Ibid. c. xx. p. 254.
His life was not spared to do more than carry on that History to the day preceding the passing of the bill of attainder by the Lords, three months after the publication of the Breviate. Thus it ends:
"And thus far had I proceeded in this sad history by Jan. 3, 1644-45. The rest shall follow as it comes to my knowledge."
Ibid. c. xlvi. p. 443.
Wharton adds this note:
"Next day the Archbishop, receiving the news that the bill of attainder had passed the House of Lords, broke off his history, and prepared himself for death."
He was beheaded the 10th day of the same month, January 1645.
The information I have to communicate, after this long preface, is, that a copy of this book of Prynne's, with marginal notes by the Archbishop, made apparently in preparation for the answer which he contemplated, is still extant; and I shall be thankful to any of your readers who can give any further information on the subject.
In this copy the notes are only a transcript from those made by the Archbishop; and partly, perhaps, owing to the narrow margin of Prynne's book, we have to regret that they are not more ] copious; but, such they are, they are of value, as throwing new light on some points of history; and they appear not to have been known to any of the biographers of Laud, or to those who, as Archbishop Sancroft and Wharton, sought most carefully after his literary remains.
The volume of which I speak is the property of an Institution at Warrington, "The Warrington Museum and Library," to which it was presented by Mr. Crosfield, of Fir Grove, Latchford, at the time of the library being established, in 1848, having been bought by his father at a book-stall in Manchester some years previously.