bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Correspondence of an English Diplomatic Agent in Paris, 1669–1677
Authors: Curran M. B.
Published: March 2007

Amongst the multifarious contents of the Old State Paper Office in Whitehall which were brought to light after the death of the famous Secretary of State of King Charles II., Sir Joseph Williamson, who was also keeper of the diplomatic archives, were certain bundles of despatches received from Mr. William Perwich, and dated at Paris between the years 1669 and 1677. These distinctive bundles, which at that time stood for the diplomatic correspondence between England and France during the most critical period of the foreign policy of the reign, have long since been broken up and distributed amongst the series of ‘State Papers, France,’ preserved in the Public Record Office.
The Advent of the Great Elector
Authors: Reddaway W. F.
Published: March 2007

The present paper contains a slight contribution from unpublished English State Papers to our knowledge of the history and policy of Brandenburg during the first years of the rule of Frederick William the Great Elector: that is, from December 1640 to about the year 1643. The great English historians of the time, Lord Clarendon and Dr. Gardiner, have told us but little of the distant and distracted German March, and our State Papers deepen the impression that in 1640 Brandenburg lay just beyond the horizon of English politics.
The Northern Policy of George 1. to 1718
Authors: Chance J. F.
Published: March 2007

The policy pursued by George I. in the north of Europe in the first years of his reign has not received much attention from historians, at least in England. The few paragraphs which authors of such merit as Lord Mahon or J. R. Green allot to the subject show that they did not think it worth while, or were not able, to inform themselves of the facts. They record, rightly enough, that George's own principal purpose was to add the Swedish provinces of Bremen and Verden to his electoral dominions, and they attribute to Charles XII. the design of invading Great Britain in revenge, with the object of placing James III. upon the throne. Though he does not appear to have ever seriously contemplated such a thing, the belief that he held it in view was, after the Jacobite rebellion, genuine and general. But nothing is said of the pressing importance to Great Britain of the Baltic commerce, with which Charles interfered and Peter the Great seemed likely to interfere. This it was solely that gave George I. the services of a British squadron in the Baltic in 1715, and this the principal cause of the estrangement between Great Britain and Russia, which lasted for over twenty years. The object of the present paper is to present a narrative of events up to the death of Charles XII., from which conclusions may be drawn. Details may be avoided, as these have appeared in papers by the author published in the ‘English Historical Review.’
The Study of Nineteenth-Century History
Authors: Ashley Percy
Published: March 2007

In an Annual Address delivered two years ago the late President of this Society took occasion to lament the neglect in Great Britain of the serious and scientific study of the history of Europe since the close of the Napoleonic wars; and unfortunately there cannot be any doubt as to the full justice of his complaint. It applies in some measure to the history of our own country, but it is especially true of the development of the States of Continental Europe. To this neglect many facts bear witness. There is first the paucity of textbooks; we have as yet in English no good general history of the period, or even of a part of it, on any comprehensive plan; the only large work is that by Fyffe, which is incomplete in many respects, and has other defects; and the various smaller books, though some of them have real merit, are all very far from adequate. Both Fyffe and the lesser books, for example, are extremely weak in regard to those economic forces and policies which have been of such vast importance throughout the century: to take only a single illustration, none of the writers seem to have had any conception of the true relation of the economic policy of the Zollverein to the political problem of the positions of Prussia and the Austrian Empire in the Germanic Confederation, or of the extent to which that policy was manipulated for political purposes. This tendency to ignore or underestimate the play of economic forces is indeed characteristic of most that has been written in English on Continental history since 1815, though in face of the great amount of work done in this field by foreign investigators, particularly in Germany, the attitude of the English writers is scarcely excusable.
Journey Through England and Scotland Made by Lupold Von Wedel in the Years 1584 and 1585
Authors: Von Bulow Gottfried
Published: March 2007

L upold VON Wedel, author of the account of a journey through England and Scotland, 1584–1585, belonged to a noble German family, who still possess large estates in the North of Germany and in Scandinavia. He was born on the 25th of January in the year 1544, at Kremzow in Pomerania. Being a younger son, it was the intention of his family to prepare him for a learned career, and consequently after his father's death he entered the Latin School at Stargard, Pomerania. The lad, however (for he was only about eight years old), showed no intention of spending a quiet, studious life either at home or at school, his wish being to see foreign countries; and it is to this passionate desire that we owe the production of this very interesting journal of travels, military expeditions,&C., which he gives us in his own words.
The High Court of Admiralty in Relation to National History, Commerce and the Colonisation of America.— A.D. 1550–1650
Authors: Marsden R. G.
Published: March 2007

