It is with no little diffidence that, in giving my first presidential address, I follow in the steps of so many distinguished predecessors—men notable in various walks of life—historians, statesmen, administrators, diplomatists. The Royal Historical Society has had the good fortune to be presided over by such men as George Grote, Lord John Russell, Lord Aberdare, and Sir M. E. Grant Duff. My immediate predecessor in this chair, Dr. Ward, whom we so unwillingly released from his presidency to fill a larger sphere of usefulness as Master of Peterhouse and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, is known to most of us here as the author of an admirable history of the English drama, the biographer of Chaucer and Wotton, the translator of Curtius's ‘History of Greece,’ and a distinguished writer on various epochs of German history. We have all of us admired the combined courtesy, dignity, and learning with which he discharged the duties of President during his too short tenure of the office but probably only Members of the Council are fully aware of the energy and enthusiasm which he threw into the task of directing the efforts of the Society. To him is chiefly due the successful initiation of a movement for the promotion of advanced historical study in this great but ill-provided capital, which has issued in the establishment, I am glad to say, of two lectureships in the higher branches of historical learning. We parted from him, as I have said, most reluctantly, but we feel confident that the qualities which so fully justified our choice here will insure him full success in the position which he now holds—the practical headship of one of our two great and ancient Universities.

The importance of Polydore Vergil's ‘History’ for the reign of Henry VII. is fully recognised by all students of that time. Dr. James Gairdner, without doubt our first English authority for the events of this period of our national history, considers that with the exception of the poetical story of Bernard André, from which we learn something, albeit very little, Vergil's work may be regarded as the only contemporary history of this reign. Dr. Wilhelm Busch also, in his excellent study of ‘England under the Tudors,’ speaks as strongly about our indebtedness to this cultured Italian ecclesiastic, and declares that ‘for elegance of language, easy narrative, firmness and independence of judgment [Polydore's work] far surpasses [that of] all the English historians of his day.’ Even for the reign of Henry VIII., although he is considered by some as ‘not so trustworthy, owing to his bias against Wolsey,’ his authority cannot be altogether set aside, since in the opinion of Mr. Brewer ‘no man was better informed on European politics’ at this time.

The Merchant Adventurers occupied a unique place in the history of England. Their life and activities were closely associated with the most varied phases of the national progress; their influence is seen not only in the municipal and domestic affairs of the realm, but also in many of its most important international relations. Through their branch organisations in the different towns of England the Adventurers were brought into close contact with local and municipal life; through their position as the great buyers and exporters of woollen cloth they came into immediate contact with English industrial development. For several centuries the Society enjoyed a virtual monopoly of the foreign trade in the English cloth manufacture. Its wealth and power became very great, and, as is to be expected, the Adventurers, both as individuals and as a corporate organisation, became potent factors in the field of national politics also—a fact seen most clearly in their participation in the restoration of financial credit in the sixteenth century, and the overthrow of the Stuarts in the seventeenth. In international affairs the Adventurers were connected at a very early date with the active intercourse between England and the Low Countries. Concerned solely with foreign commerce, and strongly supported by the Crown, they gradually secured for themselves the English commerce on the North Sea, and therefore necessarily became the agents and exponents of the successful commercial policy inaugurated by the Tudors. The Fellowship and its activities became the channel through which the mutual influence of England and the Continent in the industrial and commercial world was chiefly transmitted, and the history of the Adventurers strikingly illustrates those larger interests which England in her economic development shared with Europe.

The High or Principal Court of the Admiralty of England was erected probably about the beginning of the fifteenth century, and for half a century before this courts were held by the Admirals of the North, South, and West within their respective districts. But the business of these early Admiralty Courts was trifling, and they have left scarcely any records. There are upon the Patent Rolls and elsewhere a few meagre references to their proceedings, but these are of little interest, and need not delay us to-night. It was Henry VIII. who first raised the Court to something like the importance of the King's Courts at Westminster, and its records may be said to begin with his reign. But for many years they are scanty in bulk, and it is not until about the year 1550 that they begin to be of any general interest. From this date onwards they are very voluminous; and in order to give a general idea of their character as a whole it will be necessary for me to-night to deal with those of a limited period only. I select those which belong to the latter half of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century, because they are the earliest, and also because, this being the period of the Court's greatest activity, they are the most interesting. The history of England is to a great extent the history of her ships and seamen, and this is notably the case during the century with which I propose to deal.

The subject of the Stuart State Papers cannot be better introduced than by quoting the words of that excellent historian and admirable editor, Mr. John Bruce, words which, although written in reference to the reign of Charles I., are equally applicable to the years which preceded and followed it. The term State Papers, Mr. Bruce says, is a convenient general title, under which the papers may be easily and properly recognised—‘a title clearly applicable to them with reference to the place of their deposit, and generally so with reference to their actual character; but it is by no means put forth as a precise diplomatic description of every single document.’ For, ‘intermingled with sign manuals, proclamations, orders, and correspondence of the Council, letters of the Secretaries of State, of the Lord High Admiral, and of other important public functionaries—great and primary evidences of the acts of the King's Government—there occur papers, some entirely private’, which have ‘evidently found their way thither by the accidents to which in disturbed periods the papers of public men are subject. With some slight exceptions they are now all intermingled, and arranged chronologically in one great series. Together they form a collection of papers, public and private, general and individual, local and personal, which has not indeed the definiteness, or what may even be called the grandeur, of some of our great series of public records, but they constitute a collection which cannot be surpassed for facility of consultation, and one which … will be found to develope the facts of our national history in a way and to a degree altogether unexampled.’

The following paper is to be found in the Record Office, being No. 24 of the Star Chamber Proceedings of the time of Henry VII. It is not, however, a Star Chamber Proceeding in the accepted sense of the term. It forms no part of a litigation, neither is it a proceeding of the Statutory Court of the Star Chamber in virtue of its statutory or other jurisdiction. It probably found its way among the Star Chamber Proceedings proper by accident. It is evidently a fragment of depositions in a political case heard by the Privy Council. It may be that the Council, as was not unusual sat in the Star Chamber for convenience; or that a member of the Council, leaving the Council Chamber for the Star Chamber, took it with him and mixed it with his judicial papers. Possibly Robert Rydon, who acted both as clerk of the Council and of the Star Chamber, and who took these depositions, was the agent of the confusion. The depositions relate the movements of certain conspirators in a mysterious plot against Henry VII. the exact nature of which can only be guessed. In the year 1503, to which these events relate, the centre of political intrigue against the new dynasty was Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. His life is set out in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography,’ and it will only be necessary to recall here so much as will serve to elucidate the story. Edmund de la Pole was the second son of John de la Pole, second Duke of Suffolk, by Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and sister of Edward IV.

The social life of the inhabitants of England during the years of strife which brought about the destruction of the feudal nobility, gave to the middle class a new position in the State, and freed the serf from the shackles of bondage, has been for some time past a subject of peculiar interest to the student of English history. If we desire to gain an accurate knowledge of the social habits and customs prevalent during this period of political disturbance, we cannot do better than direct our attention towards that part of the country which was the least affected by the contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster, the eastern district of England, which since the days of King John had enjoyed a remarkable immunity from civil war. Here the powerful lords of the North and South found little support; the vast estates of the old feudal barons were broken up into numerous independent manors. Moreover the arts of peace, in the shape of the mysteries of trade, manufactures, and commerce, widely flourished among the inhabitants of these regions.