The Bardon papers : documents relating to the imprisonment & trial of Mary Queen of Scots / edited for the Royal Historical Society by Conyers Read ; with a prefatory note by Charles Cotton.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Bardon papers : documents relating to the imprisonment & trial of Mary Queen of Scots / edited for the Royal Historical Society by Conyers Read ; with a prefatory note by Charles Cotton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE In the autumn in 1905, I paid a visit to the British Museum for the purpose of hunting up a bundle of MSS., which had been discovered by a Mr William Leigh in 1834, in the house which had been the home of my wife’s ancestors for about 300 years, near Watchet in Western Somerset. In connection with these, I was aware of family traditions concerning this ancient house, of the window of an attic (in which the MSS. were found) being constantly broken by a white dove, which disappeared, never to return, after the papers were removed ; of a former Mr Robert Leigh, who was in possession of Bardon in 1595, being seen and heard driving down the drive at midnight carrying a head under his arm ; of an old lady with white hair and wearing a black silk dress of an antique fashion appearing in the passages after dark; and many others of a similar nature, which had aroused my interest in the vicissitudes of this collection. It was, therefore, with great satisfaction that, after some search, I found the Papers that I was seeking amongst the Egerton MSS. numbered 2124 in the Catalogue ; and from my examination of them I concluded that they were decidedly of considerable historical importance. Upon a further search being made in the Museum Library, it appeared that, although extracts might have been taken from them, yet as a whole they had not been printed, nor even critically dealt with. This being the case, the MSS. were forthwith transcribed under my supervision, and at the suggestion of my friend General Sir Charles Warren, himself a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, my transcript was brought before the notice of the Council of the B