There is no find-report as such. Four manuscript copies of the runes provide the only evidence for discovery. They are:(a)BL MS. Cotton Julius F. vi, fol. 313 of a collection of notes for the revised (1607) edition of Camden's Britannia, though this particular one was never used. This gives a drawing of the runes and its dimensions (see below). The note is addressed 'Bucastle inscription for Mr Clarenceaulx' (i.e. for Camden). It is among material for the revised work by a number of scholars, including Reginald Bainbrigg who certainly knew the Bewcastle cross, but this note, in a secretary hand, seems not to be by Bainbrigg. (b) BL MS. Cotton Domitian A. xviii, fol. 37, related to (a) and looking like a fair copy, in an italic hand, but having additional material. After the drawing of the runes this has:

'The Inscription was on the head of a crose found at Beucastell in 1615'. Then follow the dimensions as in (a). The hand has been identified as Sir Robert Cotton's, but the identification remains uncertain. (c) Bodleian MS. Smith I, Camden's copy of his 1607 Britannia, has a note on the Bewcastle head set after p. 644. It is independent of (a) and (b) since it has a significant variant of the rune representing 'y'. After the drawing of the runes is:

'I receaued this morning a ston from my lord of Arundell sent him from my lord William it was the head of a Cross at Bewcastell All the letters legable ar thes in on Line'. The note is not signed or addressed, but is said to be from Cotton to Camden. (d) Copenhagen, Royal Library MS. Gml.kgl.sml.2370, 4° (printed Worm 1643, 159–62, the MS. being a draft for the book), a letter from Sir Henry Spelman to Palaemon Rosencrantz, related to (c) by its 'y' form. After the runes this has:

'Sculpta fuit haec Inscriptio Epistylio crucis lapideae, Beucastri partibus Angliae borealibus (ubi Dani plurimum versabantur) Cambdenoq; & mihi simul exhibita Anno Domini 1618, ab Antiquitatum inter proceres Angliae peritissimo Domino Guilielmo Howard novissimi Ducis Norfolciae filio.'

The above accounts give no indication of the shape of the stone on which the runes were carved, nor whether it survived in part or in whole. Inscription The drawings, skilfully reproduced by men unacquainted with English runes, make it amply clear that the text read:

ricæsdr[y]htnæs

Appendix C item (lost stones for which no illustration has survived).

Inscription The inscription read ricæsdr[y]htnæs (translation: 'of the powerful king' or 'of the king's power'). Old English dryhten can be used of both earthly and heavenly kings. The record of (c) implies that there were other letters that could not be read; perhaps also that there was more than one line of letters, other lines being illegible.

The accounts tell only that the stone formed part of a cross-head (Spelman's term epistylium can most readily bear this meaning; but see no. 2, Discussion). The records history of this cross-head have some ambiguities. The head was found in 1615 at Bewcastle (b). It (or could this account mean only a drawing of its inscription?) was shown to Spelman and Camden in 1618 by Lord William Howard of Naworth (d). Camden also received details of the inscription at an unspecified date and from an unspecified informant (a), this time with dimensions. Further, he was informed of it by Cotton, who had just received the stone (so the account says, but perhaps here too it means a draft of the stone's inscription) from Arundel, who had it from Howard (c). No more is known.

Since Bewcastle possesses a rune-inscribed shaft (no. 1) with, at its top, what appears to be the socket for a lost head, it is natural to take no. 7 as that lost head. That no. 7 was 'found' in 1615 suggests that it was by then detached from its shaft. Bewcastle 1 was first recorded by Bainbrigg c. 1601, published in Camden 1607, and then described as 'Crux in viginti plus minus pedes ex uno quadrato saxo graphice excisa'. Three (partly conflicting) observations arise from the Bainbrigg-Camden account. The monument is defined as a 'crux', which implies that the head was then attached to the shaft. The estimate of height, 'viginti plus minus pedes' is well over the present height of the shaft alone above its base. The statement that it was 'ex vno quadrato saxo . . . excisa' is incorrect if it refers to a cross-shaft with a dowelled head.

The dimensions of the stone, as recorded, are also difficult to understand; what was meant by the terms 'length' and 'breadth' here? In any case the dimensions seem far too small to refer to a complete cross-head that would fit appropriately to shaft no. 1 (See Cramp's discussion of Bewcastle 2, above). If this were a fragment of a cross-head, at least it was not so badly damaged as not to be identifiable as a cross-head by seventeenth-century antiquaries.