The High or Principal Court of the Admiralty of England was erected probably about the beginning of the fifteenth century, and for half a century before this courts were held by the Admirals of the North, South, and West within their respective districts. But the business of these early Admiralty Courts was trifling, and they have left scarcely any records. There are upon the Patent Rolls and elsewhere a few meagre references to their proceedings, but these are of little interest, and need not delay us to-night. It was Henry VIII. who first raised the Court to something like the importance of the King's Courts at Westminster, and its records may be said to begin with his reign. But for many years they are scanty in bulk, and it is not until about the year 1550 that they begin to be of any general interest. From this date onwards they are very voluminous; and in order to give a general idea of their character as a whole it will be necessary for me to-night to deal with those of a limited period only. I select those which belong to the latter half of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century, because they are the earliest, and also because, this being the period of the Court's greatest activity, they are the most interesting. The history of England is to a great extent the history of her ships and seamen, and this is notably the case during the century with which I propose to deal.
Royalist and Cromwellian Armies in Flanders, 1657–1662
Authors: Firth C. H.
Published: March 2007

In 1657 two small bodies of British troops stood opposed to each other in Flanders. One consisted of English, Irish, and Scottish royalists following the fortunes of Charles II., and serving with the Spanish army. The other was composed of 6,000 English soldiers raisedby the Protector to assist the French against the Spaniards, and to secure England a foot-holdon the Continent. The object of this paper is to show how the two forces were raised, of what regiments they consisted, and by what officers they were commanded. The history of the regiments composing these two little armies will be traced up to the Restoration, and it will be shown how the remains of the Cromwellian contingent and the remains of the royalist force were amalgamated to form the garrison which held Dunkirk for England from 1660 to 1662. Finally I shall endeavour to trace the fate which befell the different regiments of that garrison after Charles II, sold Dunkirk to the French.
Notes on the Diplomatic Correspondence between England and Russia in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Collyer D'arcy
Published: March 2007

The occasion which gave rise to these notes was the discovery three years ago, at Blickling in Norfolk, of the diplomatic papers of John Hobart, second Earl of Bucking-hamshire, who was ambassador to the Court of Russia from 1762 to 1765. These were entrusted to me by their owner, Constance, Marchioness of Lothian, to examine and catalogue, and among them, it soon became evident, were notes and memoranda relating to questions of a much earlier date than that of Lord Buckinghamshire's mission, which it was of interest to trace to their source.
The Oldest Monument of Russian Travel
Authors: Beazley C. Raymond
Published: March 2007

The oldest monument of Russian travel is the journey of the Archimandrite Daniel of Kiev to the Holy Land about A.D. 1106–7. Even earlier than this, we have allusions to Russian pilgrims and pilgrimages. Thus in the life of St. Theodosius of Kiev we are told of the visit of certain unnamed devotees to Palestine in 1022; and in 1062 St. Varlaam, head of the Lavra of Kiev, followed in their steps. But no personal record of a Russian traveller in this age (the eleventh century) has yet been found.
Vercingetorix
Authors: Malleson G. B.
Published: March 2007

The knowledge possessed by the general public of the conquest, of Gaul by Julius Cæsar rests mainly on the famous Commentaries, the eternal monument to the genius and literary ability of their author. That the writer of the campaigns which had for their object the subjugation of a great country, inhabited by tribes warlike and loving freedom, should have been likewise the planner and executor of those campaigns, and that his story should be practically the only story, are circumstances which, whilst allowing posterity to see the hero as he wished posterity to see him, have tended to obscure the merits, sometimes even to darken unjustly the characters, of the patriots who struggled, often with temporary success, against him. Not only has the greater glory of the conqueror effaced the achievements, in some cases almost equally illustrious, of the conquered, but the heroism of their aims, their noble patriotic rage, have either been passed over in silence or cruelly travestied. They have been made to speak as the conqueror wished them to speak, to think as the conqueror desired them to think, even sometimes to act as he would have had them act. The glory of Caius Julius, the gratification of his ambition, were the aims of the joint conqueror and historian. Before those aims every other consideration had to give way, even consideration of the character and virtues of those patriotic chiefs who were most nearly thwarting him.
The Teaching of History in Schools
Authors: Browning Oscar
Published: March 2007

It has often been held that the teaching of history should form no part of the curriculum of school education. Children; it is said, should be encouraged to read history for themselves, but they should not be taught it. Language, whether ancient or modern, is the basis of literary, as mathematics is the basis of scientific education. History belongs to neither of these categories, and if taught at all, even at a later age, should form no part of the definite instruction given to the young. I do not intend to argue this question. I will only say, in the first place, that history, ancient and modern, is taught in a large number of schools, and that certificates for proficiency in the study are granted by the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board. It must have been obvious to anyone who has awarded these certificates that those schools did best in the examination in which history was best taught. It was easy to distinguish the schools in which history received a fair amount of attentioń, and the distinctions granted were due quite as much to the exertions of the teachers as to those of the pupils. Again, history now forms part of the regular academical curriculum both at Oxford and Cambridge. A degree in History is highly regarded, and scholarships and fellowships are awarded for proficiency in the study. Yet it is difficult to maintain a high standard of historical instruction at the University if students come entirely untrained in it from the schools.
Historic Genealogy
Authors: Malden H. E.
Published: March 2007

