In folio, containing 242 leaves, written before the end of the sixteenth
century. This MS. was long considered to be the earliest and most
authentic copy of the History, and consequently no small degree of
importance was attached to it.
Many years ago, (before I was aware of the existence of the MS. of
1566,) I obtained, through the Rev. Dr. M'Turk, late Professor of
Ecclesiastical History, the use of this Manuscript for the purpose of
collation; but I found that the text was so faithfully given in the
Edinburgh edition 1732, folio, with the single exception of omitting
such marginal notes as the MS. contains, that an entire collation of the
text might only have exhibited slight occasional changes in orthography.
At that time the MS. formed two volumes, in the old parchment covers,
with uncut leaves; it has since been half-bound in one volume, and the
edges unmercifully cropped.
At the beginning of the volume there is inserted a separate leaf, being
the title of a distinct work, having the signature of "M. Jo. Knox," in
1581, probably the nephew of the Reformer, who became Minister of
Melrose. It has no connexion with the volume in which it is preserved;
but it led to some vague conjectures that the writer of the History
itself may have been "the younger Mr. Knox, seeing the former died in
the year 1572, and the other was alive nine years after;" or else,
"that the latter Mr. Knox had perfected the work, pursuant to the order
of the General Assembly in the year 1573 or 1574, so far as it was to be
found in this MS."[5] Respecting the time of transcription, one minute
circumstance is worthy of notice: Knox in one place introduces the
words, "as may be, &c., _in this year_ 1566," the copier has made it,
"in this year 1586," an error not likely to have been committed
previously to that year. But the hand-writing is clearly of a date about
1590, although the Fourth Book may have been a few years earlier. The
absence of all those peculiar blunders which occur in Vautrollier's
edition, evinces that the Glasgow MS. was derived from some other
source; while the marginal notes in that edition are a sufficient proof
that the MS. in question was not the one employed by the English
printer. It is in fact a tolerably accurate copy of the MS. of 1566,
with the exception of the marginal notes, and the entire omission of the
First Book of Discipline. Nearly all the marginal notes in the First and
Third Books are omitted; and others having been incorporated with the
text, led to the supposition that Knox himself had revised the History
at a later period of life.
[Illustration: Signature: M Jo. Knox. augusti 18 a^o 1581]
This manuscript was presented to the University of Glasgow by the Rev.
Robert Fleming, Minister of a Scotish Congregation in London, and son of
the author of "The Fulfilling of the Scriptures." Wodrow communicated to
Bishop Nicolson, a collation of the MS. with Buchanan's folio edition of
1644, pointing out many of his interpolations. This letter was inserted
by Nicolson in the Appendix to his Scotish Historical Library.[6]