On Sunday afternoon, June 30, 1833, as four boys, under ten years of age, were playing at marbles in a small piece of pasture land called the Old Litten, attached to the homestead called the Manor House, in Beaworth, one of them discovered in the track of a waggon-wheel a piece of lead sticking up above the surface; upon stooping down to take hold of it, he discovered a small hole, into which he thrust his hand, and brought out a number of coins, his companions immediately following his example. Though they did not consider their treasure to be more than old buttons, they concealed a part of them in an adjoining potatoe field, and others they took into the village of Beaworth; but treating them as of no value, some they jerked into a pond, and others they flung about the road. Half a dozen villagers who were, as usual upon a Sunday afternoon, congregated in the street, were attracted by the circumstance, and being more aware of the value of the pieces thus discovered, hastened to the spot, and commenced a regular scramble for the booty. As some of the parties obtained possession of many more than others, the parents of the boys who first discovered the treasure became dissatisfied, and appealed on the following morning to Mr. Dunn of Alresford, the owner of the land. This gentleman immediately sent a confidential person to Beaworth, to claim from the parties the delivery of the Coins to him, which was readily complied with, though, it is suspected, not to the full extent, and on the same evening Mr. Dunn received upwards of six thousand Coins.

I now resume my consideration of the Architecture of England and part of France, and I intend in the present Paper to notice such Buildings in both Countries as are either known to be of a date prior to the year 1000, or in their clear difference from anything of later date, may, from that clear difference, and their relation to works known to be before the year 1000,— be well permitted to be considered of an earlier date, until proved to be of a later one.

You are aware that I have, at intervals, employed myself a good deal in the manuscript room of the British Museum, during the last four years, in researches among the Illuminated MSS. of the fifteenth century, on the subject of Costume; for the purpose of helping me to form a right judgment of the ages and country of certain books of wood-engravings, which are known by bibliographers under the name of Block-Books; and are commonly supposed to have given rise to the invention of Typography: for the controversy concerning this subject has long occupied my attention; and, although so many books have been written upon it during the last two centuries, I have become more and more persuaded, that the evidence on both sides must be subjected to a nicer examination, and sifting, than it has yet had, before we can hope to come to a right decision concerning it.

I beg leave to solicit the attention of the Society to a very singular, and I believe unique article of its kind. It is the foundation Stone of the original Church of Saint Mark at Venice.

Having been lately engaged on a subject which has led to an inquiry concerning the situation and extent of Westminster at various periods, I send you the accompanying Paper containing some of the results; and request that you will do me the favour of laying the same before the Society of Antiquaries, if you should deem it of sufficient interest for so doing.

In your learned Dissertation on St. Æthelwold's Benedictional, (Archaeologia, vol. XXIV. p. 1,) you have adopted the traditional derivation of the word Mass, in the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, from the formula missa est of the ritual. This induces me to address myself to you on the subject of English Etymology, though I cannot expect you to take an active interest in the argument I mean to lay before you in opposition to that derivation, or be more than the obliging medium through which I may address the learned Society, of which you are so distinguished a support. You have, I believe, not yet directed your attention to the German or other Northern languages; and as far therefore as you can have any opinion upon a subject of controversy to which you have not yet particularly attended, that opinion must of necessity be in conformity with that which has generally prevailed among European scholars for the last three centuries. I am aware of the disadvantage of opposing myself to such a mass of authority; but I own that this rather impels me to, than deters me from, the investigation. The concurrence of all the authorities in favour of any doctrine may be a sufficient inducement for assuming it to be true without further inquiry, but it is a still better reason for exposing an error, if there be one: and more especially if it should appear that the shrewd remark of the German Göthe is here peculiarly applicable, “In this world, there are so few voices and so many echoes.”

I beg to send you three inedited Saxon Charters for the Archæologia. I think them valuable, because they put in a clear light, by their juxta-position, the variation in Saxon orthography, between the time of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, shewing that a change was then taking place in the language.

If you deem the following statement of the late discovery of an ancient Canoe near the village of North Stoke, in the west of Sussex, with a description of it, and some observations concerning its probable antiquity, likely to interest or afford pleasure to the Members of the Society of Antiquaries, I would entreat the favour of you to lay it before them; together with a drawing of it, and a plan of the situation where it was found, and you will oblige

You may, perhaps, recollect, that after the singular reverse of fortune by which King Edward the Fourth was obliged to leave his crown and kingdom in the hands of the Earl of Warwick, he embarked on the 3d October, 1470, from Lynn, accompanied only by his brother the Duke of Gloucester, the Lord Scales brother of the Queen, the Lord Hastings his Chamberlain, and some few hundred followers; and with this comparatively scanty retinue steered in three small vessels for the dominions of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, under whose protection his only hope of safety seemed to lie. So sudden had been the change which reduced the monarch to the condition of an exile, that he had not time even to collect his treasure or wearing apparel, and, in the words of Hall (who here follows the testimony of the contemporary historian Philippe de Comines) he departed “without bagge or bagage, without clothe, sacke, or male!”

The uncovering the ruins of Wymondham Abbey having been proceeded in to the extent originally proposed by the parish authorities, I now beg to lay before you the results; and, should the notice contain matter of sufficient interest to warrant your laying it before the Society of Antiquaries, I shall feel much honoured by your doing so.

When I had the honour of laying before you in 1832 a Plan of the Barrows called the Bartlow Hills, in the parish of Ashdon, with an account of Roman sepulchral relics then lately discovered in the lesser Barrows, I informed you that the greater remained to be explored, and that I was not without expectation Lord Maynard on some future occasion would make further excavations on the spot. I have now the gratification of announcing to you the success which has attended a recent excavation made by his Lordship in the largest of these tumuli.

