P[re]mierement comment ilz Beauz seignors je vous prie a voloient auoir depose mons^{r}. tous mercy et vous prie que vous veulliez dire a Monsr le Item. Ilz le constraindirent Roy que il pregne garde de mon a leur donner pouoir par letres filz, quar sil nest chastie a lencontre de sa regalie et tant quil est jeune, il me les libertes de sa couronne. resembleira, et je fiz faussete et traison a mons^r mon pere, Item. Ils le voloient auoir et ai pense et eusse mis a prins par force hors de son execution contre mons^r le Roy chastel et lauoir amene tout contre mon neveu de Rottheland partout ou ilz voloient et et mon cousin le mareschal et prins son grant seel deuers plus^s autres(;) dedens xv jours eulz. ilz eussent este mors et madame la este mors et madame la Royne Item. Le vouloient auoir envoiee arriere en France, et assailli dedens sa tour de fait du royaulme ce que nous Londres lui estant dedens a eussions voulu. Et avions sa festedu Noel. ordonne de rendre tous les hommages a ceulx qui eussent Item. Depuis ont ilz persevere este de nostre part. Si preng en leur traison et tant quilz en grace ce que Mons^r me fera ont ymagine et ordene dauoir quar jai bien desire la mort. destruit et mis a mort ceulx qui furent entour la personne de Mons^{r}. From internal evidence this confession must (if genuine) proceed from an uncle of the king, who can only be the duke of Gloucester. I believe him to have sent it from his prison at Calais, after his arrest and deportation thither by the “Earl Marshal of England.” Such documents as this still lurk here and there in MS. Their discovery rewards, at rare intervals, the toil of original research, as in those I have printed above bearing on the Commune of London. To this research, as Dr. Stubbs has urged, historians have now to look;[650] but for it, in England, at the present time, there is neither inducement nor reward.[651] NOTE On page 21 I speak of Mr. Andrew Lang “tracing the occurrence in scattered counties of the same clan name to the existence of exogamy among our forefathers.” This view, which (as I there state) was adopted by Mr. Grant Allen, is set forth in his notes to Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ (Ed. Bolland, 1877), pp. 96, 99, 101. To show that I have in no way misrepresented that view, I append these extracts: