Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Letters of Queen Elizabeth and King James Vi; Of Scotland: Some of Them Printed From Originals in the Possession of the Rev. Edward Ryder, and Others From a Ms. Which Formerly Belonged to Sir Peter Thompson, Kt
Of the reply. And when he retired from office, he took away those papers with him. He looked upon them as his vouchers and evidences, the proofs and justifications of his public conduct. He deemed them as much his own as the title deeds of his private estate. It is in this way that so many collections Of what are now more properly considered to be public documents came to be scattered over the country in the muniment rooms of noble families. In this way, also, and in consequence of the changes to which all families are subject, numbers beyond number of such papers have been totally lost. As soon as the persons who were primarily interested in these papers had passed away, the necessity for their preservation became iless apparent. Damp and vermin laid siege to them; fire destroyed masses incalculable; and when changes of fortune or of residence rendered it imperative that such collections should be got rid of, they were either consigned to most ignoble uses, or divided and scattered, here and there, in foreign countries, or in the most unlikely nooks and corners of our own, and were thus again subjected to a multiplication of the same chances as before. Antiquaries soon became alive to the evils which necessarily resulted from such a state of things; and it was by the purchase Of such papers from care less or needy possessors that sir Robert Cotton, the earl of Oxford, lord Shelburne, and other eminent persons of similar tastes, were enabled to get together the vast collections of state papers which exist in their manuscript libraries.
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