I am about to offer to the society a contribution which differs in kind from most of the papers which are read before us, and which may, I am afraid, be regarded as inferior in interest to many of them. I am conscious that I can only here touch the fringe of a very large subject, and my object is rather to put forward a claim for its further consideration than to pretend to make any adequate attempt to deal with it exhaustively now. Indeed, neither my own ability nor the patience of the audience would be equal to such an undertaking as that.
The Causes of the Seven Years' War
Authors: Ropes Arthur R.
Published: March 2007

There are few branches of historical study more interesting than the investigation of the great events in international policy, and their causes—the motives which induced statesmen and sovereigns, and the nations they ruled and guided, to make war and peace and alliance. And few branches of historical study have been, till of late, so much neglected by English workers.
Historical Sketch of South Africa
Authors: Frere Bartle
Published: March 2007

Cornelius van Quaarlberg was sent out to succeed Van Riebeck as Governor, but he remained less than two years. The Chamber of Seventeen in Holland ordered him to Batavia ‘in consequence of his want of judgment in having quitted his post in the fort to welcome a French admiral who called in Table Bay,’ and to whom he gave a supply of provisions; orders were issued by the Chamber that ‘water should be given to all Europeans, but as little refreshment as possible.’
The Publication of The Gascon Rolls by the British and French Governments, Considered as a New Element in English History
Authors: Burrows Professor Montagu
Published: March 2007

I need hardly explain to this Society what the Gascon Rolls are, nor why their publication is a matter of importance. A very few words on these two points must, however, accompany the remarks which I propose to make on the reasons why their publication has been so long delayed, and on the course of events which has at last issued in their being brought to light.
Bartolus and the Development of European Political Ideas
Authors: Figgis J. Neville
Published: March 2007

There are two names which must be well known to anyone who has glanced at the margins of works on law and politics produced in Continental countries, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With St. Augustine quoted by writers like Althusius more than anyone else, with Innocent IV the ‘dominus canonistarum,’ the master of the Decretalists, a man never to be ignored in the history of thought, there stand out the great twin luminaries of Perugia, Bartolus and Baldus, his pupil, friend, and adversary. They are pre-eminent among the forgotten. Grotius and Gentilis and Bodin not merely quote Bartolus, but are what they are largely because of him. Pages might be filled with the epithets of laudation from time to time applied to him. He is the mirror and lamp of the law, his name is not so much that of a man as the very spirit of jurisprudence. Some say that he is the sole authority superior to the Roman Rota, while in Spain if there is a defect of law, the opinion of Bartolus is treated as itself decisive.
Presidential Address
Authors: Cunningham Ven. Archdeacon W.
Published: March 2007

So far as historical studies are concerned the most interesting event of the past year has been the magnificent Historical Exhibition which was held in Glasgow. The promoters had in view, as their ultimate object, the establishment of a Chair of Scottish History in the University of Glasgow; and they have been successful in securing the nucleus of a sufficient endowment for this purpose. But the Exhibition itself was so admirably planned, and so successfully carried out, that it must have had an enormous effect in diffusing an interest in the records and the relics of the past. The large amount of space which was rightly devoted to ecclesiastical history was in itself a reminder of the importance of religion in the seventeenth century as a factor in the growth of Scottish nationality. Even more significant was the extraordinary collection of treasures that had been preserved in Scottish mansions, and of portraits which were now generously lent and carefully arranged for display to the public. It helps to bring out the importance of family history for a proper understanding of Scottish affairs. Just because the consolidation of Scottish nationality was so long in being attained, the struggles of the great families continued to furnish the leading motives and incidents in the drama of Scottish history.
The Reign of Charles I
Authors: Firth C. H.
Published: March 2007

The reign of Charles I opened with the celebration of the new king's marriage. Charles succeeded his father on March 27, 1625, and Henrietta Maria made her entry into London on June 16. A ballad entitled ‘Jack of Lent's Ballad’ celebrated the Queen's coming, and described by anticipation the pageants with which the citizens of London received her. In one place she was to be met by St. George with a welcome to St. Denis; in another Jonah was to appear out of the mouth of his whale and promise to supply her with fish on Fridays; elsewhere the Graces and the Fates were to hail her with appropriate remarks about her beauty and her good fortune. Besides these there was to be a figure symbolising the political significance of the marriage. At the Exchange, beside the three Fates,

‘Spain's Infanta shall stand by Wringing her hands, and thus shall cry, “I do repent too late.”’
The Relations of Henry Cardinal York with the British Government
Authors: Seton Walter W.
Published: March 2007

