I Was reading the other day an essay by Sainte-Beuve in which he criticises the quality of the addresses delivered to the French Academy seventy years ago. ‘Too often,’ he says, ‘members send us dry notices, long shapeless biographies, stuffed with dates and quotations. I respect research, but not research that calls attention to itself. In these days the document dominates everything, and crushes down amenity and talent.’

I Am going to talk to you about a period of Dutch history which is very little known in England, and as in the eighteenth century Holland had hardly any contribution of her own to make to European history, it is not likely ever to become very popular. Yet, apart from the fact that even a process of decay may be an interesting object of study, it took statesmen both in Holland and outside a considerable time to realise that the great days of the Republic were over for good. Their finding out was a matter of importance from the point of view of the European, and particularly of the English, historian, and this will properly be the subject of my paper.

In searching through the Bodleian last April for debates in the House of Commons during the period of the sixteentwenties, I came across a volume of debates in the House of Lords. My attention was attracted by the subject-matter, for the volume was taken up almost entirely with the Lords' discussion of the Petition of Right during the month of May, 1628. The more I read, the more I was impressed with the amount of information on that important subject added by these notes. From the handwriting, the notes were easily identified as those of Henry Elsing, Clerk of the Parliaments. Then I remembered that earlier in the winter, in going over manuscript material in the Petyt Collection, I had there noted two volumes of debates in the House of Lords. Upon a comparison of handwriting, I found that those volumes were also the work of Henry Elsing. One of the volumes was for 1621, but the other covered the session of 1628 from the beginning to the point where the Bodleian volume begins. Here was more material on the Petition of Right. But for the time being my interest swerved from that particular subject to a more general consideration of the value of my discoveries, and to the possibility it opened up of carrying on a work of editing begun by Samuel Rawson Gardiner.

For the financial administration under Henry I we have no such detailed information as is given for the reign of his grandson by the Dialogus de Scaccario. When Richard Fitz Neel composed that famous dialogue, which was completed before April, 1179, the head of the financial administration was the Treasurer, who was assisted by two Chamberlains. This arrangement was already in existence before the death of Henry I, although the Treasurer seems to have been a somewhat recent addition to the staff of the Treasury, which had previously been managed by the Chamberlains; whose title was a survival from the earlier period when the royal treasure was kept in the royal bed-chamber, and the king's chamberlain acted as treasurer ex-officio. If we can trust an anonymous poem of the thirteenth century, this primitive arrangement still existed in England under the Confessor, at least so far as the funds for the expenses of the Royal Household were concerned; indeed, Professor Tout is doubtful whether any royal treasury or treasurer, except the Chamber and the Chamberlain, existed in England before the Conquest.

The history of coal-mining in the seventeenth century covers what may be termed the first chapter in the great story of English coal. In less than a century a seemingly insignificant and experimental industry developed into one of considerable importance. Coal had been used locally before this period; but an industry, as such, did not arise till a decline in the country's supply of wood stimulated new activities. It is possible that the introduction of coal might have been indefinitely postponed, had not years of ruthless felling of timber and neglect of forest lands, coincident with an increasing demand for wood for other than domestic purposes, caused a shortage of fuel. To the Elizabethan the decay of woods had an even wider significance. The demands of the Navy, the extension of the Empire and the discovery of new countries all laid a claim on timber. Its preservation became a matter of national concern. That the individual consumer should have possessed this degree of circumspection, and acted accordingly, was hardly to be expected; but the national needs were brought home to him through an increase in the price of wood. The use of coal became a matter of necessity rather than of choice.

The reputation won by Devonshire ports and seamen under Elizabeth has tended to obscure their growth and achievements in the later Middle Ages when a solid foundation of maritime enterprise was laid. A study of this growth gains interest from the characteristic differences of north and south and from marks of individuality such as the steep and rocky entrance to Dartmouth, the treacherous and sand-barred estuary of the Exe, the steeply shelving beaches where quays are even now unnecessary, and the marshy valleys which sometimes form their background.

To all who are well versed in the current accounts of the dissolution of the English monasteries it will at once be evident that the date 1532 does not fall within any of the familiar stages of that revolution. It is usually said to have been begun by Wolsey, who obtained in 1524 and 1528 papal authority to suppress some houses, with the assent of the king and their other founders, and endow his two new colleges with their property. Towards the end of 1528 Henry himself extorted from the Pope a similar bull for the benefit of the royal foundations of Eton and King's College; and afterwards, at his request, others were issued (the last being dated 31 August 1529) authorising the cardinal to unite very small convents with larger ones, and to establish new cathedrals endowed with monastic lands. The fall of Wolsey and the meeting of the Reformation Parliament ended this stage, during which some thirty insignificant houses had been suppressed. The next familiar episode occurred in 1534: the extinction of the Order of Observant Franciscans in England. But meanwhile, as modern historians have failed to note, the very important house of Austin canons at Aldgate, Holy Trinity or Christchurch (the names were interchangeable) had fallen: the first monastery dissolved by the king, with no shadow of authorisation from the Pope.

“ Experiments in Exchequer Procedure ” may suggest a series of unimportant financial developments, with only a remote interest for students of medieval history, and of no value to anyone else. But finance lies at the bottom of most medieval, as well as of most modern, historical problems: the complaints of the barons in 1215 are chiefly financial in origin, while the struggle over the Charters is the central point round which our enquiry is built. Moreover, in these years changes took place in exchequer procedure which laid the foundations for the new structure which gradually superseded the old in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—a structure different from its predecessor, though the old forms were maintained, a not uncommon feature in English administrative history.

From the earliest times and for many centuries the year of account in the Exchequer ended at Michaelmas. The great roll of the Exchequer, or Pipe Roll, was made up to that period and until the fourteenth century bore the date of the regnal year in which Michaelmas fell. Thus the roll which was composed of the accounts for the twelve months ending at Michaelmas 1189 covered the concluding part of the thirty-fourth year of Henry II's reign, the uncompleted thirty-fifth year, the interregnum between Henry's death and Richard's coronation, and less than a month of the first year of Richard's reign: yet the roll is dated I Richard I. This rule has been frequently expounded, but it is necessary to restate it since mistakes are constantly made, and even within the last few years a useful little handbook for students of history has been published which is, in this regard, certainly at fault.