NATIONAL TREASURES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19940, 6 November 1926, Page 11

NATIONAL TREASURES

WHERE. HISTORY IS STORED A QUEEN'S LOVE LETTER. According to Sir Henry C. MaxwclU Lyte, the sevcnty-cight-ycar-old chief of the British Public Record Office, who is about to retire from this post after forty years’ service, few visitors to London know that this office exists. But it docs, and there one may see a letter, dated July 4, 1797, written by Lord Nelson. The writing is normal, sloping to the right, for this was perhaps the last letter written by the famous admiral before the loss of his right arm a few days later. A second letter is preserved, signed by Nelson, written immediately after the accident. In this the writing slopes irregularly, and it is obviously signed with the left hand. Who was the first British king to sign his name as distinguished from the mere marks formerly used? The earliest record is a letter signed by King Richard 11. granting to a prioress near Bids' 1 a tun of red wine every Christmas! When Queen Victoria came to the throne the national archives were scattered in about sixty places, but by an Act passed in 1888 they were concentrated in the Public Records Office, which now contains records of the Chancery, Exchequer, various Courts, and departments of State such as the Treasury, Homo Office, Foreign Office, War Office, Admiralty, Board of Trade, and Customs. Among the principal exhibits are the Domesday Books, that are 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 Anno Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, John Knox, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Francis Drake, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Napoleon Bonaparte signs others 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 is found at the foot of some legal documents, and in another file 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 him “to devyse some exscuse to shift of attendance at this parleament.” According to the historic declaration of Guy Fawkes, that can be seen, Catosby proposed to have the conspiracy against the King “performed by gunpowder and by making a my no under the Upper House of Parlcment.’’ Percy “hired a house at Westminster for that purpose,’’ and the conspirators describe horv they ■went to work. One stood as sentry while twenty barrels of powder were moved into the collar and covered with faggots. The shaky signature of Guy Fawkes to this confession is said to have been affixed only after severe torture.

A delightful little love letter is treasured. The Earl of Essex writes to Queen Elizabeth: “Hast, paper, to thatt happy prosccnco whence only unhappy I am banished. Kiss thatt fayro correcting hand which layes new plasters on my lighter hurcs, butt to my greatest woond applyeth nothing. Say thou dimmest froni shaming, languishing, depayring s.x.- „ , One of the most interesting of other letters is the dispensation by the Archbishop of Canterbury to King Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour for their marriage, although within the unlawful degress of affinity.