Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/408

378 the queen consort, by charter. Lord Campbell might just as well have said that Queenhithe took its name from her majesty. With respect to her claim to "Queengold" we would refer his lordship to Prynne's essay, for further information on that point, and to his assertion that "the city of London had hitherto been a sort of free republic in a despotic kingdom, and its privileges had been respected in times of general oppression," we reply that, whatever it may have been in theory, it had been no such thing in fact; but that during no reign, from first to last, were its privileges so utterly disregarded as during the times of Henry the Third; that monarch suspended the franchise of the citizens again and again on the most trifling pretexts. Then Lord Campbell states that the queen made a speech to the parliament, assembled in the beginning of 1254, and pressed for a supply. We find no record of this oratorical effort; in fact Matthew Paris expressly says that the king's prolocutor and "messenger" made the speech in question.

In the notice of the chancellorship of William de Kilkenny, who was promoted to the office, according to Lord Campbell, on the resignation of Queen Eleanor, his lordship sets out with a singular mistake, attributing the dictation of a speech delivered by Henry in April, 1253, to "lord chancellor Kilkenny," who, according to his own shewing, was not appointed till 1254. We cannot moreover find any authority for this statement, which is not borne out by Matthew Paris.

The length to which this notice has extended obliges us to pass over other and equally grave errors. In conclusion we would observe that it has seldom been our lot to find so many inaccuracies in notes, extracts, and references, as in Lord Campbell's work; there is scarcely a Latin quotation correct; for this it must be presumed his lordship is not amenable to criticism, his amanuensis must be censured; yet such carelessness could not fail to detract very materially from the reputation of any writer less above the suspicion of ignorance than we gladly admit Lord Campbell ta be.