The origin of this paper on matters concerning Henry Cardinal York, the last representative of the main line of the Stuarts, is the purchase of a miscellaneous parcel of letters and papers belonging to the Morrison collection which was dispersed at Sotheby's in April, 1918. Apart from two autograph letters of the Cardinal, one of no special interest, and the other of rather unusual interest on account of its references to his brother Charles III, and also a letter of Louise, Countess of Albany, the wife of Charles III, the material proved on examination to consist mainly of letters, some originals and some copies, formerly belonging to Sir John Coxe Hippisley, Bt. This gentleman, a distinguished lawyer who was for many years engaged on sundry diplomatic missions for the British Government, was the person chiefly responsible for securing for Henry Cardinal York in his poverty and adversity in 1800 a pension from the British Government which he enjoyed until his death in 1807.
Science in the History of Civilisation
Authors: Gregory R. A.
Published: March 2007

The history of science may be approached from two points of view. It may be regarded purely as growth of knowledge of natural objects and phenomena along the corridors of time, or it may be viewed selectively according to its influence upon social and economic conditions. Knowledge becomes power only when it is used. To trace the development of any particular aspect of it in scientific fields is the work of the specialist, but it is not until discoveries and the inventions to which they lead can be recognised as transforming factors in civilisation that the historian of human society is much concerned with them.
The Question of the Netherlands in 1829–1830
Authors: Omond G. W. T.
Published: March 2007

In the year 1829 the disputes between the Northern and the Southern Netherlands were rapidly coming to a head.

It will be remembered that shortly before the Congress of Chatillon was dissolved in March, 1814, the Allies having found it impossible to make peace with Napoleon, a secret article in the Treaty of Chaumont provided that Holland was to receive an increase of territory, and be erected into a kingdom for the Prince of Orange. After the abdication of Napoleon the Definitive Treaty of Peace with France, signed at Paris on May 30, 1814, carried the settlement of the Netherlands a step further by a secret article defining the increase of territory which Holland was to receive. Flanders and the other Belgian provinces, which had been taken from Austria by the armies of the French Revolution, were now, together with the Principality of Liege, to be joined to Holland, and the united countries were to constitute a Kingdom of the Netherlands under the sovereignty of the House of Orange.
The Struggle of the Dutch with the English for the Russian Market in the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Madame Inna Lubimenko D. ès Lettres
Published: March 2007

The commercial relations of England with Muscovy have been already investigated at various times by the author of this paper, by Professor Scott, by Dr. Gerson, in America, and lately by Miss Mildred Wretts-Smith; but the relations of Holland with Muscovy are, I believe, still little known.
Some Aspects of Medieval Travel
Authors: Stretton Grace
Published: March 2007

The Public Record Office possesses, among the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster, two wardrobe accounts, dealing with the expenses of Henry Earl of Derby's travels in the years 1390–3. The documents, unique of their kind, present an accurate picture of the means of transport and accommodation available to travellers in the later middle ages ; and, though lacking the personal, picturesque side of travel-memoirs, preserve for that very reason a truer picture of that kind of undertaking which provided so large a part of the interests and amenities of life.
A Provincial Assembly During the League
Authors: Wilkinson Maurice
Published: March 2007

Burgundy as a province was devoted to the League, but not in the most fanatical sense. The reasons for its Leaguer sympathies were numerous: its catholicity—the number of Huguenots, though recently proved to have been larger than at one time supposed, was always small as compared with south-west France—the proximity of the Lorraine influence, the nearness of Spain, and above all the souvenir of the fame of the province in the days of the Sovereign Dukes. The provinces in which the royal power had been most recently imposed were usually against the central government—either leaguer or protestant. Paris, no doubt, seems to contradict this view, but all capitals were more fervently Leaguer than the rest of their provinces, and Paris, as the most populous and unquiet city of France, was simply the arch-leaguer. The members of the parlement and the royal officials who were averse to the league early withdrew from Dijon, and Flavigny in the Auxois became the obvious place for a Royalist gathering. In fact, every other place of any size was, at that stage, Leaguer, and Flavigny had facilities for defence. The formal schism of all the judicial, administrative, and financial machinery followed, as elsewhere, on Henry III's edict from Tours, March 1589, which suspended the parlements from their functions.
The English in Russia During the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century
Authors: Wretts-Smith Mildred
Published: March 2007

The following paper contains the results of an independent study of an episode in the commercial history of this country which has been the subject of some important researches during recent years. The beginnings of mercantile adventure in Russia and other regions of Northern Europe and the Far East have been related by contemporary men of action, most of whose narratives have been carefully edited in the Hakluyt Series; but the political and economic environment of the Muscovy Company itself was still in need of elucidation from contemporary State Papers and other records. Some of these sources have been used by Madame Lubimenko, Dr. A. J. Gerson and Mr. O. T. Williams for special aspects of the subject; but a large mass of material of the first importance has remained untouched.
William IV of Orange and his English Marriage
Authors: Geyl P.
Published: March 2007

