Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/285

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in the Fourth Year of King Charles the First. >  :> The principal points in which this narrative differs from the one generally received are as follows : 1. It is said that, at the commencement of the sitting, the Speaker, " as soon as prayers were ended," went into the chair and delivered the King's command. The scuffle ensued immediately afterwards ; and then followed Eliot's speech, and the attempt to induce the Speaker to put the Remonstrance from the chair. In the ordinary accounts it will be found that Eliot's speech follows immediately " after prayers were ended, and the house sat ;" and that the Speaker sat still in the chair, without communicating the King's command to adjourn, until after Sir John Eliot's speech was ended, or, according to some accounts, until he was called upon to put the Remonstrance to the House. 2. Lord Verulam's MS., Harleian "MSS. 2,305 and 6,800, and Ilargrave MS. 299 mention Sir Humphrey.May, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, as one of those who, with Sir Thomas Edmondes, endeavoured to free the Speaker from his imprisonment in the chair. 3. Lord Verulam's MS. gives a speech to Strode, which goes to explain more precisely than has yet been known, why he was prosecuted for his share in that day's transactions. 4. It is a small matter to note, although not without its curiosity, that this MS. corrects a singular mis-reading in the speech of Sir Peter ] toyman. His words, addressed to the Speaker, stand as follows in the printed books, in accordance with all the other MSS. that I have seen : " Sir Peter Heyman, a gentleman of his own country (Kent) told him ' he was sorry he was his kinsman, for that he was the disgrace of his country, and a blot of a noble family.' ' Some years ago I endeavoured in vain to discover what was the degree of relationship represented by Heyman's word " kinsman." Had I seen Lord Verulam's MS. I should have been spared my pains, for there we read that the words were " he was sorry he was " not "his kinsman," but "a Kentish man, and that he Mas a disgrace to his country, and a blot to a noble family." On the other hand, it is observable that Lord Verulam's MS. docs not mention the Resolutions that were put to the House by Holies standing by the Speaker's chair. The concurrent testimony of a variety of authorities forbids us to doubt that those Resolutions were really passed in the way described, and that in this respect Lord Verulam's MS. is defective. I submit it to the Society, therefore, not as a complete account, but as one which adds several new features, rectifies blunders which are sufficiently obvious -when pointed out, and is in many respects well worthy of inspection and attention.