The manuscripts published here are printed in full with routine openings and terminations, and with endorsements and annotations, usually, though not invariably, in the hand of the recipients of the letters. (In the letters received by Thomas Rant, however, many of the marginal annotations which he made on them are purely routine, and have not, therefore, been reproduced in the text of this volume.) The original spellings have been retained, except that modern usage is employed for u and v, and for i and j.1 Punctuation and capitalization have also been modernized. Most abbreviations have been expanded through the use of italics and square brackets. Interlineations are indicated by the use of brackets <thus>. Deletions (where the deleted word is still legible) are indicated thus. Other deletions and obliterations are noted in square brackets. Cross-references to other letters printed here are made by citing the number of the letter in italic type: for example, Letter 23. Underlining of words and passages of text in these letters has been preserved.

Saturday 3 January 1948 The news today is that (1) Winston is better (he has been laid up with a cold at Marrakesh for some days and as Lord Moran and Mrs. Winston are going there I should imagine that he must have been worse than was made out) and (2) there is one less in the Cabinet – Lord Listowel whose job as Secretary of State for Burma has come to an end is now made Minister of State for the Colonies without a seat in the Cabinet. I am told that he is a half-wit – but I don't even know him by sight and expect that a great many other people are in a similar position – Socialist peers are fairly inconspicuous persons. Several hotels have been searched for black market food – one dislikes black marketing and no doubt it is all wrong (as human nature generally is) but one dislikes still more the continual spying and police methods which now go on – shall we ever get back to ‘normality’ I wonder?

Wednesday 7 January I had a word with Tony Lambton … He certainly is doing his share of work nowadays and ought to make a fine leader for the Conservatives of Durham county in a few years' time. He is coming on by leaps and bounds – but I fear that he won't beat the dirty Doctor and will still be minus a seat in the next Parliament – sooner or later I suppose he will have to emulate Anthony Eden's example and find one outside his own county.

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.

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