So far as historical studies are concerned the most interesting event of the past year has been the magnificent Historical Exhibition which was held in Glasgow. The promoters had in view, as their ultimate object, the establishment of a Chair of Scottish History in the University of Glasgow; and they have been successful in securing the nucleus of a sufficient endowment for this purpose. But the Exhibition itself was so admirably planned, and so successfully carried out, that it must have had an enormous effect in diffusing an interest in the records and the relics of the past. The large amount of space which was rightly devoted to ecclesiastical history was in itself a reminder of the importance of religion in the seventeenth century as a factor in the growth of Scottish nationality. Even more significant was the extraordinary collection of treasures that had been preserved in Scottish mansions, and of portraits which were now generously lent and carefully arranged for display to the public. It helps to bring out the importance of family history for a proper understanding of Scottish affairs. Just because the consolidation of Scottish nationality was so long in being attained, the struggles of the great families continued to furnish the leading motives and incidents in the drama of Scottish history.

The reign of Charles I opened with the celebration of the new king's marriage. Charles succeeded his father on March 27, 1625, and Henrietta Maria made her entry into London on June 16. A ballad entitled ‘Jack of Lent's Ballad’ celebrated the Queen's coming, and described by anticipation the pageants with which the citizens of London received her. In one place she was to be met by St. George with a welcome to St. Denis; in another Jonah was to appear out of the mouth of his whale and promise to supply her with fish on Fridays; elsewhere the Graces and the Fates were to hail her with appropriate remarks about her beauty and her good fortune. Besides these there was to be a figure symbolising the political significance of the marriage. At the Exchange, beside the three Fates,

‘Spain's Infanta shall stand by Wringing her hands, and thus shall cry, “I do repent too late.”’

But little is yet known of the vast mass of documents bearing upon nineteenth-century history which are to be found in the archives of Europe; and historians have been tempted to take refuge in the thought that, after all, these papers contain little that is really of great value. How far that is true for any period of the nineteenth century may, I think, be doubted; but for the period during which Castlereagh held office, it can, surely, be urged that the unpublished documents in the Record Office are of real importance. Singularly, little attention has been paid by English historians to this period of history, and but little use has as yet been made of unpublished material. It is true that the collections of papers in the Londonderry correspondence and the Wellington Supplementary Dispatches contain a vast amount of information; but, valuable as this is, it is only a small fragment of the whole, and much of it can only be interpreted by the aid of other evidence. What has already been done in this way has thrown much new light on the character and achievements of Castlereagh. Fyffe was able to appreciate his career and his connexion with the congress system with much more justice, because he had seen some of the documents of the years 1814–15; and Mr. Alison Phillipps' monographs in the ‘Cambridge Modern History’ have already destroyed many of the fictions which had masqueraded as facts during the century. But as yet no detailed study of this period, based upon the archives, has appeared. Castlereagh's career has attracted but little attention and sympathy. There is no detailed account in English of the congress of Vienna, still less of the later congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle, Troppau, and Laibach. Yet, even if it be not admitted that Castlereagh was himself a great statesman, the circumstances of his life make the policy of England during his period of office well worthy of particular attention. From 1814 to 1822 England was connected with the Continent by ties far stronger than any which have bound her before or since. Not merely was she bound by treaties of exceptional character, but her leading statesman had exceptional personal relations with those of the other powers during a period which has never been surpassed in the invention of new methods of diplomacy, and the solution of difficult problems of immense importance. In these questions Castlereagh took a leading, at times a dominant, part. He was the creator of the great treaty which made it certain that Napoleon would no longer rule over France; he was the decisive factor at the Congress of Vienna, for it was he alone who made England take so commanding a position in the critical questions of Poland and Saxony; and he had perhaps a greater share than any other statesman in securing that period of comparative peace for Europe which was the first necessity of its future progress.

Until the thirteenth century records touching the parish clergy are scanty, but thereafter they increase in bulk and, with the fourteenth century, there exist, side by side, a number of literary works which afford more than a passing glance at their lives and deeds. The parish priests and clerks of these centuries were not perhaps typical of the mediaeval period, since no century or centuries will afford a type of any class or institution which will be true for the whole of the Middle Ages; and it is possible that the tenthcentury parish and its people resembled the parish and people of the fourteenth century as little—or as much—as the Elizabethan parish resembled the parish of the present day. The changes that affected so profoundly the organisation of the manor during the course of the Middle Ages did not leave its counterpart, the parish, unaltered; and the same economic forces that helped to make the villein a copyholder and serfdom an anachronism, helped also to raise the chaplain's wages from five to eight marks within thirty years of the Black Death. But although the

In Vol. XL of the ‘Camden Miscellany,’ published by this Society, there appears the text of the charter granted, to the city of Salisbury in the year 1656, under circumstances which are described by the late Dr. S. R. Gardiner in his ‘History of the Protectorate,’ as well as by the Director of the Society, on whom devolved the task of editing the transcript which had been made for Dr. Gardiner from the city muniments.

Very little is known about the early history of English mercantile venture into the far Eastland. Although some ambitious traders from this island steered their course through the Sound in the fourteenth century, or earlier, and in the fifteenth century seem to have aspired to some degree of common action, it remains true that, previous to the foundation of the Eastland Company in 1579, there was no important body of English merchants organised to trade in the Baltic.

What I propose to put before the Society is a study in English diplomatic, that is, in the Science of Diplomatic under the form which I conceive it may take when applied to English Records. Opinion is so vague upon many points connected with this Science—such for instance as whether it is an unchanging series of rules, or merely a method of looking at historical sources which varies with the subject to which it is applied; whether it is applicable to documents of all periods and countries; whether it is an essential preliminary or only an interesting supplement to historical research upon documents—Diplomatic is, in fact, still so unreal a thing to many of the mass of students who now use documents for their work that it may be a little profitable to give, not indeed an exposition of its principles, but a slight view of its practical working upon an easily comprehended group of documents. If it can be made to appear that an ordered survey thus taken is a useful, even essential, preliminary to practical search in documents after any class of information, the fact that the documents here used are much later in date than those which usually form the subject of this science, will only make stronger the plea for its serious consideration by historical students. Though the mistakes caused by neglect of any introductory study of the inner side of the documents used may be more glaring (as indeed they are very glaring) in the case of the medieval than in that of the modern classes; though the latter are more comprehensible as being less removed, by reason of their dates, from our habits of thought and action; yet I hope it may appear that the difference in the character of English Records of all manner of dates is much less than it is usually believed.

The Council of the Royal Historical Society present the subjoined Annual Report to the General Meeting of the Fellows.

The public events of the year mainly covered by the last Session, of impressive significance and far-reaching importance in the history of the British Empire, are beyond the scope of the Report. A future generation of Fellows will be able to consider their true historical importance, seen in their due proportions when experience has shown their outcome. The courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's enabled some representatives of the Society to take part in the Thanksgiving Service in St. Paul's attended by King George and Queen Mary after the Coronation.