Thus we obtain the date of the charter which is the subject of this chapter. In this case alone was Mr. Eyton right in the dates he assigned to these documents. Nor, indeed, is it possible to be mistaken. For this charter can only have passed on the occasion of this, the only visit that the Empress paid to Westminster. Yet, even here, Mr. Eyton's date is not absolutely correct. For he holds that it "passed in the short period during which Maud was in London, _i.e._ between June 24 and July 25, 1141";[271] whereas "June 24" is the probable date of her departure, and not of her arrival, which was certainly previous to that day.
There is but one other document (besides a comparatively insignificant precept[272]) which can be positively assigned to this visit.[273] This consideration alone would invest our charter with interest, but when we add to this its great length, its list of witnesses, and its intrinsic importance, it may be claimed as one of the most instructive documents of this obscure and eventful period.
Of the original, now among the Cottonian Charters (xvi. 27), Mr. Birch, who is exceptionally qualified to pronounce upon these subjects, has given us as complete a transcript as it is now possible to obtain.[274] To this he has appended the following remarks:—
"This most important charter, one of the earliest, if not the earliest example of the text of a deed creating a peerage, does not appear to have been ever published. I cannot find the text in any printed book or MS. Fortunately Sir William Dugdale inspected this charter before it had been injured in the disastrous Cottonian fire, which destroyed so many invaluable evidences of British history. In his account of the Mandevilles, Earls of Essex (_Baronage_, vol. i. p. 202) he says that 'this is the most antient creation-charter, which hath ever been known, _vide_ Selden's _Titles of Honour_, p. 647,' and he gives an English rendering of the greater portion of the Latin text, which has enabled me to conjecture several emendations and restorations in the above transcript."
Mr. Birch having thus, like preceding antiquaries, borne witness to the interest attaching to "this most important charter," it is with special satisfaction that I find myself enabled to print a transcript of the entire document, supplying, there is every reason to believe, a complete and accurate text. Nor will it only enable us to restore the portions of the charter now wanting,[275] for it further convicts the great Dugdale of no less serious an error than the omission of two most important witnesses and the garbling of the name of a third.[276]