Prerogative Court Research Articles

Transcript of “Frances Burney's Legacy Duty Account”

An Account of the Personal Estate, and of Monies arising out of the Real Estate, of Frances D'Arblay formerly of Bolton Street Piccadilly but late of Lower Grosvenor Street Grosvenor Square1 Widow2 who died on the sixth day of January One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty exhibited by Charlotte Barrett Henry Burney and Alfred Turner3 the Executors of the Deceased, acting under the Will of the Deceased, proved in the prerogative Court of Canterbury on the 17th day of February 1840.We do declare that the foregoing is a just and true Account; and we offer to pay to the Commissioners of Stamps the Sum of £365.12.6 for the Duty, after the rate of £3 per Cent. upon the sum of £12187.11.6, being the amount of the said Residue and money which we intend for the use of Richard Barrett Martin Charles Burney [Sarah Harriet Burney]19 being severally the descendant of a Sister the descendant of a Brother & own Sister to the Deceased.20Dated this 2 day of September2119th day of October 1840[Signed] Alfred TurnerFor self & Co Executors1762-184022 ASSESSMENTThe Duty on the within mentioned Sum of £12187.11.8 is assessed after the Rate of £3 per Centum at the sum of £365.12.6By the Commissioners[Signature] <LANNIE>24. Oct. 40To shew the balance of cash if any23Total of Column No 1 4833.0.3½Total of Payments 1243.15.9No interest has been made on this Cash balance as it has been lying at Messrs Hoares & Co Bankers24Dr Burney's ManuscriptsI the undersigned Lieutenant56 Col Henry Burney one of the Executors of the late Madam D'Arblay have inspected the correspondence and papers of the late Dr Burney of Chelsea the father of Madame D'Arblay given by her to Dr Charles Parr Burney and find that they consist principally of family letters for the most part devoid of public interest & the rest of them are so few in number & are generally so unimportant in their manner as to be little worth the trouble and expense of editorship & risk of publication. I therefore really think that they are not (especially in their present condition) worth £50.Hamilton TerraceRegents Park 1 October 1840 [Signed] H BurneyWe offer to pay legacy duty on the above papers on the estimated value of Fifty Pounds that being in our opinion their full value. H Burney } Alfred Turner } Executors Satisfactory [examiner's initials]57Frances Burney's manuscripts 7 Middle St. King's Road Brighton, September 9. 1840 Madam58Having carefully considered the subject, I hasten to acquaint you that I estimate the value of the collection of Manuscripts bequeathed to you by Madame D'Arblay at One hundred Pounds. You may rely upon my judgment in the matter, having had great experience in the Publishing business in connexion with my friend Mr Colburn, the first London Publisher.59I have the honor to be MadamYour very obedient[signed] W. Shoberl.60Satisfactory [examiner's initials]Account of Dividends61

Mulattoes in colonial Maryland: The effects of colonial law on patterns of freedom and enslavement

AbstractObjectiveThis study analyzes Maryland colonial law and empirically examines two sets of historical data to explore how legal codes affected the assignment of mulattoes (mixed‐descent persons) to the legal categories of freedom or enslavement. Maryland law was concerned with regulating the sexual relationships between people of European descent and people of African descent, especially when the relationship was between an enslaved African man and a free European woman who might produce a mulatto child having free legal standing.MethodsAnalysis of colonial census data and Prerogative Court Records are used to estimate both the size and the composition (enslaved vs. free) of the mulatto (mixed‐descent) population in the colony of Maryland in the 17th and 18th centuries.ResultsThe results of the analysis of historical data show that colonial law and its sanctions limited the size of the mulatto population; it was small as expected. However, there were no dramatic differences in the proportions of enslaved and free mulattoes, a pattern that ran contrary to the logic of colonial law. The lack of any dramatic difference between the two status groups may be explained by demographic patterns specific to the early stages of colonization.ConclusionsThe attempt of colonial lawmakers to limit the proportion of free mulattoes was not effective, at least in the initial periods of building a slave society. Some suggestions for future research combining the efforts of historians and geneticists should examine how the relationships between the European and African descent populations likely had distinctive patterns in the early formation of enslavement as an institution compared to a later period where enslavement became the fate of most persons of African descent.