I Am going to talk to you about a period of Dutch history which is very little known in England, and as in the eighteenth century Holland had hardly any contribution of her own to make to European history, it is not likely ever to become very popular. Yet, apart from the fact that even a process of decay may be an interesting object of study, it took statesmen both in Holland and outside a considerable time to realise that the great days of the Republic were over for good. Their finding out was a matter of importance from the point of view of the European, and particularly of the English, historian, and this will properly be the subject of my paper.
The Extent of the English Forest in the Thirteenth Century
Authors: Bazeley Margaret Ley
Published: March 2007

The first difficulty which confronts the student of the English forest is to be found in the ambiguity of the terms which are used to describe it. In its proper sense the word “forest” denotes either the whole area in which the king's game is protected by a special law, or a separate administrative district within it. But there are other and looser uses to which the term is put in the records. In the first place, it is frequently applied to mere woods in a forest area. Thus the wood of Islip, near Oxford, known by the distinctive name of “Cauda Aliz” or “La Quealiz,” appears at one time as a part of the forest of Brill, at another as a separate forest coupled with it. Brill, in its turn, was merely a part of the forest of Bernwood, which was itself a member of the “Forest between the bridges of Oxford and Stamford”.
The Burning of Brighton by the French
Authors: Laughton L. G. Carr
Published: March 2007

The Cottonian map, or ‘plat,’ Aug. I. i. 18, which forms the subject of this note, represents a descent on Brighton by a flotilla of French galleys, whose attack was covered by a squadron of men-of-war, represented as under sail or lying off the town.
Wellington, Boislecomte, and the Congress of Verona, 1822
Authors: Green J. E. S.
Published: March 2007

There are two excellent reasons for this article. The first is the times in which we live. If it is not written now, it may never be written at all. My second reason is the subject itself. It rescues from oblivion a theory which has undergone the test of no public examination. That theory made its appearance nearly thirty years ago. It has never been accepted, though it seems likely to be true; and it has never been explained. Unless we are to go on blundering for ever, it is time that some attempt was made to clear the matter up.
The Ceylon Expedition of 1803
Authors: Methley V. M.
Published: March 2007

In the year 1505 the Portuguese, under Albuquerque, discovered Ceylon, and from that date until 1818 the island was the scene of intermittent warfare between its original possessors and successive European Powers.
The Diary of an Elizabethan Gentlewoman
Authors: Fox Evelyn
Published: March 2007

The diary which is the subject of this paper was written by Margaret, Lady Hoby, the wife of Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby, of Hackness, near Scarborough; it extends from August 1599 to August 1605. The manuscript is now in the British Museum (Egerton 2614); it was purchased from the Sydenham family, to whom it descended through Hoby's heir, Sir John Sydenham. As I hope to edit the text in full, I propose to give only a brief account of the writer, and a few extracts from the diary showing the everyday life of a country gentlewoman of that time.
The Siege of Madras in 1746 and the action of La Bourdonnais
Authors: Forrest G. W.
Published: March 2007

When I was invited to read a paper on Indian history at a meeting of the Royal Historical Society I felt not only honoured by the request, but also gratified to learn that the Society intended to bring within its scope the encouragement of the study of the history of our Indian Empire, an empire whose progress and growth is a wondrous fact in the history of the world. The history of the Hindu kingdoms and the history of the government of the Mahomedans should be the special province of the Royal Asiatic Society, for no Englishman can deal with them in a satisfactory manner without a knowledge of the classical languages of the East. He must study and compare the original historians of India. The systematic study of the history of British dominion in India must be the most effectual agency in removing that ignorance (so strange and so discreditable) which prevails among all classes in England regarding the history of our Indian Empire. The responsibility for a just, impartial and stable government of India has been committed for good or evil into the hands of Parliament, and through Parliament to the electoral body of Great Britain; but the electoral body must fail to discharge that great responsibility if the reading multitude remain ignorant of the history of English government in India. It is also the duty and the interest of England that the young men who are sent from our universities to be the main instruments of administering the government of our Indian Empire in all its extensive and complicated branches should be trained to pursue the study of history in a scientific spirit, so that they may be able to apply scientific methods of inquiry to an examination in detail of the development of our administration in India. Many years spent in examining the musty documents in the Indian archives has brought home to me the value of the light which history may shed on practical problems. In India there is no problem which is old, there is no problem which is new. Measures which were supposed to be new would never have been passed if they had been studied by the dry light of history. In the Record Office under his charge the Indian civilian will generally find some material which will reward the labour of research.
The Duc de Choiseul and the Invasion of England, 1768–1770
Authors: Morison Margaret Cotter
Published: March 2007

