21 
his hands it was introduced by Dr. Vernon, 1 of St. George’s, 
Bloomsbury, to Francis Drake, who was then engaged upon 
his Eboracum, and who had some time previously discovered 
another copy of this manuscript history among the records of 
the city. 2 Drake used these manuscripts freely, and incor¬ 
porated extracts from them into his own work. Drake’s 
remarks are as follows:—“ And now, since Sir Thomas 
Widdrington’s name is on the carpet, I must own my obligation 
to that gentleman, who was the first that I know of who 
undertook to write in a particular way the history of this city. 
This writer in all probability began to make his collections for 
his history in King Charles the First’s time, when he was 
Recorder of York. For in a speech to that monarch, at his 
coming to the city, in the year 1639, he pays a strained com¬ 
pliment to the King of its being more honoured by his having 
been Duke of York, than by the residence and deaths of the 
Emperors, which shows that he had then read something of 
the antiquities of it. The civil wars intervening, in which our 
author could not be unconcerned, his history seems only to be 
finished in the halcyon days for his party that ensued. And it 
must be after the Restoration that he sent the city word he 
intended to print and dedicate his elaborate performance to 
them.” 3 
Concerning the particular copy which belonged to Lord 
Fairfax, Drake says : “ This is the very original which he 
himself (Sir Thomas Widdrington) intended for the Press ” ; 
and again, he says, it is “ the very book which he himself 
dressed up, and put the last hand to for the Press.” 4 * * * 8 Happily 
this manuscript is easily accessible, and to a careful reader the 
1 Inducted Feb. 23rd, 1731.—Geo. Clinch, Bloomsbury and St. Giles, p. 129. 
2 Drake says he had previously tried to get access to the Menston manu¬ 
script, but had failed. It was kept at that time sub sigillo. Drake, in speaking 
of the Menston MS. of his day as a copy, says he only repeats what is a matter 
of common report. Is it not possible that, though the original MS. was at 
Menston in 1695, yet in 1736 only a copy remained there ? Drake does not 
attempt to account for the vicissitudes of the original MS. after it left the library 
of Lord Thomas Fairfax until it appears in the possession of Mr. Richardson. 
8 Drake, Eboracum Preface. 
4 Drake, ibid. 
