THE HISTORY OF HUNTINGDON, FROM THE EARLIEST TO THE PRESENT TIMES; WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING THE CHARTER OF CHARLES I. SHERWOOD, JONES, AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, 1824. 27 PREFACE. No history of the Borough of Huntingdon having hitherto been published, the following attempt to supply the deficiency, will it is hoped, be received with candour and indulgence by the Public. It is not offered as an Antiquarian work, but the utmost pains have been taken, to render it complete on all material points, and strictly impartial. Further research could not have been prosecuted without incurring expenses and entering into details incompatible with the plan of a popular work like the present. For much valuable original information the Writer is indebted to the liberality of the Corporation of Huntingdon, who have kindpermitted him to inspect their Books, and extract from them whatever was deemed requisite for his undertaking; besides furnishing copies of the various Charters of the Borough, so indispensable a portion of every local history, and supplying every information respecting its existing Charities. It is deeply to be regretted, that the earlier Records of this Body have long been irrecoverably lost; but particular circumstances, to which it is unnecessary here to allude, have recently brought to light many interesting and curious documents, illustrative of the ancient history of the Borough, which the ' reader will find interspersed throughout this volume. The historical reader will perceive that in the account of our Anglo Saxon ancestors contained in the Introduction, Mr. Sharon Turner's admirable history has been closely consulted. In other instances the Writer freely confesses, that, like honest John Speed,* he has "put his sickle into other Men's Corn, and laid his Building upon *See his address "to the Well-affected and Favourable Reader" of his "Theatre of the Empire of Great Bri taine." Lond. Folio. 1676. |