When the Seven Years' War was brought to a close in February 1763, France was too exhausted by a long series of defeats to do otherwise than acquiesce in the terms proposed by England. Those terms would undoubtedly have been harder had Pitt still remained in the Cabinet to direct the negotiations; and Lord Bute and his colleagues incurred much abuse in England for not turning the recent brilliant victories to greater profit. Yet in France, though peace itself was welcome, the terms of the Treaty of Paris were looked upon as a deep national humiliation, and perhaps no one felt this more bitterly than the man who helped to negotiate it, viz. the Duc de Choiseul, for it meant the frustration of the hopes he had founded on the recently renewed Family Compact with Spain. Since his accession to power at the close of the year 1758, Choiseul had laboured with great patience and diplomacy to bring Spain into close union with France; this, after three years, he finally succeeded in doing by the famous Family Compact of August 1761, which was intended to unite the several houses of Bourbon in the closest alliance for mutual defence. In this treaty was a clause specially levelled against England (Article 8), and when that fact became known in this country, the English ministers, who in October 1761 had driven Pitt from office rather than allow him to declare war on Spain, were compelled to do so themselves in the following January 1762. It is well known that the results of that war were everywhere disastrous to Spain and brought fresh losses to France, so that by the autumn of 1762 both countries were earnest in desiring peace, and a treaty was ratified at Paris in February 1763.
An Episode in Anglo-Russian Relations during the War of the Austrian Succession
Authors: Lodge Richard
Published: March 2007

[At a meeting of the Royal Historical Society on 22 April, 1926, I gave a summary of a paper entitled “A Derelict Diplomatist in the Eighteenth Century,” in which I narrated the misadventures of a certain Friedrich Lorentz, or Frederick Laurence (as he was called in English State Papers), a born subject of the Elector of Hanover, who was employed by our Foreign Office in a rather indeterminate capacity, first at Berlin and later at Dresden. Lord Hyndford, ignorant, like so many of our diplomatists, of the German language, had employed him as a private secretary to deal with German documents. In the autumn of 1744, when Frederick II re-entered the war against Maria Theresa, Hyndford was transferred from Berlin to St. Petersburg, and was allowed by Carteret to leave the representation of Great Britain, with the necessary cyphers, in the hands of Laurence. In view of public and parliamentary opinion it was rather reckless to entrust such responsibility to a Hanoverian, and it was to disguise this that Hyndford laid stress upon the English form and sound that could be given to the name. Laurence himself was exultant at his unexpected elevation, and did his best to earn by zeal and industry the approval of his employers.
The Authorship Of the Defensor Pacis
Authors: Tooley Marian J.
Published: March 2007

There is still some ambiguity about the authorship of the book Defensor Pacts. When it was first printed in the sixteenth century it appeared under the name of Marsilio of Padua alone, and subsequent editors repeated the ascription of the editio princeps. For long, therefore, it passed as Marsilio's work. But evidence has since been brought to light suggesting that a certain John of Jandun had some sort of interest in the book too. That evidence has been very variously interpreted. On the one hand, Jandun has been treated as merely a copyist, the translator of the French version, or Marsilio's confidential adviser; but on the other, as a collaborator who furnished the quotations from Aristotle, or perhaps constructed some of the philosophical arguments. But what exactly his share was has yet to be determined.
The Making of a Crown Colony: British Guiana, 1803–33
Authors: Penson L. M.
Published: March 2007

In the history of South America as a whole, the first thirty years of the nineteenth century were marked by wars of independence and the diplomatic search for political recognition. Among these struggling republics and revolted Empires, a little enclave remained under European rule. Facing the Atlantic, between the Orinoco and the Amazon, guarded by mountain ranges, lay the coastlands of Guiana, a series of river basins occupied by a medley of European peoples.
The Foundations of English History
Authors: Stenton F. M.
Published: March 2007

The title of this paper does not mean that I wish to propose to you any revolutionary opinions as to the character of the earliest English history. I shall not ask you to reconsider the evidence which has convinced generations of scholars of the Germanic character of Early English society and institutions. I shall not discuss the question whether Celtic tradition may have preserved fragments of true but neglected information relating to the age of the Saxon settlement. All that I propose is to ask whether a more exact analysis or a completer presentation of familiar materials is likely to confirm or to overthrow the reconstruction of Early English history which we have inherited from earlier scholars.
The General and Provincial Chapters Of the English Black Monks, 1215–1540
Authors: Pantin W. A.
Published: March 2007

In accordance with the decree “In singulis regnis’2 of the fourth Council of the Lateran, 1215, the hitherto unconnected monasteries of the Black Monks of St. Benedict in England, as in other countries, were required to unite themselves by holding every three years, a general or provincial chapter of the heads of all their independent houses, and the work of the chapters was to be enforced by triennial visitations made by the monks themselves, as distinct from those made by the bishops. Until the constitutions of Benedict XII in 1336 the monks in the provinces of Canterbury and York met in separate chapters: after that date there was a single chapter for the whole of England.
The Derwentdale Plot, 1663.
Authors: Gee Henry
Published: March 2007

