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.

For three years "the valiant and victorious General Captain Jackson" drew all eyes upon him by conducting a daring andtriumphant war on the power of Spain in America. By so doing he largely contributed to the decision of Cromwell to continue the Elizabethan tradition of reprisals against Spain; and to embark upon an enterprise, the object of which was the substitution for a Catholic and Spanish empire, of one that was English and Protestant.

The Prussian Government, after having made stupendous Efforts in the successful cause of the great Alliance formed to suppress the Effects of the Revolutionary Spirit in France, is now diligently occupied in repressing a similar Spirit amongst its own Subjects, and in obviating the Dangers, it is calculated to produce; and this Conduct, acting in different Manners upon the Courts, and the Nations of Germany, is more calculated than any Measure I can imagine to be adopted within its Boundaries, to found and to maintain its internal Tranquillity and to render its Union real, and effective. I have the honor to transmit a Translation of an Edict of His Prussian Majesty, in date of the sixth, but published on the eleventh Ins., which republishes the Law of October 1798 against secret Societies, and forbids any further Controversy in print respecting their Existence and Objects.

Arreragia Ultimi Compoti. Idem reddit compotum de £24 15s. 3¼ de ultimis arreragiis compoti anni precedentis.

Summa patet. Et totum debet.

Redditus assisus. Idem r. c. de 33s. de toto redditu assiso manerii et burgi cum suis pertinenciis ad festum sancti Martini in yeme. Et de £58 5s. ad festum Pasce floridi et non plus quia totum residuum subtrahitur per preceptum factum super ultimum compotum. Et de 33s. ad festum Pentecost’. Et de £58 4s. 11¾d. ad [festum] sancti Michaelis. Et de 4s. de Roberto de Plumpton' pro putura forestariorum. Et de 19½d. de 3 ac. et I roda vasti hoc anno affirmatis. Et de 8s. de incremento 16 ac. terre de novo assarto in mora ad Pasca floridum et festum sancti Michaelis.

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.

The Decimation Lists

The royalist uprising of March 1655 led the Protector to adopt a number of measures aimed at improving internal security, in particular the appointment of major generals, each with responsibility for a particular region; the establishment of a new county militia; and the introduction of an extraordinary or decimation tax which was intended to provide the necessary funding for the militia troops. Unlike the monthly assessment for the support of the regular army the decimation tax was a discriminatory tax in the sense that it was specifically designed as a levy on royalists or suspected royalists. In the event, however, it proved to be one of the most short-lived of taxes. On Christmas day 1656 Major General John Desborough introduced a parliamentary bill for its continuation and in a first reading debate on 7 January declared that

I believe no man has come under a decimation but such as have either acted or spoken bitterly against the Government, and for their young king, and drank his health. Many have escaped that have done such things. I hope they shall come under decimation I think it is too light a tax, a decimation; I would have it higher.

Introduction 151

The Oxford and Temple Account 154

The Newdigates and the education of the gentleman 156

Editorial Practice 160

Part I: Oxford 161

Part II: Inner Temple 217

The Oxford and Temple Book is one of a series of account books kept for and by the Newdigates of Arbury Hall, between Coventry and Nuneaton in Warwickshire, from 1608 to 1642, and now surviving among the family papers deposited at Warwickshire Record Office. All the accounts detail receipts from rents and farming, interest and borrowing, and expenditure on estate, household and personal items, but that kept between 1618 and 1621, printed here, also records the expenses of two brothers at university and the inns of court, of two family marriages and related settlements and of wardship and suing for livery of estates.

These Memorandums &c would have been put into the the [sic] fire, but after consideration I thought they might be useful to any one who should Edit the Memoir, as they contain parts of political matters alluded to in other places, and shew the views which I and others took of them. They are preserved only for this purpose. When they have been used in this way they should be destroyed.