period, even as early as 1696, it had disappeared. Dr. Smith, in his Preface to the Catalogue of the Cottonian Manuscripts (1696), deploring the spoliations which the Library had then sustained, says:—" Memini me chartam authenticam R. Joannis, in qua jura et libertates Anglise stabiliuntur, sigillis Baronum qui turn aderant appensis munitam, a D. Edwardo Deering Cantiano, equestris dignitatis viro, in tesseram observantise et amoris quibus erga D. Cottonum fondatorem ferebatur, A. D. 1630 datam, olim saspe vidisse et manibus meis tractasse, que nescio quo malo dolo sublata est."
   This description would seem to imply that the Record given by Bering to Cotton, was not the great Charter itself, but the "Articles" presented by the Barons,—the schedule of their demands,—" capita quse Barones petunt." The Charter itself must have been under the Great Seal alone, whereas the " Articles " assumed the form of a Covenant,—"Barones petunt, et dominus Rex concedit." They would therefore have been sealed with the Great Seal, as well as with the seals of the Barons, or rather, would have been in two parts, one under the Great Seal, the other under the seals of the Barons, which last answers to the description in Smith's preface, though it certainly does not satisfactorily correspond with the terms employed in Sir Edward's letter, especially where he speaks of his charter as " data att Running Meade," which is not the case with any of the Copies of the Articles with which we are acquainted. Still, under the impression that the decisive terms in which Dr. Smith writes would hardly have been adopted by him without the most certain knowledge that the document which he was describing was really the donation of Sir Edward Dering, I conclude that that donation was the original of the "Articles" demanded by the Barons,—the part which they sealed;¹—"The Counterpart"
   ¹ It is not difficult to account for the presence of this record at Dover