“A Besy Woman … and Full of Lawe”: Female Litigants in Early Tudor Star Chamber

AbstractThis article considers the opportunities available to, and the constraints to be negotiated by, female litigants at the court of Star Chamber during the reigns of the early Tudor kings. Star Chamber was a prerogative court and grew in popularity following the transformation and clarification of its judicial functions under Thomas Wolsey in the early sixteenth century. While it has suffered losses to its records, around five thousand cases still survive from the early Tudor period, including nearly one thousand cases involving female litigants. Unlike those in other Westminster courts, such as Common Pleas, Chancery, or the Court of Requests, Star Chamber cases have yet to be fully examined for what they can tell us about women's access to justice and their experience of legal process. This article begins by surveying the number of cases involving female litigants, showing that far more women came to the court as plaintiffs than as defendants. The numbers were significant—in line with Chancery—but still show women as a minority. Drawing on a wide range of examples, the paper explores the major factors determining, and limiting, women's active roles as litigants, taking into consideration cultural expectations, legal practice (including the operation of coverture), and, where detected, individual decision-making.

A Reformation of Remembrance? Devotional Practices of Female Testators in Lincolnshire 1509-1558

ABSTRACTThis article examines the pious and commemorative practices of female testators in the Lincolnshire wills proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury between 1509 and 1558, held at The National Archives. Lincolnshire was one of the largest counties and formed part of the largest diocese in the country, so it provides a geographically extensive case study of female testamentary practice, important because the rate of female testators is low. Wills provided an opportunity for women to shape their pious identities and choose how they wished to be remembered after their deaths. Changing government policies impacted upon female attitudes towards remembrance and material culture and the ideals of the new Protestant religion also affected the nature of post-mortem charitable provision. The article explores how far these wills can be used to trace changes in religious attitudes across the period of the early Reformation in Lincolnshire.

WHAT HAVE WILLS GOT TO DO WITH IT? WOMEN’S RELIGIOUS PATRONAGE IN EARLY REFORMATION ENGLAND, C.1530–1558: EVIDENCE FROM THE PCC

Despite the attendant methodological issues, probate records are an invaluable source for the study of lay piety and the English Reformation. This article examines some of the ways in which wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, now held in The National Archives, can inform our understanding of women’s patronage during this period of religious change. It focuses in particular on women’s support for preaching, their bequests of objects to churches and clergy, and their sponsorship of domestic chaplains, but also addresses some of the broader implications of this research.

‘So very unequal to the place’? The Legal Apprenticeship of John Williams, Lord Keeper, c. 1605–1621

AbstractIn the spring of 1621, James I sent the Great Seal of England to his newly appointed Lord Keeper, John Williams, the Dean of Westminster. Naming an ecclesiastic to this position shocked contemporary legal and political commentators, and subsequent historians have generally shared this negative appraisal. Even more positive analyses have held that Williams’ primary attraction for the king lay in his intellect and learning, and an expectation that he would do James’ bidding on the Court of Chancery. Williams actually possessed both stronger legal qualifications than have traditionally been recognized, and a politico-legal philosophy that had helped to modify James’ own views of the role of his prerogative courts and powers. An examination of Williams’ career prior to 1621 reveals the development of a candidate uniquely placed to fill this particular role at that specific moment in James’ reign.

J. F. Merritt. Westminster 1640–60: A Royal City in a Time of Revolution.

This is a book about Westminster town (not city, it lacked an incorporated government) in topsy-turvy times from the Long Parliament until the last days of England's Republic (1640–1660). Westminster was home to explosive events, but J. F. Merritt argues that its spaces and structures are “invisible” in existing work and their impacts neglected. So much changed so quickly. The king, Privy Council, royal court, prerogative courts, and the Abbey's dean and chapter all disappeared. Westminster seemed suddenly vulnerable and its government more fragile. Real and rumored conspiracies and attempted assassinations made people edgy. Leveller plots on Westminster soil involving Westminster people deepened insecurities as the republic fell apart and each new royalist uprising seemed more serious than the last. Westminster was the “royal city” with a reputation for loyal royalism and, unsurprisingly, parliamentary/republican authorities worried about a royalist Trojan horse within their walls. Concerns were sharpened by the apparent substandard performance of Westminster's trained bands in putting down trouble. The Militia Company set up under Parliament authority in 1643 was more effective in quashing disorder and rooting out delinquents, but it became too intrusive for many.

