OLD DOCUMENTS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 November 1926, Page 11

OLD DOCUMENTS

ACCORDING to Sir Henry C. Max-well-Lyte, the seyenty-eight-yc irold chief of the British Public Record Office, who is about to retire from his post after forty, years’ service, few visitors to London know that this office exists. But it does, and there o ne niav see a letter, dated July 4, 1 <Ji, written by Low! Nelson. The writing is. normal, sloping to the right, for this was perhaps the .last letter written bv the famous admiral before the. loss of his right arm a few days later. A second letter is preserved signed by Nelson, written immediately alter the accident. In this the writer slopes irregular' v and it is obviously signed with the left hand.

Who was the first British king to sign his name as distinguishedi from the mere marks formerly used: the earliest record is a lettei signed _by Kino- Richard 11, granting to a prioress near Bristol a tun of red wine every Christmas! When Queen Victoria- came to the throne the national archives were scattered in about .sixty p’aces, but by an Act passed in- 1838 they were conoen-

GEMS FROM MUSTY RECORDS

trated in the Public Record Office, which now contains records of the Chancery, Exchequer, various courts, and departments of State such as the Treasury, Home Office, Foreign Office, Wn r Off ice. Admiralty v -iio.ai'd-of- Trade and Customs.

Among the principal exhibits are the Domesday Book, the outcome of a general survey of England, ordered by William the Conqueror at the end of 1085. Among the collection one can inspect letters from Anne Boleyii, Mary Queen of Scots, John Knox, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Francis Drake, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Napoleon Bonaparte; signs other letters, while King George 111. is the recipient of a note from George Washington, first President of the United. States. William Shakespeare’s signature, in an abbreviated form, i« found at the foot of some legal documents, and in another file there is a letter from Lord Byron. The Gunpowder Plot was discovered through an anonymous letter sent- to Lord Monteagle, believed to be written by one of the conspirators. It advised 'urn “to devyse some exscuse to shift of attendance at this parliament.” According to the . historic declaration of Guy Fawkes, that can be seen, Gatesbv * proposed to have the conspiracy against- the King “performed by gunpowder, and by making a myne' under the Upper House of Parliament.” Percy “hired a house at Westminster for that purpose,” and the conspirators describe how they went to work. On© stood as sentry while twenty barrels of powder were moved into the cellar, and covered witli faggots. The snaky signature of Guy Fawkes to this confession is said to have been affixed only after severe torture.