Derwentdale is the valley through which the Derwent runs on the north-west side of the county of Durham. In this valley one of the first Anabaptist churches was gathered in the time of the Protectorate, and here, in the early years after the Restoration, a dangerous plot was formed, which presently ramified through the length and breadth of England. The object of this design, in the words of the man who discovered it, was

‘to rise in rebellion against the government, and to destroy Parliament, and murder all Bishops, Deans, and Chapters, and all other ministers of the Church; to break all organs, and further to kill all the gentry that should either oppose them, or not join with them, and to destroy the Common Prayer Book, and to pull down all Churches.’
John Wycliffe, the Reformer, and Canterbury Hall, Oxford
Authors: Cronin H. S.
Published: March 2007

In this paper I propose to deal with two questions: (1) the history of the contest between the regulars and seculars for the possession of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, and (2) the identity of the secular Warden. It is better, it is certainly quite easy, for purposes of treatment, to keep these two questions distinct; it is better also to take them in the order just given.
Prégent De Bidoux's Raid in Sussex in 1514 and the Cotton Ms. Augustus I (i), 18
Authors: Anscombe Alfred
Published: March 2007

The late Dr. James Gairdner read a paper before the Royal Historical Society on November 15, 1906, upon a sixteenth-century drawing in the Cotton collection which depicts the burning of the town of Brighthelmstone in the reign of King Henry VIII. It will be remembered that Dr. Gairdner came to the conclusions that the accepted accounts were not reliable; that the raid depicted really took place in the spring of 1514 and not in the summer of 1545; and that the French did not burn the town on the latter occasion.
Presidential Address: The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies: The Danish Settlement of Eastern England
Authors: Stenton F. M.
Published: March 2007

For many years, the Scandinavian place-names of northern and eastern England have been regarded as valuable materials for the historian. Their number is so large, and they present so many features which point unequivocally to their origin, that their general significance has long been apparent. Sixty years ago, the broad outlines of their distribution were already clear enough to be used in the reconstruction of unrecorded history, and, mainly through the work of J. R. Green, they were beginning to pass into the familiar body of knowledge about the pre-Norman age. The concentrations of Scandinavian names on the fringe of Cleveland and in the central plain of Yorkshire, in Lindsey and Leicestershire, and around the estuary of the Yare, are all indicated in the Conquest of England, published in 1883. The essential fact that these names are characteristic of the regions settled by the Danish armies of King Alfred's time was well established, and has lain in the background of most that has since been written about the bearing of this settlement on the evolution of Old English society.
The Attitude of Whitgift and Bancroft to the Scottish Church
Authors: Donaldson Gordon
Published: March 2007

The friendship and understanding which had joined the reformed churches of England and Scotland in the early years of Elizabeth's reign were not menaced until shortly after Whitgift's accession to the see of Canterbury in 1583. The new primate had to deal with problems which had been quite unknown to his predecessors—problems arising from the success of the Scottish presbyterians and the efforts of their English imitators. The constitution of the Scottish reformed church, after developing in the direction of ‘conformity with England’, had not attained stability before being undermined by the emergence of intransigent presbyterianism. In 1581 the general assembly had approved the full presbyterian programme, and in August 1582 a coup d'état, the ‘Ruthven raid’, by the ultra-protestant party among the Scottish nobles had produced a government favourable to the first brief presbyterian experiment. In England also the struggle between presbyterianism and episcopacy had begun, and Whitgift himself had been the protagonist of the episcopalian cause. The English crown was immune from such coups d'état as made possible three changes in the constitution of the Scottish church within five years; but the English presbyterians had powerful friends among the radical politicians and diplomats. Already there were signs of co-operation between the ecclesiastical rebels in the two British kingdoms, and the incipient alliance soon had political repercussions, for the conduct of Anglo-Scottish relations was during several years in the hands of Francis Walsingham and William Davison, two diplomats who, as secretary and ambassador, consistently used their influence on behalf of the Scottish presbyterians, whom they alleged to be the only sincere supporters in Scotland of the cause of ‘amity with England’.
The Vyvyan Family of Trelowarren
Authors: Coate M.
Published: March 2007

The origin of the Vyvyan family is lost in legend. In Cornish the word ‘vyvyan’ means ‘to flee’ or escape, and the Vyvyans, in common with the Trevelyans, cherished the legend that a Vyvyan was the last governor of the lost land of the Lyonesse, from which he escaped on horseback as it sank beneath the waves. Thomas Tonkin in his edition of Sir Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall noted that ‘the Vyvyans anciently bore argent, a lion rampant, gules, standing on the waves of the sea, proper (which waves have of late been left out), and still give for their crest, an horse, argent, on which they tell you the governor saved himself’.
The Spanish Resistance to the English Occupation of Jamaica, 1655–1660
Authors: Wright Irene A.
Published: March 2007

