(3) _The Lincoln Magna Carta._ This copy is under the custody of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, where it has undoubtedly lain for many centuries. It has been suggested that Bishop Hugh of Lincoln, canonized by the Roman Church, whose name appears in the list of magnates consenting to John’s grant, may have brought it with him from Runnymede on his return to Lincoln. The word “Lincolnia” is endorsed in a later hand in two places at the back of the document on folds of the parchment. It has no corrections or additions inserted at the foot, but embodies in their proper places all those which occurred in the versions already discussed. Further, it is executed with more flourishes and in a more finished manner than these, and the inference is that it took longer to engross. The Record Commissioners in preparing the _Statutes of the Realm_ considered this version as of superior authority to any of the others and have accordingly chosen it as the copy for their engraving of Magna Carta published in 1810 in that valuable work, and also in the first volume of their edition of Rymer’s _Foedera_ in 1816.[290] ----- Footnote 290: The engraving was executed to their order by James Basire. ----- (4) _The Salisbury Magna Carta_—preserved in the archives of the Cathedral there. The early history of this manuscript has not been traced, but its existence was known at the close of the seventeenth century.[291] Sir William Blackstone, in April, 1759,[292] instituted a search for it, but without success—his inquiries being met with the statement that it had been lost some thirty years before, during the execution of repairs in the Cathedral library. As its disappearance had really taken place during the tenure of the see by Gilbert Burnet, whose antiquarian interests were well known, his political adversaries accused him of appropriating it—an undoubted calumny, yet one to which some colour was lent by facts to be hereafter explained. The document had not been re-discovered in 1800 when the royal commission published its report of the result of its inquiries for national records.[293] Two sub-commissioners visited Salisbury in 1806 in search of it, but obtained no satisfaction. It seems, however, to have been re-discovered within the next few years, since it is mentioned in a book published in 1814,[294] and it is now exhibited to the public by order of the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral. It resembles the Lincoln copy both in its beautiful leisurely writing and also in the absence of additions at the bottom of the parchment.[295] ----- Footnote 291: See James Tyrrell, _History of England_, Vol. II. 821 (1697-1704). Footnote 292: Blackstone, _Great Charter_, p. xvii. Footnote 293: See _Report_ (1800), p. 341, containing the Return by the Chapter Clerk of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, dated 15th May, 1800. Footnote 294: Dodsworth, _Historical Account of the Cathedral_, 202. Footnote 295: