mother-tongue of English people, had these versions never been made and
circulated to attack and injure Holy Church, without whom the originals
could never have existed.




CHAPTER XIV

Scattering of our old MSS. in Sixteenth Century. Same now in public
libraries. Collections. Exeter Book and Vercelli Book.


Where are all our old manuscripts, our treasures from days of yore, the
work of the cunning scribe, the pages whereon so many of our religious
spent hour after hour, in patient and loving toil? They were scattered
abroad in the sixteenth century by wholesale. Many of them found their
way into private collections, and the collectors often generously gave
them to college libraries. Matthew Parker, the Protestant Archbishop of
Canterbury, was a great book-collector, and gave a good many volumes to
Corpus Christi College at Cambridge. Among these is the oldest copy of
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. John Bale, once a friar, afterwards, alas! a
Protestant Bishop, says that some of the books from the monasteries were
used to scour candlesticks or to rub boots; some were sold to grocers
and soap-vendors; and whole ships-full went abroad.

[Illustrations:
SAXON SHIP
As used by our Forefathers in the time of King Alfred