Devising, Dying and Dispute: Probate Litigation in Early Modern England, by Lloyd Bonfield

This is a social and administrative history of the law, written by a well-regarded legal historian. Its principal strength lies in the exceptional clarity and precision with which the author, Lloyd Bonfield, sets out the letter and logic of the law and the workings of a senior ecclesiastical court. Its main contribution is to offer a comprehensive study of early modern probate litigation and an analysis of an important arena in which law and social practice interacted. Bonfield explores and explains 184 disputed probate cases heard before the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, one of the two ‘provincial’ church courts in England, between 1660 and 1700. Those whose affairs were settled in this court were typically the better-off or testators who had property in more than one diocese. Its case records are much richer than those, generated by the lower church courts, which most social historians have used. Part I is an institutional and legal history, dealing with probate jurisdiction, the church courts, and the nature of testamentary litigation; it should be read with the appendix at pp. 247–59. Thereafter the book ranges widely over topics that will interest historians in a number of fields. For example, it discusses the nature and significance of both orality and literacy, since wills could be rendered verbally as well as in writing. The practices and problems of courts also fed into political processes, and Bonfield speculates that legal difficulties over probate may help to explain the ‘Statute of Frauds’ (29 Chas. 2 c. 3), though he shows its limited practical influence on probate practices—and the slow pace of legal change in early modern England. Throughout there are thoughtful discussions of the nature and transfer of property. Judges favoured ‘individualism’, yet at the same time their decisions were tempered by considerations of ‘conscience’ that took into account the wider implications of their judgements. Bonfield is closely interested in judicial process, emphasising how the malleability of probate law opened up considerable freedom for judges. The hybrid ecclesiastical law (actually bastardised civil law) that emerged in the middle ages to govern areas such as succession and probate, and which endured until the mid-nineteenth century, was less rigid than common law in validating documents doubtful in form, provided the intention of the framer was sufficiently clear.

A Rutland Quarrel, the Court of Chivalry and the Irish Peerage during Charles I's Personal Rule

In July 1635 Sir Henry Mynne defamed William Lord Sherard at the Rutland assizes and set in motion a train of events which reached up to Westminster and across the prerogative court system to highlight some of the more obscure aspects of Charles I's Personal Rule. The case was originally tried in Star Chamber, but then in February 1638 was passed on to the newly reformed Court of Chivalry where it set an important precedent for establishing the court's right to try defamation suits. The trial also became an example of the crown's determination to bolster the honour of the peerage in the face of insults by social inferiors. And, more broadly, the treatment of Sherard offers an insight into Charles's handling of the Irish peerage and the vexed issue of how they were to be ranked in relation to their English counterparts. It illustrates the experiences of a group who, in spite of their pledges of loyalty and support for the crown and prerogative government, found their interests shunted aside as the king promoted the welfare of the more powerful and influential English peerage. Charles's efforts to promote the welfare of the nobility and take them into partnership with the crown formed an important strand of royal policy during the Personal Rule. This case reveals some of its successes and failures.

Giving Each His Due: Langland, Gower, and the Question of Equity

Van Dijk argues that, in their respective wrestlings with question of sovereignty, whether the king . . . is 'legibus solutes,' or free from the Gower and Langland despite their ostensible ideological differences . . . share a legal and political reference field that needs further study, and that discloses some surprising similarities (310). He concludes that definition of equity that lies behind Piers and the CA is Ulpian's maxim that justice gives to each his due or law. The primary terms that describe this principle, as Gower and Langland interpret it, are consistency, uniformity, and reciprocity. As a result . . . equity is not to be associated strictly with the prerogative courts, but encapsulates instead the correct way to administer the law. Equitable justice is fair, and that is why can sometimes seem fearful. Lastly, whereas justice is in theory strictly separate from the law, in practice the two are frequently conflated (333-34). More specifically, Langland, this means that there is not a fundamental difference between Reason's call for the enforcement of the rigor of the law and the virtue of Justice in the later passus . . . . In the Mirour, Gower similarly associates equity with the scales of justice. The main point about equity, then, is that considers all to be equal before the law and gives each his due reward or punishment . . . . In Gower's [CA] Book 7, the exposition of Pity entails that even the king's mercy must be without favor and follow the strictures of law and justice . . . . In nearly every instance the hope is that, if the proper administration of the law is hampered in any way, then the king might correct the problem so that the law can once more be applied justly to all who are subject to it (334). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. JGN 28.2]

