PART SECOND.

KNOX-PAPER S.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

"The Morrice Collection of Manuscripts" in Dr. Williams's Library, Grafton Street, London.

THE valuable Collection of Manuscripts, in which the following Knox-Papers have been preserved, is described, in the Preface to the Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Dr. Williams's Library, drawn up by the late Mr. W. H. Black, in the following terms :"The Historical Collections of the Rev. Roger Morrice, M.A., one of the ejected ministers, appear to have been the labour of above forty years after his ejectment, and describe and illustrate the history of the Reformation, the persecutions endured by the Puritans, their holy and devout lives, the whole history of the times in which the writer lived; and appear to have been largely and freely used by Neal, in his "History of the Puritans," and perhaps by other writers, who have not acknowledged the source of their information. To this latter cause is owing the fact, that little is known of the writer. He died in 1701, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. By what means, or when this invaluable Collection was deposited here, has not been yet ascertained."

The volume of this Collection, entitled "A Copy of the Second Part of a Register," and in which I first came in sight of the Knox-Papers, is described by Mr. Black, in his Catalogue, under the letter C, as follows:

"A large and very thick volume, bound in rough calf, and by the name of the Rough Calf MS. referred to in some of Mr. Morrice's MSS. The contents of the volume consist of transcripts or entries of various tracts and documents, made by Mr. Morrice's amanuensis, in a neat and legible hand; and they bear

references to the sources from which they were transcribed, written (with the word 'Finis') at the end of each separate article or entry. The title, 'A Copy of the Second Part of a Register,' is from the same hand as occurs in others of the Morrice MSS., where the Collection is referred to as 'The Rough Calf MS.'”

Prefixed is a list of the quotations made from the MS. by Neal, amounting to 78. Prefixed, also, is "the inscription on Morrice's tombstone, in Bunhill Fields, flat on the ground:"

"Here lyeth ye Body of Mr. Roger Morrice, M.A., and Chaplain to the late Honble. Denzil Lord Hollis, who departed ys life, ye 17th day of January, 1701, Ætat. 73."

Mr. Neal, in the preface to the first volume of his "History of the Puritans," dated February 1, 1731-32, has the following reference to this MS. volume as one of his principal sources :—

"I have cited my authorities in the margin, and flatter myself that I have had the opportunity of bringing many things to light, relating to the sufferings of the Puritans and the state of the Reformation in those times, which have hitherto been unknown to the world, chiefly by the assistance of a large Manuscript Collection of Papers, faithfully transcribed from their originals in the University of Cambridge, by a person of character employed for that purpose, and generously communicated to me by my ingenious and learned friend Dr. Benjamin Grosvenor, for which I take this opportunity of returning him my own and the thanks of the publick."

In Bishop Maddox's "Vindication of the Government, Doctrine, and Worship of the Church of England, against the injurious Reflections of Mr. Neal, etc.," 1740, he blames Mr. Neal, and not without reason, for not having given a more satisfactory account of a Manuscript upon which he had founded so extensively in his "History." The passage occurs at p. 190:

"It ought to be remarked that Mr. Neal's account of their sufferings, and behaviour that occasioned these sufferings, is chiefly taken from themselves; he has obtained, as he acquaints us in his preface, a copy of a large MS. Collection of Papers, the originals whereof are said to be lodged in the University of Cambridge, but he names no particular library or college; nor does he acquaint us when the Papers themselves were wrote, by whom, or who was the collector of them. In short, his account of this MS. Collection of Papers upon which he lays so great stress, is the most unsatisfac

tory and unscholarlike that can be imagined. This gentleman says (p. 201), 'if we may believe Dr. Whitgift,' etc., and yet gives entire credit to anonymous MS. which ought to have been supported by some unquestionable authority, since, by his own account, it brings many things to light hitherto unknown to the world. This he quotes, upon all occasions, as substantial evidence, though it plainly appears to be a very angry and partial account. A MS. is not to be credited merely for being such; and this, in particular, may be convicted of great mistakes." Farther on Maddox speaks of it as "an unknown Manuscript."

In Neal's "Review of the Principal Facts objected to in the first volume of the History of the Puritans," he has the following remarks, in reply to the above strictures of Maddox :—

"Our author is pleased to pour great contempt on Mr. Neal's Manuscript Collection of Original Papers, because it brings to light some of those unjustifiable severities which the historians of those times had omitted; but its authority shall be left with the reader after he is acquainted that it was collected many years ago at the expense of the Rev. Mr. Humphrey (Roger) Morrice, some time Chaplain to Denzil Lord Hollis, who employed an amanuensis in the University of Cambridge for this purpose, whose name I could mention, if it were proper; but it is sufficient to say that at the foot of most of the Papers there are references to the places from whence they were copied; and the industrious Mr. Strype seemed so well satisfied of the authority of this MS. that, at his own request, he was permitted to transcribe from it several of those papers that are among his records."

