172 Congress of British Archceological Association at Devizes. 



English" — anterior to the 2ncl March^ 1141. She was recog'- 

 nised by the Bishop of Winchester and the Papal Leg-ate, and 

 he, in a solemn document issued at Winchester, proclaimed " We 

 have elected her as Lady." The very next day, the 3rd March, 

 the issue of a similar document took place, in which it was said, 

 "We have ordered her to be proclaimed" Domina et Regina — Lady 

 and Queen of England. On the 3rd of March, then, she had pos- 

 session of the Crown ; she had the King prisoner, and what more, 

 he asked, was it necessary that a Sovereign should have, in order to 

 be ix)S0 facto Queen of England. That proved her incontestibly to 

 be entitled to a place in the list of Sovereigns of England, as he 

 had claimed for her in the pages of the Journal of the Archaeological 

 Society ; and he trusted future historians would give her the place 

 a brave lady deserved in the history of the Queens of England. 

 Her documents were especially rare. Only one seal was known to be 

 in existence, and that was not perfect. Fortunately they had a cast 

 of the seal, and that was now all that remained besides the broken 

 seal. It was to be hoped that of those Devizes charters one at 

 least might have a perfect seal, and in that case its recovery would be 

 a very great boon to archaeologists and bibliographers. The beauty 

 of the charter he had before him only required to be examined to be 

 appreciated. It was in the ornamental hand much cultivated 

 amongst clerks of the Exchequer and in the various public offices at 

 that time. At Lacock there should be two charters of this lady, but 

 they were just for the moment unable to see Mr. Talbot's collection 

 of documents. Mr. Talbot had promised, however, on some future 

 occasion to allow the Association to examine them, and he hoped he 

 might some day be able to lay before the world some short account 

 of his valuable collection. He would again impress upon the people 

 of Devizes the importance of taking care of their old manuscripts. 

 Mr. Butcher would like to state with regard to the charters that 

 they had documentary evidence to prove that the charter of Matilda 

 had been missing for upwards of fifty years, so that neither the 

 present nor the late Town Clerk had anything to do with the loss. 

 Then as to the Rector's mace — the top of it was discovered about 

 forty years ago by one of the late Rectors, and he had the rod put 



