25 Parliament Street
Dec 19, 1834
Sir,
As Mr Bowles’s <1> book professes to be a History of Lacock Abbey, I think it would be incomplete without a reprint of the Canterbury, from which its history must be principally derived.
What Mr Bowles has hitherto printed, is rather a history of the Earls of Salisbury.
Indeed, though I cannot judge without having seen the Canterbury, yet I was under the impression that it might afford further information (with respect to the estates possessed by the Abbey) of the extracts from the Canterbury were in some cases more full than those made by Stevens.
I have heard this morning from Mr Bowles and he tells me that you showed him in one of your MS. books, the same matter as that in the printed sheet from the last Cotternian volume called the Book of Lacock, commencing Erat quidam miles strenuus Normanus <2> Now if in your copy there is anything more than in the printed sheet, I think it very desirable that it should be copied
With respect to the continuation of the History after the dissolution, I have among Mr Bowles’s MS some which belong to a subsequent date: for instance, Sir Richard Hoare <3> has transcribed for him the description of your man written by the Rev Mr Witham, <4> & there is a portion of your own pedigree: I have also myself made a memorandum to look further into the newspapers papers during the Civil War for some military incident which I one day met with as having taken place at Lacock Abbey.
I will take care of the Frenel document you have sent, & of any others you will take the trouble to copy. I am not able to give a satisfactory answer at present about the unintelligible words, but will make further inquiry. Pocage I should think is potage, as the old c & t are in many MSs such alike.
I remain, Sir, Yours very faithfully
John Gough Nichols
[address panel:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr MP.
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Nichols eventually collaborated with William Lisle Bowles in Annals and Antiquities of Lacock Abbey (London: 1835).
2. ‘There was a certain vigorous Norman soldier’. William the Conqueror, King William I (1028–1087).
3. Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758–1838), historian.
4. Rev George Witham, The History of Lacock Abbey, or Locus Beatć Marić. From Dugdale, Stevens &c., with additions on the present state of the Abbey (1806).