I HAVE allowed the preceding paper to stand as it was written, in spite of the rejoinder by Professor Burrows, entitled, “The Antiquity of the Cinque Port Charters.”

So far as regards my French analogies, Professor Burrows adopts the argument that I have not proved a parallel sufficiently close and complete. But this does not meet my contention: (r) that in the Cinque Ports organisation we find peculiar words and things; (2) that these peculiarities are not found elsewhere in England; (3) that they are found in France. Admitting, however, that “the earliest title is Norman French,” the Professor urges that Edward the Confessor was a “half-Norman king,” and that “nothing is more likely than that he should grant his charter to the Confederation under a Norman name.”

This brings us at once to Edward's alleged charter ; and, indeed, my critic recurs at the outset to his belief in “the Ports having been chartered as a Confederation by Edward the Confessor”(p. 439). At the close of the article he reminds us again that he “accepted the charter of Edward the Confessor as a faithful landmark, and showed how the history of our early kings and their institutions appeared to coincide with the statement.”