Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/70

Ixii PEEFACE. form which the legends had then assumed, and the view which was taken on both sides of the early history of Scotland. Four of the documents in this discussion are here printed. Under letter A is the bull of the Pope to the King of Eng- land, and under letter B the King of England's reply. They are to be found in Fordun's history, and they have also been printed in the last edition of Rhymer's " Foedera," from MS. copies in the public records in London. They have been collated with the latter for the Editor by his friend Mr. Joseph Stevenson. Under letter c are the instructions to the Scotch commissioners, and under letter d the argument by Baldred Bisset. These two documents are to be found in the MSS. of Fordun's history alone. They have been printed by Hearne from the ms. in Trinity College, Cambridge, which, it is supposed, contained the original of that part of the work com- posed by Fordun himself, with the materials prepared by him for the rest of his work. They are also printed by Goodall in his edition of Fordun. Goodall's edi- tion of Fordun is mainly taken from the fine MS. in Edinburgh College, which contains the continua- tion of Fordun by Bower, but, on examining these documents in the Edinburgh College ms., it appears that the " Instructions" differ very materially from the copy printed by Hearne, and that while Goodall, in the rest of his work, has mainly followed the Edin- burgh College MS., he here deserts it, and prints the text of his " Instructions" from a MS. which contains