermingled with the rest.

I have copies of two very interesting documents to communicate to our Society, and I know not to whom they can be so appropriately addressed as to our Naval Director.

One is a Letter from the Lords of the Council to the Lord Admiral of England, dated on the 25th of July, 1588, announcing that Queen Elizabeth had given order that in the county of Kent a good number of her best and choicest shot of the Trained Bands should be forthwith sent to the sea-side, that upon notice given from him they might be brought to double man the particular ships which were under his own command, and that of Lord Henry Seymour.

Considering the important services rendered by Richard Hakluyt to the history and progress of navigation, very little has been done to illustrate his life. I am not aware of the existence of any separate memoir of him, and the accounts in our ordinary biographical collections are meagre and unsatisfactory. The notice of him by Anthony Wood, in his Athenæ Oxonienses (II. 186, Edit. Bliss), is short, but, as usual with that industrious and able antiquary, correct as far as it goes; and such as have followed him have done little more than make a few trifling additions to the text he supplied. The most curious and authentic materials, regarding his early habits, studies, and employments, are furnished by Hakluyt himself, but extremely sparingly, and with a simplicity of narrative, and a modesty of spirit, that increases our admiration of the man, and inspires the fullest confidence in his statements. I allude particularly to the well-known dedications, and other prefatory matters, to his three volumes of “English Voyages, Navigations, Traffics, and Discoveries,” published between the years 1589 and 1600.

My former letter to you on “The History and Progress of the Art of Watchmaking,” and the exhibition of ancient Watches which accompanied it, having created some interest on the subject, I am induced to exhibit on the table of our Society some additions which I have since then made to my Collection, and which I will accompany with some observations on them, and such further particulars respecting the history of watches in general as I have been able to collect.

The ecclesiastical history of Britain is generally made to commence, after some conjectural hypotheses as to the original preaching of Christianity, with the celebrated conversion of a king named Lucius, in the latter part of the second century. The two writers on our ecclesiastical antiquities who have most claim to deference for learning, as one of them has for critical judgment, Usher and Stillingfleet, as well as those of a secondary, yet respectable character, such as Collier, unite in receiving this as an authentic fact. Yet some have always been found to doubt, among whom we may place Whitaker and Henry, as rather more peremptory than the rest; the former being certainly not over sceptical in matters of historical tradition. But Dr. Lingard and many others of our contemporaries, though under the necessity of moulding the story into a less questionable shape than it has come down to us, have not ventured to reject the whole as a fable, or to deny that a certain king during the reigns of the Antonines was the means of spreading the light of the Gospel over a part at least of our island, after having sought and received instruction at the hands of the Bishop of Rome.

Sir Henry Dryden has very kindly placed in my hands his notes and drawings illustrative of a discovery of sepulchral remains in the county of Northampton made a few years since, chiefly under his personal inspection.

The care with which the facts disclosed on that occasion have been collected and recorded, and the copious manner in which drawings have been made of the various objects discovered, give an unusual degree of interest to this communication, which I am sure the Society will appreciate in common with all who in such matters have experienced the advantage of being furnished with a full statement of circumstances, and, on the contrary, have felt the embarrassment that frequently arises from non-attention to particulars.

The sword and dagger now exhibited, accompanied by drawings thereof, (Plate XIV.) are said to be those taken from King James IV. after the discovery of his body on Flodden Field, an assertion not recently made, but supported by a tradition of long standing.