In the Name of the Father: The Elizabethan Response to Recusancy by Married Catholic Women, 1559–1586

The extraction of a pecuniary penalty for the recusancy of married women was a heavily contested issue in the Parliament of Elizabeth. Under the rules of coverture, married women controlled no property. It was thus ineffective to fine them, for they were unable to pay the penalty. As a result, the government attempted to hold husbands responsible for the penalties of their wives through the use of recognizances under the auspices of the Commissions for Causes Ecclesiastical, a prerogative court. Research into the York Commission’s use of recognizances indicated that it had indeed been possible legitimately and legally to obtain a pecuniary penalty for the recusancy of a married woman by the 1570s. This was generally believed to have been legally impossible until they became obtainable by statute in 1593. Detailed examination of the records of the Commission indicates clearly that the depiction in the scholarly literature of the levying of these penalties as somehow improper or even illegal is erroneous. These forfeitures might have seemed irregular, but were indeed legitimate and obtained by proper and legal means in the context of contemporary standards of authority and control, both governmental and familial. This study demonstrates how respect for the standards of coverture, patriarchy, and marital obligations incorporated in the use of the recognizance provided a highly effective and legal means to penalise and correct both recusant wives and their husbands.

Two Proposals for Raising Money by Extraordinary Means, c. 1627

This article introduces and prints the texts of two proposals written in the hand of Secretary, Sir John Cook in 1627, for raising money by extraordinary means. Probably dating from early 1627, ‘A proposition for the setling of his Majesties affairs’ advocated a union of arms for the three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and an association of support for the wars against Spanish and Imperial forces. Probably dating from December 1627, the draft proclamation for a ‘general…taxation…on ale[ , ], beer or cyder’, aimed at implementing a policy passed by the privy council to introduce a new tax by royal prerogative and enforce it through the Star Chamber. ‘A proposition’ purported to build consensus support for royal policy and to raise money by voluntary subscription. The draft proclamation probably came as close as any privy council proposal from early seventeenth‐century England to absolutism in action; it would have imposed a new tax by the will of the sovereign, supported by arguments of necessity, and enforced by a prerogative court. Although neither proposal was put into effect, they provide insights into the conceptions of governance held by Charles I and his privy council during the wars of the 1620s.

Improving Access: A Proposal to Create a Database for the Probate Records at the Borthwick Institute

The Borthwick Institute has the largest collection of probaterecords outside the PRO, consistingofaround 500,000 to 750,000probates. These include therecords ofthe Prerogative Court ofYork, the ExchequerCourt of York, and more than thirty peculiar jurisdictions. The geographical range is huge, while the temporal range is the largest anywhere; the Institute holds the earliest series of registered wills in England and Wales. It also houses some of the earliest and, later on, the best qualityprobate inventories. At present the finding aids are inadequate; there are finding aids of different sorts compiled at different times from the eighteenth century onwards, but such aids as exist are angled towards family historians. There is an urgent need to compile adequate finding aids covering all the probate material (includinginventories) in a way that makes the materials accessible for both family historians and academic researchers. A database was the obvious choice for doing this, andfor a variety ofreasons Paradox for Windows was chosen for a pilot project.

‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’: Rome to York in 1452

Private correspondence between Rome and England in the fifteenth century is not unknown but is usually to be found among the business papers of proctors permanently resident at the Curia, such as William Swan and Thomas Hope. By contrast, the three letters printed below were written by an occasional visitor to Rome, charged with a specific errand. They tell us more about England than Italy, and more about the everyday concerns of a moderately successful clerical careerist than the procedures of the papal court, but they are unusual and valuable precisely for that reason. The author of these letters was Master Robert Thornton. A canon lawyer in the service of Archbishop Kempe, he began his career as an advocate in the prerogative court of York and, during the 1440s, established himself as one of the mainstays of the diocesan administration there: he acted as commissary-general to the court of York and official of the absentee archdeacon of York, besides serving on many ad hoc commissions. By the time these letters were written, Thornton's diligence in the archbishop's service had brought him several desirable benefices: already perpetual vicar of Silkstone (Yorkshire, West Riding), he became rector of Almondbury (Yorkshire, West Riding) in 1451 and was presented by William Bothe, Kempe'ssuccessor as archbishop, to a prebend at St. John's, Chester, in the following year. It was his membership of Kempe' familia that, indirectly, set him on the road to Rome. In May 1452 he was dispatched with a bundle of papers and sixteen marks in cash to pursue the claims of John Berningham, resident canon and treasurer of York, to the vacant deanery.

New Renaissance Players' Wills

Previous articleNext article No AccessNotes and DocumentsNew Renaissance Players' WillsS. P. CerasanoS. P. Cerasano Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 82, Number 3Feb., 1985 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/391386 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1985 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Kevin Chovanec Faust mit Springen: On the English Players Returning Faustus to the German-Speaking Lands, Renaissance Drama 44, no.22 (Nov 2016): 125–155.https://doi.org/10.1086/688685

The Theme of Government in Piers Plowman by Anna Baldwin, and: The Figure of Piers Plowman by Margaret E. Goldsmith

REVIEWS ANNA BALDWIN, The Theme of Government in Piers Plowman. Cam­ bridge: D.S. Brewer, 1981. Pp. vi, 107. £12.00. MARGARETE. GOLDSMITH, TheFigureofPiersPlowman. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1981. Pp. viii, 128. ,£12.00. These two monographs are harbingers of a new series of Piers Plowman Studies to be published by D. S. Brewer. Both volumes share high stan­ dards of production and clarity of style. Likewise, both books are rather old-fashioned but comfortably sane in their literary-critical approaches. There is, then, much to be hoped from succeeding volumes in this series. Nevertheless, despite the technical excellence of both, the unevenness between the books remains striking, with Anna Baldwin's book seeming notably superior to Margaret E. Goldsmith's in at least three important aspects: the value and freshness of the information provided, the co­ herence of the argument, and the relevance and validity of sources of evidence. Although neither book can lay claim to being that rara avis, the completely convincing, definitive treatment, Baldwin's book will surely provoke even the seasoned Piers scholar to some thoughtful reconsidera­ tion of settled opinions. More frequently, however, it will succeed in simply informing one of details of medieval English governmental prac­ tices and their relevance to Piers Plowman about which one could have had, in one's ignorance, no prior opinion at all. Baldwin's investigation ofthe theme ofgovernment focuses on what she sees as an apparent paradox in Langland's outlook: "How can the absolutist ideal of monarchy embodied in the Visio king be made compatible with the more merciful, even democratic ideal practised by Piers, Conscience, and Christ?" As Baldwin sees it, Langland envisions three possible answers to the question of " 'how much power should the king have?' " These alternatives she designates a "theocratic" theory, a theory of "limited monarchy,"and an "absolutist" theory. Although theterms seem unhappy in their potentially deceptive connotations, few would quarrel with Bald­ win's opinion that, ultimately, Langland favors a king directly administer­ ing equity through the counsel of his own reason and conscience (the "absolutist" theory) as opposed to a king creating justice ex nihtlo by fiat (the "theocratic" theory) or a king fettered by the precedents ofcommon law ("limited monarchy"). Baldwin sees similarities with Wyclif's views 141 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER (e.g., pp. 10-11, 51) in Langland's advocacy of such "absolutist" mon­ archy. Although she seems to overinterpret the Goliard's speech in B Prologue 141-42 as one advocating "limited monarchy" (whereas he is commonly understood to be opposing only the admonitions toward mercy offered by the angel and the lunatic), most would accept her contention that Langland's use of the rat fable carries "absolutist" implications. Especially convincing is Baldwin's analysis ofchanges from B to C toward "a clearer statement of 'absolutism"' (though she sometimes appears to forget, as onp. 3, that C represents not only a clearer statement ofmaterials in A and B but also a more conservative stage in the development of the author's ideas and therefore is sometimes different in conception as well as expression from the earlier recensions). Baldwin's second and third chapters (an analysis of the arrest of Meed and the dispute of Peace with Wrong) form essential reading for anyone working with these parts of Piers Plowman in the future. So far as I am aware, no one has explicated so thoroughly the satiric ramifications of Meed's allegorical procession toward London insofar as these touch on the specific corruptions ofregional and local government. Even more valuable, however, is the discussion of the relationship between these episodes and the evolution and functioning of the royal "prerogative courts." Baldwin considers the point of Meed's arrest and the trial of Wrong as being that "the king had used his absolute power to enforce justice when law had failed." Assuming that this interpretation has been amply established, Baldwin next pursues the other side of the paradox she has perceived, viz., that Langland depicts several "subject-kings" in his narrative (most notably Piers and Conscience) who, though leading the folk with a kind ofcharis­ matic authority, never assert royal authority in their own behalfand act...

