The Crown and Its Records

Archives, Access, and the Ancient Constitution in Seventeenth-Century England

Isabel B. Taylor

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9783110791266
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110791464
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

No detailed description available for "The Crown and Its Records".

Table of contents

• Foreword and Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction, focus, sources and method
• Part One: The Institutional Background
• 1 English archives: The beginnings
• 2 Records mismanagement
• 3 Preservation, misplacing, destruction, and embezzlement
• 4 Specific record-keeping situations: Provincial and legal records
• 5 Arrangement and description: Inventories, calendars, and records editions
• 6 Attempts at reforming government records before 1640
• 7 The records in the Revolutionary era
• 8 The Restoration and afterwards
• 9 An ironic counterpoint: Sir Robert Cotton’s ‘private library’
• Part Two: English Archives and the Seventeenth-Century Constitutional Controversies
• 10 Archives’ role in the constitutional debates, and the Whig theory of history
• 11 The English legal system in the seventeenth century and the permissions regime for the public records
• 12 The foundation of the seventeenth century: History, Reformation and the ‘Ancient Church’
• 13 History-writing, treason, and censorship
• 14 The Society of Antiquaries, primary source research, and the Ancient Constitution
• 15 Sir Edward Coke, Magna Carta, and records seizures
• 16 Parliamentary research orders
• 17 Sir Robert Cotton as archival research assistant to government and Parliament
• 18 John Selden: Archival research, legal history, and constitutional activism
• 19 William Prynne and the counter-revolution in the records editions
• 20 Epilogue to Part Two: The Civil War, the Tower records clerks, and espionage
• Part Three: Secrecy and Access at the State Paper Office
• 21 Thomas Wilson’s appointment as Keeper: The political background
• 22 The establishment of the State Paper Office
• 23 Francis Bacon, George Villiers, and records classification
• 24 Practical problems at the State Paper Office: Records storage, Jacobean court intrigues, and money matters
• 25 The political uses of history and the Crown’s records
• 26 Records accessioning and power politics during Wilson’s tenure
• 27 Archives and intrigue: Wilson and the judicial persecution of Sir Walter Ralegh
• 28 The State Paper Office after Wilson
• 29 The Civil War and Interregnum
• 30 The Restoration, records seizures from Revolutionaries, and cataloguing
• 31 Official secrecy and research permissions
• 32 Use requests under James I
• 33 Use requests after the Restoration
• Conclusion: English archives and the wider European context
• Bibliography
• Biographical note
• Index of Persons