The object of the accompanying Paper is to draw attention to a series of financial transactions which, although intimately connected with our early history, and essential to its faithful development, have hitherto found no place in its pages. Political economy was the science most remote from the speculations of our chroniclers; nor had they, commonly, such an acquaintance with the affairs of the Exchequer as qualified them to transmit to us a correct exposition of the wealth and resources of the country. We are not surprised therefore to find their statements with regard to the revenue inaccurate and meagre; but we are at a loss to account for their silence respecting the Italian money-lenders who, as it will appear, were the main supporters of the King in periods of financial embarrassment, and who, everywhere dispersed throughout the kingdom, must have very beneficially influenced the commercial and even the political condition of the country, by an example of superior enterprise and intelligence, by their connexions with foreign governments, and by the immense capital which they introduced and circulated. This deficiency is supplied by the Public Records; and consequently the evidence which they yield becomes of interest and value. We find in them a vein of history, as it were, hitherto unexplored; and all that I have now attempted, is to present a sample of its produce.

Lord Maynard having directed a further excavation to be made at the Bartlow hills, a gallery was commenced early in April last on the north side of the south barrow. This hill, according to the plan, is about thirty-five feet high, the diameter having been computed at ninety feet, but it exceeds a hundred. The gallery was constructed in the same manner as that opened in 1835 in the largest barrow, and had reached the centre of the hill on the 16th April, upon which day I inspected it in company with Lord Braybrooke and the Honourable Captain Percy. It extended fifty-two feet, and we observed that the tumulus was formed, like the largest barrow, of earth and chalk, in horizontal strata. Our arrival took place shortly after the workmen had broken in upon a hollow, where we gladly anticipated the finding a sepulchral deposit, appearances heing much the same as those observed on first opening the cavity in the centre of the other barrow.

Under the conviction that every research which tends to fix the date of an improvement in Science, is useful to the promotion of that correct knowledge of our country which is one of the chief objects of the Society of Antiquaries, I beg to offer, through you, the following remarks on the Origin of the Lock Canal of Exeter, which I believe to be the earliest of that description of works in England.

The particular object of the following remarks are the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons, whether as to their use in inscriptions, or the manner in which they are introduced into manuscripts. I shall therefore have but little to say of the Scandinavian or old Norse characters of the same description, unless by way of illustrating the indigenous alphabet: and indeed these require less attention from us, inasmuch as they have been profoundly and successfully studied by those who had the most right to take an interest in them, the antiquaries of Scandinavia and Iceland.

The campaign in the Netherlands, of 1586, will be ever memorable in the English annals for the heroic death of Sir Philip Sidney, one of the brightest ornaments of the reign of Elizabeth.

In undertaking to submit to the Society of Antiquaries a notice of the ancient pieces of ordnance, and other relics, lately discovered in the Island of Walney, I am influenced by the wish you have so kindly expressed, rather than by any sense of fitness, on my part, for the task.

I beg to send for your perusal two official letters, addressed by Queen Elizabeth to Dr. Dale, her Ambassador at Paris, relative to her proposed marriage with the Duke of Alençon, afterwards Duke of Anjou. If you should think them worthy of the notice of the Society of Antiquaries, I hope you will feel no hesitation in having them read at their next meeting.

In conjunction with John Newman, Esq. F.S.A., I am enabled to exhibit to the Society of Antiquaries some fine and interesting bronzes, which were found in the bed of the river Thames, near London Bridge, in January last, by men employed in ballast heaving. They are five in number, and consist of a Priest, or devotee, of Cybele; a Mercury; an Apollo; an Atys; and the fragment of a Mercury, or, in the opinion of Sir Richard Westmacott, of a Jupiter. A pedestal of bronze was also found in the same spot.

I am sensible that I undertake an unpopular task in endeavouring to restrain within ascertained limits the unknown date of the most revered objects of antiquarian curiosity extant in Great Britain ; but I also know that in the estimation of enlightened minds, truth, or (its near adjunct) probability, is preferable to indefinite wonder; and I shall venture to produce circumstantial evidence, that the antiquity of Stonehenge and even of Abury, falls short of the commencement of the Christian era.

In February 1836, a person, in planting a tree at the end of his house at Wyke in the parish of Harewood, about eight miles from Leeds, struck upon an earthern vessel, containing a number of Coins of the early Edwards, &c. of which we shall, as far as lies in our power, give the particulars. The property on which they were found is held in trust for the Vicar of Leeds, and was bequeathed by the will of the late Right Honourable Lady Elizabeth Hastings. From whom, and at what time the property came into her family, we have not been able to ascertain; but by Kirby's Inquest, it appears that the Abbot of Kirkstall, to whose monastery most of the property in this neighbourhood belonged, was Lord of Wyke also. In the year 1831 the present farm-house was built upon the site of the old one, but was not continued so far as the original in length. It was in or under the plastered floor of the ancient tenement that these coins were concealed. The earthern vessel in which they were contained was, as far as we could learn, somewhat of the shape and nature of a Roman Urn; but every fragment of it had been destroyed previously to our inquiry. It had probably been cracked at the time of its secretion, or the cover was imperfect, as a great quantity of the coins were united together; many much oxidized, so as to be rendered quite friable and readily broken, not leaving even the slightest trace of the original silver; others were in a more perfect state ; but the generality were in very indifferent preservation.

I beg to transmit to you copies of two letters connected with the history of the Gunpowder Treason, which I think will be found worthy of consideration by the Society of Antiquaries.

I have read with a deep interest the able Dissertations of two of your learned colleagues, Messrs. Webb and Amyot, on that oft controverted point of English history the death of Richard the Second. Both reject the popular account of his murder, by Sir Piers Exton and accomplices, as comparatively unfounded; and maintain, with Thomas of Otterbourn, Hardyng, and, it must be confessed, nearly all the contemporary chroniclers, that he died of starvation.

I beg to send you an article for the Archæologia, which contains some curious traits of the Manners in the reign of Henry VIII. as well as illustrations of some passages in the general history of this country. I trust you will find it of sufficient interest to be printed in the Society's next Volume.

I have the honour to transmit to you herewith a paper containing copies of several ancient Greek Inscriptions discovered by me on the walls of a family catacomb at Alexandria in Egypt, together with a Plan and short description of the Tomb, and some remarks on the writings.

The recent researches of several very able French antiquaries among the municipal archives of Picardy and Artois—conducted, apparently, in a spirit of candour, and with an unbiassed zeal for the developement of historical truth—having produced some variations in, and additions to, the existing narratives of the Battle of Cressy, and contributed, by a more minute attention than had hitherto been given to the relative localities, traditions and remains, materially to illustrate the positions and preliminary operations of both armies, I have thought that a condensed view of the result of these inquiries may possibly not be unacceptable to the Society of Antiquaries.

In 1798 the Abbé Mann favoured the Society with a short chronological account of the religious establishments made by English Catholics on the continent of Europe, noticing among them the Nuns of the Conception at Paris.