Abbotsford Club > Historical memoirs of the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a portion of the reign of King James the Sixth

vi PREFATORY NOTICE.
transcribed and abridged, the Editor was at one time inclined
to think it by no means improbable that the individual to whom
we are indebted for the preservation of this fragment of Lord
Herries' work might have been John Pinkerton, the historian.
On more minute investigation, how^ever, the autograph assuredly
appears to be considerably earlier than the period when Pinker-
ton was enoajred in collecting his historical materials; and the
probability is, that it must have been compiled about, or rather
previous to, the middle of the last century. It is so far fortunate
that some important particulars relative to the original Me-
moirs have been preserved b}^ the transcriber, perhaps unde-
signedly, and most likely for the purpose of serving as memo-
randa for his future reference.
On the fly-leaf of this MS. the transcriber has written the
followiu"', as a sort of title to his work: — " An Abridgement of
the Reigne of Queen Marie, faithfully copied from the Abridge-
ment of the Scotish History by Lord Herries, whose JNISS.
lays in the Scots Colledge of Douay, in Flanders. J. P." He
has likewise preserved a copy of the general title-page of the
original work, which is — " An Abridgement of the Scotishe
Historie, from the first foundation untill our tyms; collected
with great integritie: Beginning first with a breefe description of
all the lis belonging to the C'roune of Scotland." An attempt is
made to give a kind of fac-simile of the signature of Lord Her-
ries, which is executed thus — " Hekueis, 1656." The transcriber
then adds his own attestation, in these terms : — " What follows
is copied verbatim from the original manuscript of Lord Herries,
beginning by the regne of Q. Marie, pagina 310 of the MSS.,
and eiids pagina 436. The Queen's death is related page 501 ;
and Lord Herreis continues his abridgement doun till the year
1631. The whole of the MSS. is of 624 pages."
We have Urns an apparently authentic memorandum of the