Preface

Preface

The circumstances which have delayed the issue of the present volume, the Text and Index of which were prepared before the outbreak of war in 1939, have given the Department an opportunity to review its policy and methods of publication. It has long been evident that, as the quantity of the State Papers, Foreign, increases towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth, progress with the Calendar in its present form, measured by the years covered, must be very slow indeed. Moreover, the swollen costs of printing have now made it urgently necessary to find some method of publication which will more economically satisfy the reasonable needs of Scholars. Accordingly, after discussions within the Department and with the Deputy Keeper's Consultative Committee on Publication, it has been decided to terminate the Calendar series with the present volume and to continue the publication of the Papers in a series of Descriptive Lists. In these the Documents will be described in chronological order and a brief but sufficient account will be given of the subject-matter of each; the entries will be numbered consecutively through each volume and each volume will have an Index or Indexes to the Subjects and to the names of all Persons and Places occurring in the Documents, even when these are not mentioned in the printed version. The object is to indicate in as condensed a form as possible all the information contained in each Paper: the entries will be sufficiently minute to satisfy the Reader that he has before him a full and comprehensive guide to the subject matter of the originals, and he will therefore be able to select the Documents likely to be relevant to his enquiry without the necessity of examining each original. Even if he cannot visit the Record Office himself to see his selected Documents he will thus be enabled to ask for photographic or other copies with economy.

July, 1949

HILARY JENKINSON