Enclosed is the Copy of an Indenture of Retainer preserved in this Office, whereby Sir James Ormond Kt retains Mr. James Skidmore, a Herefordshire Gentleman, to serve under him in the Expedition against France under Richard Duke of York in the 19th year of King Henry the sixth:

And of a Letter from King Henry VI. to the Bishop of Bath his Chancellor, on the subject of the same Expedition, which you will be so good as to lay before the Society of Antiquaries the first convenient opportunity.

Monsieur Belley, in his Dissertation on the Coins of Germanicopolis, which he ascribes to Paphlagonia, begins by saying, “No antiquary has yet fixed the first year of the era which the town of Germanicopolis used in its acts and public monuments;” and, I may add, that no antiquary before or since Mons. Belley's time has suspected that there existed a Coin of Germanicopolis seventy-six years before those of Severus, which bear the dates of 200–211, 214, 215. Sixteen of these have come to hand, whilst the one exhibited above, with the name of Adriane GermanicopolitΩΝ upon it, has never yet been published. Hadrian's reign began in 117 A. D. and Severus's in 193 of the same era.

An accurate and circumstantial account of a great number of these instruments, found at different times and in different places, together with the various opinions of the learned concerning the uses for which they were intended, has been published in the fifth volume of the Archaeologia by the late Dr. Lort. Many hundreds of them have been discovered in almost every part of the British islands; many, also, though not so many, in France; one only, and that probably carried thither, in Spain: and none in any of the more southern or eastern parts of the Roman empire: unless, indeed, we admit those which Count Caylus says were sent to him from Herculaneum: but as this buried city has been, from the time of its discovery to the present day, the common source, from which every Italian dealer in antiquities derives his wares, especially those of his own manufacture, and as none ever found their way into the Royal Museum of Portici, or came to the knowledge of those vigilant directors and superintendants of the subterranean researches, Camillo Paderni and Father Antonio; or to that of the no less watchful observer of their results, Sir William Hamilton, we may safely conclude that the Count was imposed upon; and that these articles, sent to him from Naples, had either been brought there from the north-western parts of Europe, or, what is more likely, made there on purpose for him: since castworks, such as these invariably are, may be counterfeited, so as to deceive more skilful judges than he was, even by less dextrous and experienced artists than those of Naples and Rome.

Ryght hyegh and ryght myghty Prince, Oure ful redouted and ryght noble Lord and fadur, as lowely with all oure herts as we your trewe and naturall sonnes can or may, we recomaunde us vnto youre noble grace, humbly besechyng your nobley and worthy fadurhode daily to geve us your hertely blessyng, thrughe whiche we trust muche the rather to encrees, and growe to vertu and to spede the bettur in all matiers and things that we shall use, occupie, and exc'cise.

I beg to transmit to the Society of Antiquaries, through your hands, the copy of a document of some curiosity.

While searching among the Digby Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, in the autumn of last year, I discovered an enumeration and explanation of the Devices borne as Badges of Cognizance by Richard Duke of York, the father of King Edward the fourth, written in a contemporary hand, evidently in the Duke's lifetime.

I here send you Drawings (Pl. XV. XVI.) of some broken Lids of Stone Coffins, which were discovered in Cambridge Castle, when great part of it was destroyed, in the beginning of the year 1810.

This castle, we are told, was built by William the Conqueror; and as they were found under part of the original ramparts, it should seem that they must be, at least, as ancient as his time. However I do not mean to offer any conjectures concerning their antiquity, but shall be obliged to you to lay the Drawings of them before the Society, if you think them worthy of their notice.

I beg leave to offer to your Lordship and the Society a Description of a Roman Altar lately dug up in the neighbourhood of Aldston Moor, in Cumberland, near a military road, and not far from a great Roman station. The altar is three feet high, sixteen inches wide, and eight thick. It is divided into three compartments, the capital, the square or plane, and the base. On the top is an oval cavity one inch and a half deep, and about nine over by six, in which the wine, the frankincense, and the fire were placed, and was called Thuribulum, the censer, or the focus; but this hole is not on all the Roman altars found in Great Britain. On the sides however of the one I am describing are two bass-reliefs, representing on one part the infant Hercules strangling two serpents (as he is seen on a silver coin of Croton in Italy), and on the other the god in all his strength about to combat the serpent in the garden of the Hesperides (as he appears on a coin of Geta struck at Pergamus).

In the valuable Library of the Advocates, at Edinburgh, is an ancient Roll, which is known by the title of Bagimont's Roll. It is holden in great estimation, and is often referred to, by the Scottish Statutes, under the style of “The Auld Taxation” of Bagimont, as an adequate measure of the true value of Ecclesiastical Benefices. By the kindness of Mr. Napier, the Librarian, I lately obtained an authentic copy of it; and which, from its great worth and curiosity, may not be an improper subject to lay before The Society of Antiquaries.

