The publication of the series was undertaken by the British Government in accordance with a scheme submitted in 1857 by the Master of the Rolls, then Sir John Romilly. A previous undertaking of the same kind, the "Monumenta Historica Britannica", had failed after the publication of the first volume (1036 folio pages, London, 1848). The principal editor, Henry Petrie had died, and its form was cumbrous. Representations were made by Joseph Stevenson, and the scheme of 1857 was the direct outcome of this appeal. Alongside Romilly and Stevenson, another key figure in shaping the direction of the project in its early years was Thomas Duffus Hardy, who served as Deputy Keeper of the Public Records from 1861 to 1878. The first two volumes were published in February 1858: they were the first volume of Stevenson's own edition of the "Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis", a 12th-century chronicle written at Abingdon Abbey (the second and final volume appeared a few months later); and F. C. Hingeston's edition of John Capgrave's fifteenth-century "Historia de Illustribus Henricis". Hingeston's work was slapdash, and reviews were unfavourable.