It is remarkable that Neal should not have been able to go beyond this small additional amount of information, in reply to the Churchman's challenge. No doubt he fell back upon his friend Dr. Grosvenor, who had lent him the MS., for fuller particulars of its history; but Dr. Grosvenor would not appear to have been able to give him even the correct Christian name of Mr. Morrice, and Mr. Neal remained silent on the subject of the library in Cambridge where "the originals" were to be found.

In this unsatisfactory condition the question continued down. to our own time, when much fresh light was thrown upon it by Mr. Black, in his Catalogue of the whole of the Morrice Collection of MSS., which had all, since Neal's time, found their way into Dr. Williams's Library.

Among these is catalogued a MS. volume marked by Mr. Black as B, which he describes as "an inconveniently thick book, consisting of a great number of transcripts, made in the time of Queen Elizabeth, chiefly by one hand, bound together in a coarse and insufficient wrapper of parchment. There are two series of numerations, first by pages, afterwards by folios; accordingly, the contents are referred to in Mr. Morrice's books [meaning Mr. Morrice's original writings, still in MS., founded in part upon his MSS. collection] as vols. i. and ii. of the MSS. It is a Collection of Ecclesiastical Documents relative to the state of Religion in England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the proceedings of the Puritan Ministers, and the persecutions which they endured from the hierarchy, designed as a continuation or second part of the old printed book, entitled 'A Parte of a Register containing sundry memorable matters, written by divers godly and learned men in our time, etc.,' consisting altogether of 127 numbered articles."

Here, then, is the "original collection," of which the MS. collection used by Mr. Neal was a copy, as it bears to have been on its title, "A Copy of the Second Parte of a Register." The references at the end of all the Papers found in the "copy" correspond exactly with the papers and pagination of the older collection, which goes back to the days of Elizabeth.

Mr. Morrice himself left a description of this earlier collection, at page 126 of a MS. volume, described as "his largest parchmentcovered folio," as follows:

"These Papers treat of transactions in Queen Elizabeth's reign. They are very fair and free from any interlineations or alterations. They are in my possession. They contain the copies of divers Bills that were presented, debated or past in divers Parliaments, and of others drawn up to be printed; and of divers original letters; and of the proceedings against divers persons, written by them that were ear-witnesses thereof while they were fresh on memory, or taken out of the Registers of the said Courts; and of many other considerable matters not in print. They seem to be as worthy of credit as anything we have relating to that reign. I have, in many instances, compared them with the best and truest accounts we have of ecclesiastical matters in that Queen's time, and find them exactly agreeing with, and sometimes perfecting those."

In another place Mr. Morrice characterizes this Collection, as

having been brought together "by a most faithful, understanding, observing gentleman, who died about the end of Elizabeth's reign," but the name of the collector was not known to him, otherwise he would have given it.

Mr. Neal, then, was clearly mistaken in the statement which he twice over made, that "the originals," from which his "large Manuscript Collection of Papers" was copied, were in the University of Cambridge at the time he wrote. They may, indeed, have been there at the date when the "copy of the Second Parte of a Register" was made, but if so, they had subsequently come into the possession of Mr. Morrice, nobody can tell how; they were in his possession at the time he wrote the description of them just given, and it is remarkable that Mr. Morrice, who knew best where he obtained them, says nothing of their ever having been in Cambridge.

P.

Mr. Neal appealed, in proof of the authority of his "large Manuscript Collection," to the use which Strype had made of several of the Papers contained in it, and the appeal was a very relevant one in support of that point. Strype was one of Mr. Morrice's correspondents, and refers to him in his edition of Stowe's" Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster," vol. II., p. 57, as "a very diligent collector of ecclesiastical MSS., relating to the later history of the English Church, whereof he left vast heaps behind him, and who favoured me with his correspondence." But it is curious that the manner in which Strype refers to the source from which he derived the papers which Neal refers to as having been used by Strype, goes far to discredit the statement of Neal that the "originals of the Morrice copies " had once been, or still were, in the University of Cambridge. When Strype refers, in his margin, to the MS. source from which he drew these papers, he describes it repeatedly as a private, not a public one. Strype was a Cambridge antiquary, and had the best opportunities of knowing the contents of the libraries and archives in that University. He had several indefatigable correspondents thereMr. Laughton, the University Librarian, Mr. Baker, of St. John's College, and Mr. Harrison, of Sidney-Sussex College-who did all they could to supply him with copies of letters and historical documents preserved in the University Collections. But he had evidently never heard of the "Second Parte of a Register" as existing there.

But

He refers to it always as a manuscriptum priva