This ahistorical claim incensed Smith so much that, in his distant Melsonby rectory, he produced the Annals, with the express purpose of proving William of Durham to be the genuine founder.

The book was met with cold reception initially, especially from those personally invested in the Alfredian myth, with harsh reviews describing it as "the private opinion of a partial disgusted old man".

Neither group would yield to the other's result, so the vice-chancellor, Robert Shippen, and doctors of Oxford were called upon by both parties to make decide in favour of one candidate.

The document appealed to the young Richard's interest in his genealogy with invented claims as to Alfred's part in founding the college, and successfully persuaded the Council to hear the case; the Alfredian myth perpetuated onward subsequently.

The book was written with the express purpose of refuting the Alfredian myth which had so propagated itself and therefore maintaining that the university convocation still held visitational authority, though Smith was unconcerned with any partisan affiliation to the candidates.

[14][15] While composing the book, Smith made much use of the transcripts in his personal collection, which put him a good position to consult the true deeds and statutes of the college for his history.

[15][19] It may seem a Wonder both to those that know me, and those that know me not, that a Person who has lived in Privacy and Obscurity to the 77th year of his Age,[b] and is so bowed down by infirmities, as not to have feet to walk on or hardly an hand to write, should begin now, at this Age, and under these bad Circumstances, to trouble the World with any thing that can proceed from such Weaknesses: but the Scripture: informs us, that there are some Sort of Sins 'That will make the Stones cry out of the wall, and the Beam out of the Timber answer it,' (Habakkuk 2:11) before they shall lye bid, or remain undiscovered.

Smith begins with a preface, composed on 17 November 1727, lamenting his many ills at such an advanced age, the lies of Alfred's foundation (which he blames as being perpetuated by Charlett), and recounting the sequence of events that led him to write this book.

Next, he considers the arguments used to allege Alfred as the founder, and systematically discredits them, showing how the falsehood began in misinterpretations of documents, "only feigned to serve a turn".

[30] According to Darwall-Smith, the "last hurrah" of the myth took place on the 1872 "Millenary Dinner", grandly celebrating a thousand years since Alfred's alleged foundation of the college.

[14] Darwall-Smith and Riordan have colourfully described it as "a maddening work, resembling a non-fictional Tristram Shandy", wherein "all attempts at a structure break down regularly, as the author is diverted by a succession of digressions".

[5] Darwall-Smith, a modern historian of University College, summed it up as "a work distinguished equally by scholarly rigour and its total lack of any coherent structure.