most interesting of those preserved among the national records; they develop much of the private history and pedigrees of families, often furnish very graphic pictures of domestic life, and supply valuable notices of historical  facts, and local incidents.
   The heir of the knightly and affluent house of Septvans, owner of extensive estates, evidently a youth of weak mind and reckless habits, had fallen into the hands of most unscrupulous and crafty plunderers, among whom the Lord of Penshurst, Sir Nicholas Lovayne, plays a conspicuous part. In order to accomplish their designs, it was necessary to concoct a regular conspiracy to amove his lands from the hands of the Crown during his minority, and then to beguile him into the alienation of his inheritance. Whether the Crown, " ipso motu," claimed its rights, or the relatives of the unfortunate sufferer bestirred themselves to rescue the estates from the fangs of the plunderers, does not appear on the face of the document. Be this as it may, the case, which in our days would have been the subject of a suit in Chancery, was brought before the King's Council in Parliament, which was then the only court¹ competent to relieve the sufferer and do justice to the claims of the Crown. Parliament annulled the acts of the minor, and restored to him his inheritance.
   The attentive reader will find much in this transaction to illustrate the bearing of our feudal system on domestic life, and many points in our constitutional history, which escape the more comprehensive statements of the general historian: as such, and as developing a little tale in the annals of one of our old knightly families, we hope it may be deemed worthy a place in the ' Archaeologia Cantiana.'
   ¹ The Court of Chancery was not yet completely established as the court of equity for redress of grievances which, are beyond the power and jurisdiction of the courts of law. Vide Mr. Hardy's preface to the Close Rolls.