Series 1 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (First volume)

INTRODUCTION
The matter here edited is taken entirely from Additional
MS. 34,275 in the British Museum. Properly speaking, this
manuscript is not, as its number implies, a recent acquisition,
for, although its very existence was unknown until a year
ago,1 there is every reason to believe that it came to the
Museum when the Royal Library was removed thither, as far
back as 1759. Probably it was regarded merely as a rough
list of some portion of the collection made public property by
George xi.; in any case, instead of being classed and cata¬
logued, as it ought to have been, among the mss., it was kept
with the printed books, and the result was that, without being
catalogued at all, it was put away in a cupboard and lay
there undisturbed for more than a century. With keener
eyes or better fortune than his predecessors, Mr. Garnett, the
present Keeper of Printed Books, has at length brought it to
light, and, as an interesting memorial of the early years of
James vx., its publication by the Scottish History Society has
an obvious fitness.
The ms. is a small quarto of twenty paper leaves, bound in
limp vellum. Both within and without it is much soiled and
worn, so as to render the writing in some places almost
illegible, and it was evidently treated from the first as a rough
note-book, without any particular care. In the centre, how¬
ever, of each cover is stamped a small gilt crown between the
initials I R, and this evidence of royal ownership is fully
1 An account of it was communicated by me to the Athenceuvi of 7th January
1893.