Note 300 — Chapter XIV

Footnote 300: The Author has searched in vain for any contemporary manuscript of Walsingham's "Ypodigma Neustriæ." There is a copy in the British Museum, written up to a certain point on vellum; the latter part, containing these sentences, is on paper, and of comparatively a very recent date, transcribed, as the Author thinks, not from a previous MS. of the Ypodigma, but from a copy of the History. His ground for this inference is the circumstance that the interpolation in the History, as to Edmund Mortimer's death, which is not found in the printed editions of the Ypodigma, occurs in this MS. The MS. on vellum, preserved in the Heralds' College, is a copy of the History, transcribed, as the Author conceives, by a very ignorant copyist. The same interpolation of "Obiit" occurs here also; and, instead of calling the person spoken of Edmund Mortimer, it has "Edmundus mortifer." The Author was very desirous of comparing the original copy of Walsingham's Ypodigma, as dedicated to Henry V, with subsequent transcripts or versions. He entertains a strong suspicion that the sentences here commented upon were not in the original; but, in the absence of the means of ascertaining the matter of fact, he reasons upon them as though they were actually submitted to the eye of Henry himself. (back)