date to which it refers; they belong to the epoch of Laud, and not that of the early part of Elizabeth's reign. There are, it should be mentioned, two copies of the paper, in different hands, of which one is endorsed by Sir Joseph Williamson, with the words 'In Sir Th. Wilson's hand.' Sir Thomas Wilson was appointed Keeper of the State Papers in James I.'s reign, and therefore, unless the other copy be the older, which I have been unable to ascertain with certainty, it would appear that my conjecture is right. The contents of the paper are of no value whatsoever except as showing the ignorance or dishonesty, or both, of the Laudians in their dealings with history. Thus, as will be seen, the writer reckons Cheney as one of the 'bishops who returned into England upon Queen Mary's death that had been bishops in King Edward's time,' whereas Cheney was first made a bishop in 1562. The account of Elizabeth's Prayer-book is entirely mythical. The Convocation 'primo Elizabethæ' certainly had nothing to do with it whatever, and the fictitious history of it here given seems to have been made to suit the Laudian theory, and to be entirely independent of facts. What the meaning of the last list of bishops may be, it is difficult to discover, unless the writer supposed that there were but eight Marian bishops remaining, and that they were responsible for Elizabeth's Prayer-book! or that the members of all these three lists sat in Parliament together!
One other point is worthy of notice as remarkable. In the same vol. vii. No. 68 is entered as 'Relation of the Rites and Ceremonies observed at the Consecration and Installation of Archbishop Parker.' The original is in Latin, and contains two curious points. One is a statement which appears almost incidentally introduced, 'Nullum Archiepiscopo tradens pastorale baculum'; the other that the prayers, etc., used are stated to be 'juxta formam libri auctoritate parliamenti editi.' This appears under date of December 17, 1559. It is singular that in a previous paper, vol. v. No. 25, entitled 'Order for the Consecration of an Archbishop of Canterbury; the Mode to be Pursued,' with marginal notes by Cecil, the text (which is not very legible) concludes with a statement that the order of King Edward's bock is to be observed, for that there is none other special made in this last session of Parliament; to which Cecil annotates, ' This book is not established by Parliament.'
