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PREFACE.

THE present Volume owes its existence to the casual discovery, among the transcripts by Stowe in the British Museum,* of the Chronicle of Calais, formed, or at least once possessed, by Richard Turpyn, a "burgess there." This appeared to be a fragment which, in a brief compass, contained so much historical information previously unpublished, that I was desirous to recommend it to the patronage of the Camden Society, a suggestion which at once received the approval of the Council.

As it was found, on a further search, that the manuscript stores of the British Museum contained many other papers illustrative of the events commemorated in Turpyn's chronicle, equally unpublished, it was then determined to extend its somewhat scanty dimensions by appending such documents as might contribute to elucidate the history of the town and marches of Calais, during the same period.

Much less has been hitherto published on the history of our continental Borders than on the history of our

CAMD. SOC.

*MS. Harl. 542.

b

Borders next Scotland; although the latter retained their frontier state not quite half a century later than the former. Indeed, with the exception of a brief memoir in the second series of Sir Henry Ellis's Original Letters, the present Editor is not aware of any historical notice of Calais whilst in the possession of the English. It is, therefore, with some confidence as well in the importance as in the novelty of the subject, that he presents this volume to the members of the Camden Society.

At the same time he is fully conscious that a collection of this extent can comprise but a small portion of what should constitute a complete History of the English Border towards France: a work more suited to occupy several future volumes of the Royal publication of State Papers, the continuation of which, in the substantial and accurate form so well commenced (with reference to the affairs of Cardinal Wolsey's administration, those of Scotland, and those of Ireland), must be desired by every student of English History.

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In forming the present series of papers, the Editor soon found that it was necessary to assign several boundarymarks within which it should be confined. It would have been easy to have filled several such volumes with the contemporary letters of ambassadors and other persons employed either in a diplomatic or military capacity in France. The documents which have been admitted will

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