On this occasion, last year, when I first had the honour of addressing you from this chair, I deplored the loss of two of our leading historians—the Bishops of Oxford and London—both of whom were Fellows of our Society. Since that date two other great men, to whose illness I then referred, have been removed from us—Lord Acton and Dr. S. R. Gardiner. To my last year's address, as delivered, I ventured subsequently to add some remarks on these notable writers and men of learning, and will therefore on the present occasion do no more than remind you of their deaths, and express the hope that we may, to the best of our powers, follow their example and imitate their high endeavours in the cause of historical science.

The Premonstratensian Order was founded in the early part of the twelfth century by St. Norbert. This remarkable man was born at Xanten, in the duchy of Cleves, in 1080. His family were highly connected, his father being Count of Gennep, and his mother a cousin of the Emperor Henry IV The aspirations of Norbert's early years seemed to mark him out for an ecclesiastical career, and as quite a youth, in accordance with an abuse of Church patronage unfortunately too common in those days, he was presented with a canonry in his native city. At the earliest possible age he was ordained subdeacon; but, being attracted by natural disposition to the gaieties of the world, for a long time he hesitated to enter the higher grades of the sacred ministry and passed his time mostly at the court of his cousin the Emperor, to whom he acted as almoner. In the thirtieth year of his age, however, his thoughts were turned to the more serious side of life by a narrow escape from death by lightning. After a prolonged preparation he received the sacred orders of deacon and priest, and spent a considerable period of strict retirement in the abbey of Conon. As a result of his reflections he resigned his canonry and other preferments, and in 1118 embraced a life of complete poverty in order that he might the better devote his life to the work of preaching to the poor. He commenced his new mode of work by an unsuccessful attempt to induce his brethren, the canons of Xanten, to embrace a life more in accord with the regular observances, to which they were bound, at least theoretically, by their name of ‘canons.’

At the opening of the tenth century monasticism was at its lowest ebb in England. King Alfred's attempts to revive the regular life had failed; some of the monasteries were homes of married priests, many more were ruinous and deserted. When Edgar had come into his kingdom, and was able to fulfil the vow which he had made as a boy to restore the monasteries to their former splendour, the time was ripe for success. The land had recovered from the ravages of war, and ‘the three torches’ of the Church—Dunstan, Athelwold, and Oswald—were ready to guide him. However, the brief but brilliant revival was checked by national disaster. From the time of the renewed Danish invasions monastic life steadily languished.

In 1657 two small bodies of British troops stood opposed to each other in Flanders. One consisted of English, Irish, and Scottish royalists following the fortunes of Charles II., and serving with the Spanish army. The other was composed of 6,000 English soldiers raisedby the Protector to assist the French against the Spaniards, and to secure England a foot-holdon the Continent. The object of this paper is to show how the two forces were raised, of what regiments they consisted, and by what officers they were commanded. The history of the regiments composing these two little armies will be traced up to the Restoration, and it will be shown how the remains of the Cromwellian contingent and the remains of the royalist force were amalgamated to form the garrison which held Dunkirk for England from 1660 to 1662. Finally I shall endeavour to trace the fate which befell the different regiments of that garrison after Charles II, sold Dunkirk to the French.

The development of industry and commerce in Wales during the Middle Ages may be regarded from two points of view. On the one hand we are concerned with the gradual decay of the commerce carried on by the inhabitants of the western regions of tribal Britain, and on the other hand with the development of the national commerce of the modern Principality.

THE geographical position of Britain made her dependent upon the Mediterranean races—with their higher civilisation and more advanced mechanical processes—for the development of the natural resources of the island.

Her distance from the central marts of the world was counterbalanced in the dawn of her history by the excellence and cheapness of her tin and hides; and in the eleventh and later centuries by the primacy of her wools in all the textile work of Europe.

In the Domesday Survey villani, bordarii, cotarii, and servi included the great majority of the rural and also of the whole population. The intermixture of these classes created the apparently homogeneous mass of the villeins of the feudal age. No one has ever tried to work out for statistical purposes the rich store of information concerning the sub-division of these classes that is accumulated in the manorial records and in the State surveys of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But the best modern authorities convey the impression that villeins holding in villeinage were typical of the feudal village and formed the bulk of the rural population.