During the Anglo-American Conference last July I made the acquaintance of an American Professor who was engaged in a special study of Anglo-Spanish relations in the eighteenth century. She (for the Professor was feminine) made some observations that interested me. She said that the century was often described as the period of a second Hundred Years' War between England and France, but that this might be more accurately described as a Hundred Years' War between England and Spain. She added that the cause of that war was trade disputes. I, with my head full of the asiento and the permitted ship, replied that there were constant quarrels about colonial trade, but she contended that England was equally interested in the domestic trade with Spain itself. Subsequently she was kind enough to send me some interesting papers on Spanish history in the eighteenth century which she had contributed to the Smith College Studies in History.

The importance of the reign of king John in the history of English financial administration is now recognized. In part this is due to the relative abundance of official records. For the twelfth century yields little beyond scattered charters and the series of pipe rolls, while the principal series of chancery enrolments begin under John, and for his reign too we possess, although not in continuous series, exchequer enrolments the like of which have not survived from earlier reigns. Of necessity, therefore, much of our detailed knowledge of early financial administration must be based upon what we can learn from this period. And then again, by the time John came to the throne, the exchequer system, as it had been devised and developed by the administrators of the twelfth century, quite obviously required adjustment to deal with the growing mass and complexity of financial transactions.

Hearne greatly disliked Wilkins. His diaries have many severe reflections upon the Prussian upholder of the dynasty he hated; to him ‘that rascal David Wilkins’, vain, mercenary and pushing, was the type of industrious pedant with little judgment who would edit and publish anything that he found remunerative, and spoil good material in the process. This waspish temper, that at times vents itself in scandalous comments on Wilkins's private life, may have partly resulted from the fact that Wilkins took up two enterprises with which Hearne had been in some degree concerned: a second edition of Humphrey Prideaux's Marmora Oxoniensia (which he never carried out, the work being ultimately entrusted to Michael Mattaire and published by him in 1732), and a new edition of Spelman's Concilia, ‘ the Councils’, as Hearne always called them. The antiquary had been anxious to do both. He curtly refused help to Wilkins over the Marmora, and in regard to the Councils he tells us that Atterbury had originally proposed the editing of Spelman to himself, “ but it was after my retirement upon account of the oaths; and so I thought fit to decline and waive it “. Naturally he was still interested in the project, and rather apprehensive about it after the way in which Wilkins had edited Selden's works (1726). ‘This vile editor ‘was his comment then, and he acidly notes that Wilkins had been working upon the Concilia at a much earlier date, but had been ‘put by ‘by the Archbishop in favour of some other man.

To the historian of the late fifteenth century interest is centred on the transitional character of the times. Throughout Europe medieval thought and institutions were decaying. The dream of Christendom was fading, and the development of non-moral national states was quickened by the policy of despotic rulers in many countries. Medieval “liberties“ appeared only as bars in the path of progress, and in most countries fell before the new centralized administrations. Economic changes spread more rapidly and defeated that apparent inertia which had afflicted the countryside during the rule of the feudal baron. New conditions meant an age of distress and turbulence, and new opportunities meant the rise of strong, vigorous personalities who were left without authoritative guidance to work out their country's salvation. Of such were Henry VII and his council of the “ablest men that were to be found”. They were typical examples of the age; men brought up with medieval traditions, using medieval forms, yet treating many problems in an independent spirit, cautiously feeling their way to a development that is only clear at the close of the sixteenth century when the modern state had been almost created. Of the importance of this formative period there can be no doubt, but not much can be learnt about the men who guided England at this very critical time, for they have left only scattered and often but fragmentary records behind them. For the sake of the light that the Tree of Commonwealth throws on the views that Edmund Dudley must have shared with his colleagues, as well as for its own original and lively expression of opinion on many political and social questions, the work and its author seem to deserve more serious consideration than they have yet received.

The foreign policy of England from 1589 until 1595 was dominated by the fear that Spain would take advantage of the French civil wars and the friendship of the Catholic League to secure control of the Channel coast from Brest to Calais. How dangerous this would be to England, we may easily judge from the fact that, years earlier, Menendez had seen in the establishment of a Spanish naval base at the Scilly Isles a means at once of crippling English sea-power and commerce and of rendering easy an invasion of the country. Indeed, the least to be feared should the French ports fall into Spanish hands would be, as the veteran English captain Sir Roger Williams said, that “then must we at the least keep garrisons in all our port towns and send our ships royal in good numbers always to convoy our merchants.” The danger was most acute between 1590 and 1592, when the invasions of France by Parma from the east and the presence of a Spanish army in Brittany to the westward confronted English statesmen with a peculiarly difficult and complex problem. It was this problem that the expedition to Rouen in 1591 was intended to solve.

The primary object of this paper is to indicate the extent of the transference of lands in England between 1640 and 1660. A considerable part of the paper will be devoted to a provisional classification of the various purchasers of lands in order to make clear the reasons why so many men are buying, and why royalists and others are selling. An attempt, however, will also be made to account for the various rates of sale established by the several acts and ordinances of sale. And, finally, it will be indicated that there is evidence to support a belief that the events of the Commonwealth period had much more than a temporary effect upon the distribution of land in England.

The reigns of the last two Stuart kings are coloured by the fact that Charles II did not inherit his throne but was restored to it. During the first seven years of the Restoration era a second attempt to overthrow the monarchy naturally seemed possible to Royalists, whose memories of the discomforts of exile were still green. Hence a special organization to watch the movements of malcontents and report on their activities, developed under the control of the Secretaries of State. Contemporary State Papers offer abundant evidence to prove that much of the time of Nicholas and his successors was consumed in dealing with information, poured in by spies stationed in almost every English county, and in those parts of Europe and the New World where regicides and others had taken refuge.

Alexander Hume-Campbell, Lord Polwarth, the third son and subsequently the successor of the first Earl of March-mont, belonged to a family which had earned Whig patronage by sufferings in the Whig cause under the later Stewarts. Like many other ambitious politicians, he began his public career in diplomacy. He was sent to Copenhagen in 1716 as Minister Plenipotentiary, and was later raised to the rank of Ambassador. He remained at the Danish capital, without any leave of absence, till 1721, and took an active part in bringing about the reconciliation of Denmark with Sweden, which was one of the most difficult tasks undertaken by British diplomacy in its endeavour to put an end to the long war in Northern Europe. After a short period of leave at home, he was sent to the Congress of Cambray as joint British plenipotentiary with Lord Whit worth. In accordance with the extraordinary custom that prevailed in those days, he carried away with him the official and private letters, both originals and copies, which he had amassed during his two missions. These papers were for a long time stored at the family home, Mertoun House in Berwickshire, but have recently and very properly been transferred to H.M. Register House in Edinburgh. The Historical Manuscripts Commission have issued three volumes of these valuable papers under the editorship of the Rev. Henry Paton. The first volume appeared in 1911, the second in 1916, and the third in 1931. It is understood that two more 243 volumes are to be published.