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Anglo‐Saxon Charters II: Charters of Burton Abbey Edited by P. H. Sawyer Published for The British Academy by the Oxford University Press, 1979 lix+93 pp. £15 The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx by Walter Daniel Edited and translated by Sir Maurice Powicke Reprinted, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1978 cii+88 pp. £8.50 The Letters of John of Salisbury II: The Later Letters (1163–1180) Edited by W. J. Millor, S.J., and C. N. L. Brooke Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979 lxxxvii+861 pp. £35 Lacock Abbey Charters Edited by Kenneth H. Rogers Wiltshire Record Society, vol. xxxiv for 1978 Devizes, 1979 vi + 147pp. £7 plus postage to non‐members (Obtainable from M. J. Lansdown, 53 Clarendon Road, Trowbridge) Curia Regis Rolls of the Reign of Henry III, vol. XVI, 1237–42 Edited by L. C. Hector London, HMSO, 1979 Iiii+698 pp. £50 The Merioneth Lay Subsidy Roll 1292—3 Edited by K. Williams‐Jones Board of Celtic Studies, History and Law Series, No. 29 Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1976 cxlix + 136 pp. £6 Elizabethan Life: Wills of Essex Gentry and Merchants, Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Edited by F. G. Emmison Chelmsford, Essex County Council, 1978 x+361 pp., map. £6.75 plus 75P postage Calendar of Assize Records, Kent Indictments, Elizabeth I Edited by J. S. Cockburn HMSO, 1979 vii + 703 pp. £50 Marston Moor, 2 July 1644: the sources and the site P. R. Newman York, Borthwick Institute Research Paper no. 53, 1978 46 pp. 8op plus 10p postage The Queen Anne Churches. A catalogue of the papers in Lambeth Palace Library of the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches in London and Westminster 1711–1759 Compiled by E. G. W. Bill with an introduction by Howard Colvin London, Mansell, 1979 xxiv + 255 pp. £21.50 Bristol inns and alehouses in the mid‐eighteenth century Edited by Patrick McGrath and Mary E. Williams Bristol, 1979 61 pp. £1 plus 30p postage (obtainable from Bristol Record Office) History of Chesterfield, vol. III. Early Victorian Chesterfield J. M. Bestall and D. V. Fowkes Borough of Chesterfield, 1978 xii + 139 pp., illus. No price given The West Riding County Council, 1889–1974: historical studies B. J. Barber and M. W. Beresford West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council, 1979 iv + 271 pp., map. £5.50 The Officers of the Commons Philip Marsden London, HMSO, 1979 262 pp. £3.95 paperback Constitutional Relations between Britain and India. The Transfer of Power 1942–7. Vol. VIII. The Interim Government 3 July ‐ I November 1946 Edited by N. Mansergh and Penderel Moon London, HMSO, 1979 xciv + 899 pp. £35 David Livingstone: a catalogue of documents Compiled by G. W. Clendennen assisted by I. C. Cunningham Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland for the David Livingstone Documentation Project, 1979 xxiv+348 pp., illus. £3 Northern Business Histories, a bibliography Edited by D.J. Rowe London, Library Association, Reference, Special & Information Section, 1979 viii + 191 pp. £27.50 (£22 to L. A. members) (Orders to Mrs F. V. Winkworth, 16 Springfield, Ovington, Northumberland NE42 6eh) Manuscript Solicitation for Libraries, Special Collections, Museums, and Archives Edward C. Kemp Littleton, Colorado, Libraries Unlimited Inc., 1978. $21.00 Automation, Machine‐Readable Records and Archival Administration: an annotated bibliography Compiled and edited by Richard M. Kesner for the Society of American Archivists, 1980 72 pp. $4 to SAA members, $6 to non‐members Registers and records. Sources of information (Oyez Practice Notes 4.9) Trevor M. Aldridge London, Oyez Publishing, 3rd edition 1976 xii + 107 pp. £4.95