The story of Cromwell's seizure of Jamaica (May, 1655) has been told in detail drawn from English and from Spanish sources. Far less has been written of the hard fighting, by sea and land, which the invaders found necessary during the next five years, because of the Spaniards' resistance to the English occupation. It is the purpose of this contribution to describe that resistance, especially from March, 1656, when the Jamaicans took the offensive (after receipt of some small relief from Cartagena de Indias), to May, 1660, when Don Cristóbal Ysassi Arnaldo, last Spanish governor of the island, withdrew to Cuba, undone by the disaffectionof the negroes who had been his chief support.
Presidential Address: Some Problems in the History of the Medieval University
Authors: Powicke F. M.
Published: March 2007

The questions which, I imagine, are most frequently asked about the medieval University run something like this: What was the value of all this intellectual activity? Was there any sequence or permanence in it? What kind of degree did scholars take? Was it a mere form, or did it involve a serious mental discipline? We can best get some ideas about the answers to such questions—I do not say that we can ever get very satisfying answers—by looking at Paris in the middle of the fourteenth century.
On the Need for a New Edition of Walter of Henley
Authors: Power Eileen
Published: March 2007

The history of agricultural technique in the Middle Ages is a subject of obvious importance and interest, but in England, at least, it has never been systematically studied. It is true that the main outline of agricultural practice has been made familiar, as a result of the study of manorial documents, but there has been little attempt to investigate technical questions in detail, or to distinguish between the practice of different parts of the country. One branch of agrarian economy, sheep and cattle farming, has been almost entirely neglected, in spite of the fact that wool and hides were the staple export of England. Nor is it only the technique of farming which awaits investigation; the whole subject of estate management in the Middle Ages is almost untouched. Historians have in the main been content to study manorial organisation and those problems of tenure and of labour which can be observed in a manorial framework; it is the legal rather than the economic side of agrarian history which has chiefly interested them.
The Yorkshire Association and the Crisis of 1779–80
Authors: Butterfield H.
Published: March 2007

Even before the beginning of the movement which it is our purpose to examine, the position of the government of Lord North had come to be critical. Perhaps never in English history has a ministry known comparable distress and at the same time been compelled to go on existing through it. The difficulties came to a head in a catastrophic manner in October and November 1779, after the government had shown its helplessness in the face of a possible invasion of these islands, and news had come of the development of a semi-revolutionary situation in Ireland. And as Parliament was to reassemble on 25 November the internal condition of the ministry deteriorated—some members resigning, the rest in a state of anarchy, Lord North himself almost a pathological case, often paralysed by his doubts and incapacitated by his moods of depression—and, precisely because of these difficulties, there was the prospect of a union of opposition factions who might well believe that one last desperate endeavour would complete the overthrow of the ministry. On the top of everything, there was the fact that the next general election was beginning to seem imminent, and at this stage in the life of a Parliament the members in an extraordinary manner would begin to be sensitive to opinion in their constituencies. When Parliament re-assembled the political conflict was made more dramatic in that the issue was more clearly set out by the opposition as a matter of the People versus the King. On repeated occasions the dangerous influence of the crown—and especially the closet activity—was made the principal object of opposition attack. Henceforward this is a central theme in parliamentary debate.
The Organisation of the Scottish Church in the Twelfth Century
Authors: Morgan M.
Published: March 2007

It is well known that organisation of bishoprics and parishes came late to the greater part of Scotland, beginning probably with the gradual spread of Norman influence in the late eleventh century and becoming marked in the time of David I. Before that time the Celtic church was predominant in the region between Forth and Spey, which was the main seat of the monarchy, and there were strong Celtic influences in the Highlands, Clydesdale and Galloway. The church was mainly monastic and missionary with religious communities serving wide areas; though in addition Skene has hinted at the existence of tribal churches in the north-east lowlands. Lothian, a part of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, was peculiar, for it resisted Celtic influences and looked, ecclesiastically, towards Durham; but any parochial organisation it may have had was rudimentary. In general it can be said with truth that ecclesiastical Scotland was completely transformed by the coming of the Normans. Owing to lack of sources twelfth-century Scottish history is obscure; but something at least may be discovered from the charters, which have been in print for over a hundred years and still remain unexplored. And it was in the hope that a reconstruction of church organisation during the transition period might help to illuminate the social history of Scotland that this paper was undertaken. I have concentrated on one subject: the structure of parishes and the relation of local lay and ecclesiastical authorities, because it is a crucial one: and one region, southern Scotland, because there Norman influence was strongest. If in the absence of special studies on the subject my conclusions must remain tentative, they may at least indicate the problems and provoke wider discussion from which the truth will emerge.