FOR the present publication the Society have to thank the liberality of Sir Rainald Knightley, Bart., the manuscript from which it was taken having been preserved in the library at Fawsley. Some years ago it was examined by our late Director, whose opinion has been carefully preserved on a sheet of paper lying amongst the first leaves of the book, and has since been printed in the third Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 254. A more lengthened examination than Mr. Bruce appears to have been able to give to the MS. only served to corroborate the favourable opinion which he formed of it; and, even though much of its contents are anticipated by the considerable extracts from Eliot's Negotium Posterorum, printed by Mr. Forster in his biography of Sir John Eliot, there is even now quite enough of independent information to be gained from it to warrant its publication, especially as the debates reported in it are of such extreme historical importance.