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

XX PREFATORY NOTICE.
time, Mr Stapleton, then President of the English College of
St Onier, afterwards bishop in England, went to Paris previous
to his retiring from France; and Mr Innes, who had resolved
not to abandon his post, consulted with him about the means
of preserving the manuscripts. Mr Stapleton thought, if he
had them at St Omer, he could with small risk convey them
to England. It was therefore resolved that they should be
carefully packed up, addressed to a Frenchman, a confidential
friend of iMr Stapleton,* and remitted by some public carriage.
Some other things were put up with the manuscripts. The
whole arrived without any accident, and were laid in a cellar.
But the patriotism of the Frenchman becoming suspicious,
perhaps on account of his connexion with the English College,
he was put in prison ; and his wife, apprehensive of the con-
sequences of being found to have English manuscripts, richly
bound and ornamented vvith Royal arms, in her house, cut off
the boards and destroyed them. The manuscripts thus dis-
figured, and more easily huddled up in a sort of bundle, were
secretly carried, with papers belonging to the Frenchman
himself, to his country-house, and buried in the garden. They
were not, however, permitted to remain long there. The
lady's fears increased, and the manuscripts were taken up and
reduced to ashes."t
Reference may also be made to the Rev. J. S. Clarke's " Life
of James the Second, collected out of a IMemoirs writ of his
own hand," &c. which was published from the original Stuart
MSS. then in Carlton House.J
* Mons. Cliarpantier, whose country-house was at St Momeliri, near St Omer.
■f Fox's Hist, xxviii. xxxi. Edin. Review, xii. 281, 282. Bishop Cameron states this
to have been tlie substance of tlie account given to Mr Iinies, and reported by him to tlie
Bishop when in Paris, in June 1802.
X Clarke's Life of James II. 2 vols, quarto. Lond. 181C.