A small temporary redoubt was constructed some few years back, on a height near the shore, on the left of Lancresse Bay, three miles from the town in this island. The ground on which this redoubt stood, being composed of a sandy turf, was by degrees levelled by the wind, and the edges of some stones were thereby discovered, which, upon inspection, I immediately knew to belong to a Cromlech or Druidical Temple. I send you a drawing of this Temple, (Plate XVIII.) as it appeared after the sand, which had covered it to the depth of three or four feet, was removed. The two parallel black lines on the back ground, I imagine to have been the sod covered, at different times, with an accumulation of sand blown on it by the wind. I send you also a plan of the surface of the Temple, with the respective measurements of the stones. (Pl. XIX.) They are of a greyish granite, such as form the rocks in that neighbourhood, and are of a rude shape, having the under part flat. The largest of these stones weighs about 20 tons. They are supported by stones of the same kind; of the number and breadth marked in the plan with a dotted line, the highest being about 6½ feet above the ground.

The contradictory opinions, which our ablest philological antiquaries have advanced with respect to the leading characteristics by which the poetry of our Anglo Saxon ancestors was distinguished from their prose, will I trust plead my excuse for trespassing upon the time of the Society of Antiquaries, by offering to its attention a few cursory observations on that subject. They are suggested principally by the perusal of two very interesting documents contained in the Exeter Manuscript, some extracts from which I have already had the honour of transmitting through your kind intervention.

In the last communication, which I had the honor of submitting through your kindness to the Society, I endeavoured to prove that the poetical compositions of the Anglo-Saxons were distinguished from their prose by the continual use of a certain definite rhythm, and to investigate, as far as I was able, the metrical structure of those venerable and interesting remains. I now proceed to add such further remarks on their peculiar characteristics, as have been suggested to me by an attentive though partial examination of the principal works of this description preserved either in print or in manuscript.

The Cotton Manuscript from which the joint Letter of the Earls of March and Rutland, to their father Richard Duke of York, was transcribed, contains numerous Letters at least of equal, if not superior importance.

The drawings (Pl. XXIII. XXIV.) which accompany this, and which I request of you to present to the Society of Antiquaries, exhibit a correct representation of the Reading Desk belonging to, and which formerly stood in, the Abbey Church of Evesham.

The three enclosed original papers were put into my hands a few weeks since by Lord Sinclair at Nisbett house, in Berwickshire, where his Lordship found them, when he became possessed of that ancient seat of the Carr family; these had been carefully preserved, with other family papers, in a small box. The first of them, addressed to King James the first, by whose command it appears to have been written, contains a variety of charges against the Duke of Buckingham; and was probably drawn up by Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, the former favourite, though it is not in his hand writing, being evidently a fair copy made by a secretary. The two other papers addressed to King Charles the first, in favour of the Earl of Somerset, are written in a very neat hand in letters of gold, and both endorsed with the descriptions here prefixed to them, in the Earl's hand-writing.

In the very valuable republication of “Harrington's Nugæ Antiquæ,” by Mr. Park, a member of this Society, there is to be found a document of considerable interest to those who delight in matters of ancient chivalry. It is entitled “The Ordinances, Statutes, and Rules made by John Lord Tiptofte, Earl of Worcester, Constable of England, anno sexto Edwardi quarti: to be observed or kept in all manner of Justes of Peaces Royall within this realme of England.” Lord Orford, in his account of the above nobleman, speaking of this work as he found it in a manuscript formerly belonging to Mr. Ashmole, uses the words “Justes of Peirs;” and as both expressions have occasioned some trouble, though they have hitherto continued unexplained, I shall briefly attempt to throw some light upon the subject, and at the same time introduce an original Instrument that may possess some claim to the Society's attention.

I enclose the copy of a Roll, preserved in the Record Office at the Tower, containing an account of a great variety of articles provided for a Tournament, held in Windsor Park, in the month of July, the sixth year of the reign of King Edward the first. This tournament appears to have been one of those termed peaceable Justs, lately described in Mr. Douce's interesting paper, to which the contents of this Roll may serve as a supplement.

In the third volume of the Archaeologia I find a partial illustration of a passage in the History of Ingulphus. Speaking of the Customs introduced into this country after the Norman conquest, the historian says, “Conferebantur etiam primo multa prædia nudo verbo, absque scripto vel charta, tantum cum domini gladio, vel galea, vel corñu, vel cratera: et plurima tenementa cum calcari, cum strigili, cum arcu; et nonnulla cum sagitta. Sed hæc initio regni sui; posterioribus annis immutatus est iste modus.” “At first, many estates were conveyed by bare word, without any writing or charter, but merely by the sword, helmet, horn, or cup of the possessor. Many tenements were transferred by a spur, a horse-comb, a bow, or even an arrow. This was at the beginning of the Norman reign. In later years the custom has been changed.”