The front pastedown bears the ownership mark of Thomas Martin (the celebrated Norfolk Antiquary, ‘Martin of Palgrave’ (1697-1771) (for whom see William Carew Hazlitt, 'The book-collector', (London, John Grant, 1904), pp. 5, 9, 123, Seymour de Ricci, 'English collectors of books and manuscripts (1530-1930)' (CUP, 1930) pp. 65 and 68, and, most recently David Stoker in ODNB (https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/18212) a possible ex-library number, 230, and a price 2 - 6, which is the price shown against this item, ‘Sir Henry Spelman on the Original of Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions of Testaments’, item 4571, in Martin Booth and John Berry’s 1773 sale catalogue of Martin’s Library, 'Bibliotheca Martiniana...' (ESTC, T98425; Gale no. CW3317141640). The attribution to Spelman, however, appears to be incorrect. The text is published in David Wilkins’ 1726 edition of Selden’s Tracts (vol. 3, pp. (or rather columns) 1664 following and is dated in Wilkins’ ‘To the Reader’ as 1628. Both tracts are discussed by G. J. Toomer in his ‘John Selden: a life in scholarship’ (OUP, 2009) i. 190-196, working from one of the three 1683 editions (Wing 2441, 2441A and 2442). He refutes Wilkins’ dating and instead, on internal evidence, dates the second tract to some time between 1618 and 1623, or probably 1621, and the first to after 1623. The year ‘1618’ in this MS at the head of the first tract may therefore be accurate for the second tract. The date ‘Febr. 23. 1618’ (i.e. 1618/9) on f. 1 of the MS is a later insertion, perhaps by Goddard, but the ‘Feb. 23’ also occurs in the hand of the copyist on f. 2 (where the year M.DCXVIII is probably also a later insertion). Possibly the date, originally attached to the second tract, was transferred to the first treating the two tracts as two parts of the same (and, indeed, they seem always to appear together). But whence the 23 February?

The text also appears as Selden’s in, e.g. the Montagu MSS (Add. 25250 and 25252) , Trumbull (Add. 72477) and Hardwick (Add. 36081) papers in the British Library, dated in its catalogue simply as ‘s.xvii’. The front fly-leaf bears the name, in a modern hand, of Guybon Goddard Esquire ‘Recorder of Lyn Regis, 1650’ (though it appears that in that year he was Deputy Recorder, becoming Recorder in 1651) and the title in pencil. A loose slip reads ‘Bottom shelf of right-hand cupboard in Perne Library’. It is possible that the MS was acquired by T. A. Walker who lists it in his ‘Peterhouse bibliography’ (CUP, 1924) p. 50.

Guybon or Guibon Goddard or Goddart, son of Thomas, of Stanhow, Norfolk, and Mary, daughter of William Guybon, was admitted aged 17 as a pensioner at Peterhouse on 22 January 1628/9. He was admitted at Lincoln’s Inn, on 5 February 1630/1, was Recorder of (King’s) Lynn [Norfolk], 1651-60, M.P. for Lynn, 1654-5, 1656-8 and for Castle-Rising, 1659. Lord of the Manor of Swanton Morley, Norfolk, 1659. Serjeant-at-law, 1669. An active antiquary. Died 29 May, 1671; buried at Brampton [Norfolk]. Admon. (P.C.C.) 1671. Father of Thomas (1659-60). (T. A. Walker, 38; A. B. Beaven.) Thus Venn; see also ODNB. His account of the Parliament of 1654 is printed in John Towll Rutt’s four-volume edition of the diary of Thomas Burton, Esq., member in the Parliaments of Oliver and Richard Cromwell, from 1656 to 1659 (London: Henry Colburn, 1828) presumably from BL, Add. MS 5138, an authenticated copy of the original, dated 1720 and presented to the British Museum by Thomas Tyrwhitt.

The text, in a professional hand, carries marginal notes which appear as sidenotes or footnotes in the printed editions). Goddard’s annotations are relatively few: some 25 in all of which two are ‘index notes’ and four corrections of words mistranscribed by the copyist. Many more such could have been made. The remainder consist chiefly of citations of relevant passages from printed works, including Selden’s ‘Janus Anglorum’, and from other manuscripts. There are two citations (ff. 18 and 18v) from a manuscript of Goddard’s own -- a copy of either Magna Carta or of the Barons’ charter, the words not corresponding to the received text of either.