in 1822, he had advocated publishing the national records, and from 1827 he edited several volumes of medieval texts for the record commission, including "parliamentary writs and writs of military summons" (2 volumes, 1827 and 1834; including in vol. 2 a text of "nomina villarum") and "rotuli curiae regis: rolls and records of the court held before the king's justiciars or justices" (2 volumes, 1835). meanwhile, he was also publishing historical works of his own, including "a history of england" (1831), "the rise and progress of the english commonwealth" (1832), "an essay on the original authority of the king's council" (1834), "truths and fictions of the middle ages: the merchant and the friar" (1837) and "the history of normandy and england" (1851–64, 4 volumes, of which the last two appeared posthumously).