When, in the spring of 1882, the First Commissioner of Works announced his intention of proceeding to destroy the old law courts at Westminster, it seemed to me that it became necessary for every person interested in antiquities—and particularly in the antiquities of London—to watch with interest the result of this destruction, and in consequence I obtained permission from the Chief Commissioner to visit the place myself, and also to take with me two friends—Fellows of the Society. I selected for this purpose my friends Mr. Micklethwaite and Mr. Somers Clarke. I should like to say something personal to myself, however, to explain why I thought I was for many reasons a proper person to watch these buildings. My grandfathers upon both my father's and mother's side, my father and myself, have been attorneys of the Court of King's and Queen's Bench at Westminster for a period stretching over very nearly one hundred years, and as the law courts at Westminster were built somewhere about the year 1812, we have collectively seen them built and destroyed.

The demolition of the law courts on the west side of Westminster Hall, and the consequent exposure of all that is left of the ancient work there, are my excuse for bringing forward now a matter which by itself would scarcely deserve to be made the subject of a communication to the Society. For I have not to tell of any great discovery, but to comment upon evidence which exists for the most part only in the shape of drawings of work now destroyed.

In this paper I hardly venture to go beyond the statement of notes made upon the site by the permission of the Chief Commissioner of Works; and a comparison therewith of such plans, drawings, or other sources of information as I could obtain access to. The information I have been able to get together has made it clear that there is yet more to be got; indeed, the evidence to be afforded by the building itself and the ground to be excavated about it has not yet been exhausted.

The original object of the present communication was to present to the Fellows some account of a remarkable Book of Records preserved in the parish church of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, containing, among other interesting particulars, the original constitution under which the parish was governed.

As, however, some other of the parish books presented features of exceptional historical interest, I have taken leave to add, by way of illustration to the paper, some particulars relating to the parish and its inhabitants, gathered from its books.

The following brief observations have reference to a remarkable discovery that has very recently been made by Sir John Savile Lumley, Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador at Rome, near the lake of Nemi. The excavations which he has carried on at that spot simultaneously with those at Cività, La Vigna,—about which you have lately had a paper submitted to you,—have apparently resulted in the identification of the site of the Artemisium—the shrine of Diana Aricina.

Though the parish church of Deerhurst is well known to archæologists as being one of the most important existing examples of a pre-Norman building in England, yet it was not suspected till last September that the same parish contained another specimen of what it is convenient to call Saxon architecture, which, though small, is in some respects more perfect than the parish church.

The diptych I exhibit before our Society belongs to our Fellow Mr. Walter Metcalfe, who bought it some twenty years back at Phillipps's sale rooms in Bond Street. After hanging the diptych up in the hall of his house in the country, Mr. Metcalfe gave the picture to a parish church in Essex; but it was not admired, and a new organ, with smart pipes, was erected in front of it. Mr. Metcalfe, therefore, at my suggestion, asked to have the diptych returned to him. After some delay, and certain forms gone through, this request was complied with.

The town of Aylesbury is associated with the early history of this country. Green, in his volume on The Malting of England, points to this as one of the four British towns to which a region was subject, that held out against the Saxon invader.

On the 20th November, 1880, I had the honour of exhibiting to the Society at their meeting the diamond signet, engraved by order of King Charles I., with “ore Armes” and with the “tres of the name of or deerest Consort the Queene on each side,” and of reading some descriptive and other notes on this interesting historical relic.

The remarkable seal to which I have the pleasure of directing the attention of our Society this evening is one of several which were made for the use of certain art-loving cardinals during the earlier half of the sixteenth century, and which were the workmanship of at least two of the skilful goldsmiths of that prolific artistic period.

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.