The Church under the Law: Justice, Administration and Discipline in the Diocese of York 1560-1640

1. Church Courts 2. The Consistory and Chancery Courts of York 3. The Exchequer and Prerogative Court 4. Visitations 5. The Archdeaconry of Nottingham 6. Church Discipline Conclusion.

A Note on the Discovery of the Original Will of Captain John Smith: With a Verbatim Transcription

N THE course of research work in England and on the Continent during late i966, I had occasion to obtain a photostatic copy of a will transcribed in volume Windebank 72 of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, in Somerset House, London. While waiting for a correction to be made, I exchanged a few words with Miss Alice Stanley in the Literary Department, Principal Probate Registry, and during our conversation mentioned that it would be valuable for scholars on occasion to see signatures of testators. These are not to be found in the official transcriptions. At this, Miss Stanley informed me that she had been working for some months on a number of dust-laden boxes, long resting in storage, and had unearthed many early original wills. Were there any specific ones which I would like to see? Since it was late in the day, and I was leaving for New York in thirty-six hours, I hesitated, but on second thought came up with a question. Could she find the will of Captain John Smith, of Virginia fame? Miss Stanley answered that she had always been interested in Captain Smith, and that she would a look. Since I had to return the next day for my photostat, she volunteered to have a Xerox copy of Smith's will made for me, if she found it. With profound thanks, I hurried off to go through the usual formalities for the copy. Smith's will would indeed be a find. The next day, Thanksgiving Day, I returned to Somerset House, and to the easily imaginable excitement of both of us, Miss Stanley produced the will, which I could quickly identify as being that of Captain John: the text corresponded with the recorded transcript, the witnesses were those already known to anyone interested in Smith, and so on. Unquestionably, the most interesting aspect of this document, seen again for the first time in three centuries or more, was the obvious rea-

Could Charles I Be Trusted? The Royalist Case, 1642-1646

The followers of King Charles I in the Civil War, long among the whipping boys of English history, have been receiving better treatment since the Whig interpretation of the seventeenth century lost its pristine vigour. This is particularly true of their constitutional position as set forth in the great outpouring of manifestoes and pamphlets during the war. Edward Hyde, perhaps the key figure in this aspect of royalism, has recently profited from a capable defence of his opinions and policy. Similarly, pamphleteers such as Henry Ferne, Dudley Digges, and John Bramhall are now fairly well known, thanks largely to J. W. Allen's pioneering study of their writings. From work like this it is clear that the royalist spokesmen accepted the increased importance of Parliament, the end of prerogative courts and nonparliamentary taxation, and the supremacy of common and statute law. Like their armies in the field, they were defending the monarchy as overhauled in 1641, not as the Tudors left it, much less as James I may have conceived it. Indeed the classical doctrine of the mixed or balanced constitution, glorified by Blackstone and widely accepted until nearly 1830, is now credited, not to Philip Hunton, but to the royalists. Such rehabilitation has done much to remove the patronizing label of “wrong but romantic,” which was once the best which they could hope for from historians or the general public.Allen and those who followed him naturally concentrated on the legal and constitutional analysis of the origins of authority, the veto power, sovereignty, nonresistance, and so forth.