Its seed is truly recorded in the first chapter as to the two stone coffins still in the chancel of St.
Martha's.

I began the book on November 26, 1857, and finished it in exactly eight weeks, on January 21, 1858, reading for the work included.
In two months more it was printed by Hurst & Blackett.

I intended it for one full volume, but the publishers preferred to issue it in two scant ones; it has since been reproduced by Lasham, Guildford, in one vol., at one-and-sixpence; it was 14s.

I consulted and partially read for it (as I wanted accurate pictures of John's reign in England) the histories of Tyrrell, Hollingshed, Hume, Poole, Markland, Thomson's Magna Charta, James's Philip Augustus, Milman's Latin Christianity, Hallam's Middle Ages, Maimbourg's Lives of the Popes, Ranke's Life of Innocent III., Maitland on the Dark Ages, Ritson's Life of Robin Hood, Salmon's, Bray's, and Brayley's Surrey, Tupper's and Duncan's Guernsey, besides the British and National and other Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries as required.

It was a work of hard and quick and fervid labour, not an idle piece of mere brain-spinning, and it may be depended on for archaeological accuracy in every detail.