Whitehall. 17 February, ½ past 2.—As I find that Sir William Knighton is in London detained here by illness, and that he thinks it may be of importance that some one should wait personally upon the King with the report of the physicians, I propose to come this evening to Brighton after I shall have seen the physicians who are to meet at Fife House at four o'clock.

I will call upon you tomorrow morning. As I am afraid that Canning is not well enough to see the King at present, it is perhaps more necessary that some one should wait upon his Majesty.

It was not until the 6th inst. that the forms to be observed on the occasion were regulated so as to enable the Central Commission to make over the Powers with which it had been entrusted for a year and a half, to the Commission deputed by the Diet to receive them. General Peucker took the opportunity, to the annoyance I believe both of his Austrian Colleagues and of the Diet's Commission, to make a lengthened statement of all that the central Commission had done since its instalment. Both the General and M. de Bötticher his Colleague are much vexed at the manner in which they have been dismissed. They were, as Your Lordship will recollect, originally nominated by their own Government, not by the Confederation. They have been since employed by that Government to make head against the Diet so long as the restoration of the Diet did not suit its views, and they now find themselves dismissed by a resolution of the very Assembly, to counteract the power and influence of which they had been engaged.

Although the authors of the journals and speeches reproduced below all came from the East Midlands and were loosely related to each other, they offer three widely differing viewpoints of the proceedings of the House of Commons during the parliamentary sessions of 1604 and 1606–7. The Rutland manuscript concentrates on the privilege dispute over election returns which dominated the opening weeks of the 1604 session, while Sir Robert Cotton was chiefly concerned to record procedural precedents for use in subsequent Parliaments, and Sir Edward Mountagu focussed on the House's legislative activity.

• Acknowledgements 108

• List of Abbreviations 109

• Introduction 110

• Editorial Procedure 115

• Text 116

During the spring of 1933 there was a sudden and dramatic improvement in Chamberlain's spirits as the clouds of gloom which had hung over him since having office began to disperse. At last, Garvin's efforts were beginning to bear fruit as the first two volumes of the long-awaited Life of Joseph Chamberlain appeared to a favourable reception from both the family and the general public. Chamberlain was also beginning to earn some money to at host alleviate his financial worries. The principal reason for this renaissance, however, was a growing confidence that his stock was rapidly rising both in the Commons and outside it. No longer physically and mentally exhausted by the constant demands of office, his speeches became the subject of ‘pleasant observations’ and genuine praise from lobby correspondents and fellow Members. Moreover, as new problems and threats emerged to confront the Empire, Chamberlain also became convinced that he still had a valuable contribution to make and a voice capable of carrying that message with authority. A significant barometer of this recovery in his morale is to be found in the greater length and detail of his diary Utters during this period.

The history of the Bishopricfc of the province of Somerset, the seat of which was originally at Wells, transferred from thence to Bath, where for a short time it remained, and then carried back to Wells, from the time of Bishop Godwin, downwards, has been chiefly derived from three original sources.

Introduction

I The treaty of Boulogne and the documents 59

II The sources 65

III Notes on the main negotiators 70

IV Note on presentation and acknowledgements 71

Main series of documents 74

Appendices

I Documents related to Anglo-French negotiations included in the 1550 register 163

II The start of the negotiations, November 1549 170

III French negotiations with the Irish princes, 1549–50 172

IV List of extant correspondence of the English commissioners and related materials in English archives 176

Maps

I Fortifications around Boulogne, 1549 73

II The English position in Scotland, 1547–50 1301

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was one of the Secretaries of State in Queen Anne's Tory administration of 1710–14 which sought to bring an end to the increasingly burdensome War of the Spanish Succession. Employing somewhat dubious means, he and his ministerial colleagues eventually made peace with France by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713; a treaty which paid more attention to the interests of Great Britain than to those of her allies, the Dutch and Austrians. In seeking peace at almost any price Bolingbroke and his colleagues faced a particular problem with the former Spanish territory of the Southern Netherlands (or Flanders). The Dutch were particularly interested in this territory because they hoped to secure possession of strong fortresses there which would provide them with a secure barrier against a sudden attack by the French. The Austrians, for their part, hoped to gain this territory as part of the Emperor's inheritance of former Spanish possessions. Britain herself was concerned to serve her allies in this territory at least. She also had commercial interests in Flanders and had long sought an effective barrier to French efforts to expand into the Low Countries. These concerns were reflected in Bolingbroke's correspondence with Charles, Earl of Orrery, one of his Tory friends, who was appointed in 1711 as the Queen's envoy-extraordinary to the States General in The Hague and to the Council of Flanders in Brussels. Orrery served in this capacity for most of 1711. In late 1712 he returned to these duties and served there for a further year

In libro magistri Gauteri Mahap de Nugis Curialium distinctio prima; assimulatio curiœ regis ad infernum. Cap. primum.

In tempore sum et de tempore loquor, ait Augustinus,* et adjecit, nescio quid sit tempus. Ego simili possum admiratione dicere quod in curia sum, et de curia loquor, et nescio, Deus seit, quid sit curia. Scio tarnen quod curia non est tempus; temporalis quidem est, mutabilis, et varia, localis et erratica, nunquam in eodum statu permanens; in recessu meo totam agnosco, in redditu nihil aut modicum invenio quod dereliquerim, extraneam video factus alienus. Eadem est curia, sed mutata sunt membra. Si descripsero curiara, ut Porphyrius diffinit genus,† forte non mentiar, ut dicam earn multitudinem quodammodo se habentem ad unum principium. Multitude certe sumus infinita, uni soli piacere contendens; et hodie sumus una multitudo, cras erimus alia; curia vero non mutatur, eadem semper est; centimanus gigas * est, qui totus mutilatus totus est idem, et centimanus hydra multorum capitum, qui labores Herculis cassat et contemnit, invictissimi manum athletæ non sentit, et Antæo felicior matrem habet terram,† pontum, et aera, non allidere ad pectus Herculis, totus ei vires multiplicat orbis. Cum ille h … nus Hercules voluerit, fiat voluntas.