Having lately had an opportunity of carefully perusing the Account-book of the Comptroller of the Wardrobe for the fourteenth year of King Edward the Second, now in the possession of Mr. Joseph Hunton of Richmond, in Yorkshire, I have been induced to compare it with similar Account-books, for the tenth and eleventh years of the same King's reign, amongst the manuscripts in the library of the Society; and to abstract from them such entries as fix the date of transactions embodied in the narratives of chroniclers, supply the omissions of the genealogists of our royal and noble houses, or are curious as illustrating ancient customs and manners.

In the account of the discovery of these Coins, which I had the honour to present to the Society, I signified my intention of taking advantage of my local situation to have drawings made of any varieties which might come under my view, and of making a further communication to the Society, if my researches should prove successful.

The Society has lately had before it a fac-simile of the inscription on the coffin-plate of Gunilda, sister of King Harold, and in an accompanying letter, Mr. Beltz has remarked upon the errors into which historians have been led by transferring incidents in the life of one princess to another of the same name and age. I wish to draw attention to a similar mistake, and shall be able to show from a contemporaneous charter, that Adeliza, Countess of Au. male (Albemarle), wife of Count Odo of Champagne, has been confounded with her mother of the same name, and that she was the niece and not the sister of King William the Conqueror.

This structure was discovered about the 20th of June last, by James Killpatrick, when searching for bog timber; a tedious process, performed by probing the bog with long iron rods, which vary in length from eight to fifteen feet. The upper part of the house was four feet below the present surface of the turf; but it would be difficult to ascertain the exact depth before the bog was cut, as successive layers have been taken off for more than forty years, although by comparison with that surface of the bog which has not been removed, it would appear to have been about sixteen feet deep. This agrees with the statement of Killpatrick, who asserts that he has taken twelve turf deep above the top of the house, and as every turf is about one foot long, it would give sixteen feet for the thickness on the top of the roof of the house.

I have lately had an opportunity of inspecting the numerous collection of Roman sepulchral vessels preserved in the library of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and which were found in the year 1821, on one of the College estates at Litlington near Royston, contiguous to that part of the Ickenild Street called the Ashwell Street Road. I hardly need observe, that this ancient way, crossing the kingdom from Norwich towards Old Sarum, had its appellation from the district of the Iceni, in which it began its course, and from its great antiquity was known in the Saxon times as the Iken-eld Strete, that is, the old street or way of the Iceni.

Amongst the State Papers in this repository, is a document without signature, written in a good bold secretary hand, such as was common in the reign of Henry VIII. and to the following effect:

“Sonne Reignald—I send you God's blessyng and myne, more of my charitie then of your deservyng; for where my hope and trust was, in God, to have had comfort of you, the same, by your demeanour, is turned to sorrow.

In the account of the marriage of Prince Frederic, Elector Palatine, to the Princess Elizabeth, which was solemnised on Shrove Sunday, 14th February 1612–13, inserted by Mr. Nichols in his “Progresses of King James the First,” vol. ii. I find several items of the expenses incurred on that occasion, and among them the two following: “To the Lord Hay, to provide apparell and other necessaries for the Lady Elizabeth, 6252l.”—“More to the Lord Hay, for more necessaries for the Lady Elizabeth, and for furnishing her marriage chamber, 3023l.” p. 622.

The interest attached by all antiquaries to the Household Book of Henry Algernon Percy, fifth Earl of Northumberland, edited by the Bishop of Dromore in 1770, will probably offer a sufficient apology for my troubling the Society, through you, with a Document relating to the same Nobleman, whose magnificence, love of the arts, and patronage of literature, entitle him to the admiration and respect of all acquainted with his character. We are informed by Hall,a the contemporary historian, that in the beginning of the fifth year of King Henry the Eighth, the Earl of Northumberland was one of the noblemen selected to take a part in the expedition then preparing against France, and that he was present at the sieges of Terouenne and Tournay, in the rearward division of the army, under the command of Lord Herbert, Lord Chamberlain, afterwards created Earl of Worcester. This statement is illustrated by an article (communicated by the Earl of Egremont), annexed to the reprint of the Northumberland Household Book in the “Antiquarian Repertory,” vol. iv. second edit, intitled “Equipage of the right honourable Henry Earl of Northumberland, at the siege of Turwin, in France, 5 Henry VIII”b It thence appears, that the King's first letter of summons to the Earl, was dated from Greenwich, 22 Feb. anno regni 4, [1512–13] ordering him to raise 500 men, of which 100 were to be demi-lances on horseback, 300 archers, and 100 bill-men on foot. A second letter was sent on the 13th of April following, signifying the King's pleasure, that the Earl and his retinue sh⊙uld repair to the ports of Dover or Sandwich by the 28th of May; which was immediately complied with, since we know from Hall, that the whole of the troops under Lord Herbert landed at Calais on the 31st of that month. In the same MS. is an account of the “parcels of stuffe” prepared for the Earl and his attendants, which is extremely curious, as it shews minutely the war-equipment of a nobleman of the first rank at this period, and forms a very amusing supplement to the information previously afforded of the same nobleman's style of living in domestic life.

You are well aware that the great Hall at Westminster has been for some time past undergoing a complete repair and restoration under the direction of my brother, Sir Robert Smirke. A work of this nature, requiring at every step the closest observation and the most scrupulous care, is necessarily slow, and its progress was for a while suspended by the late destructive fire, from which this Hall was with difficulty preserved. In the execution of these repairs favourable opportunities present themselves of ascertaining the previous state of the building, and of verifying the changes which it is supposed to have undergone. To these interesting objects of inquiry neither my brother nor I have been indifferent, and it is at his suggestion that I have undertaken, as each part of the work is successively brought under examination, to note down and to submit to the Society of Antiquaries whatever may be thought worthy of being recorded in its Transactions.