§ MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether any and what control is exercised over the publication of the Calendars of Public Documents, and specially who is responsible for the publication of a work issued in 1881, entitled—" Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, preserved in Her Majesty's Public-Record Office, London, vol. i., A.D., 1108–1272;"wherein the first document printed, and at length commented on in the Introduction (a Deed of Homage by the King of Scots to the King of England in 1065), has long been known to be a forgery; and, whether, being full of matter extraneous to what the title-page professes, he will order a work calculated to offend the people of Scotland to be cancelled?
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHSir, an editor was appointed by the Treasury in 1879, after communicating with the then Lord Advocate, for the purpose of publishing abstracts or excerpts from the English public records of all documents connected with Scottish history from the earliest period down to the end of the reign of Henry VII. Necessarily, a very large discretion is left to the editor; and it would be 1690 obviously impossible for any Government Department to exercise more than a very general supervision over work of this nature. The present editor is a Fellow of the Scotch Society of Antiquaries and member of other learned Bodies. As regards the particular document referred to in the Question, no one reading either the introduction or the body of the book could be led to suppose it other than a forgery. For the opinions expressed in the introductions to this and other calendars of the same series, the authors and not Government are responsible. I should be sorry that Scotch national feeling should be offended in any way; but cannot think that, in the present instance, Government can be charged with doing so.