This year marks the seven hundredth anniversary of the foundling of the House of Bethlem. Seven hundred years! It takes us back to the very beginnings of English culture. Much in our constitution that we hold dear dates from this thirteenth century, which saw the foundation of Bethlem. In 1215 King John signed the Magna Carta, and in 1265 Simon de Montfort summoned not only the knights of the shire, but for the first time two representatives from each of the chartered boroughs, the precursor of the House of Commons. It was between these two dates on the Wednesday after the Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, which in the year 1247 fell on 23 October, that Simon FitzMary, a citizen of London, signed the deed-poll which founded this hospital. He had given and granted to God and the church of St. Mary of Bethlem all that land of his which he had in the parish of St. Botolph without Bishopsgate London, to wit, all that he had or might have there, in houses, gardens, orchards, fish-ponds, ditches, marshes and all other things appertaining thereto as defined by their boundaries. These extended in length from the king's highway on the east to that ditch on the west which was called Depeditch, and in breadth to the land which belonged to Ralph Dunning on the north and to the land of St. Botolph's church on the south. The gift was for the formation of a priory under the rule and order of the church of Bethlem, the brothers and sisters to wear publicly upon their copes and mantles the badge of a star. He further declared in the deed poll that: “For the greater security of this gift I have placed myself and mine outside the said property, and I have solemnly put in actual possession of it, and have handed over the possession of all things aforesaid to the lord Godfrey of the family of the Prefetti of the city of Rome, at this time bishop-elect of Bethlem (as by our lord the pope confirmed) and at this time actually in England, in his own name, and in that of his successors, and in the name of the chapter of the church of Bethlem. And he has received possession of the said property, and has entered upon it in the form prescribed.”