Very manifold and multiform are the materials from which ecclesiastical history is compiled. Sometimes from the great chronicle of an ancient abbey, in whose annals the zealous scribe has set down the minutest details, from the erection and endowment of the sumptuous church itself to the smallest payment at the celebration of an obit; sometimes from a dry catalogue of names without a single incident to vary the monotony; sometimes from the life of some great prelate, of heroic virtue and of saintly grace, towering above his fellows as Saul amongst the men of Israel; and sometimes from some petty quarrel about precedence between two officers so unimportant that the utter abolition of the offices which they held would seem the best and simplest settlement of the dispute; sometimes from manorial records, dreary and repellent at first sight, but full of precious information as to the history of property, the relative position of tenant and of lord, the value of labour and of money; and sometimes from a mere inventory or catalogue of goods, a list of plate, ornaments, jewels, vestments, a bare document full of wearisome iteration, a collection of the driest of dry bones.

Of all the drinking vessels in use from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, none were so common and so much prized as those known to us as mazers. They occur in numerous wills and inventories under various names, such as ciphi or cuppae de mazero or de murra, mazeri, ciphi murrei, mazerei, hanaps de maser, and later as murrae and mazers, etc., on the derivations of which much valuable matter has been written. But, under whatever name it appears, it is quite clear that the same vessel is meant, viz. a drinking bowl turned out of some kind of wood, but by preference of maple, and especially the spotted or speckled variety which we call bird's-eye maple.

Primogeniture, aided by legal powers and by the strong necessities of feudal polity, has become in this country the dominant form of succession to title and estate, and has consequently thrust out of consideration many other forms which exist here and there. Two of these other forms, Gavelkind and borough-English (so called), have received some attention from lawyers and legal antiquaries, and they obtain in many localities as the legal form of succession; but there are other customs which have been altogether neglected, and which obtain in only a few isolated localities. The lawyer at the bidding of statesmen has striven for the furtherance of the right of primogeniture, and every other custom has had to prove its case before it could obtain recognition. Therefore, in a certain sense the law has never recognised any other form of succession than primogeniture. But what I shall have to point out in the following pages is that in the annals of rural England there are many conceptions attached to the holding of property, which, though succumbing in law to primogeniture, have left a history behind which is well worth examining. Before Mr. Elton dealt with primogeniture and junior-right as common descendants from one parent, an examination of the right of primogeniture never led the inquirer beyond the area bounded by feudal history. But by examining the two forms of succession together it has been shown that we arrive at the archaic family.

The task I have set myself in this paper, a task in which I fear I shall hardly succeed, is to endeavour to wipe away from the pages of our national history one of the foulest blots that stains them, viz., the legend, the unproved rumour, of the hideous detail of the murder of king Edward II. in Berkeley Castle.

I suspect I am not the first inquirer on this subject, for I find the wardrobe account of 1 Edward III. which I shall presently refer to has been “galled,” probably for the purpose of making a copy of it.

During my stay in Rome in the early part of this year I found time to examine and make some plans of a part of the excavations of the Forum, which had not before, so far as I know, been subjected to any very careful study; though the site is one of the most interesting and important even in that interesting locality,—the ground which immediately surrounds the remains of the temple of Vesta, the central hearth of the Roman people, and the place of deposit of their most venerable and sacred treasures.