PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS AND WITH THE SANCTION OF LONDON: LONGMAN & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW; TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL: ALSO BY PARKER & CO., OXFORD; AND MACMILLAN & CO., CAMBRIDGE ; PREFACE. THE present volume of Calendar of State Papers contains the documents for ten months, from January to October 1651, being the closing portion of the year of the second Council of State, which ended on February 15th, 1651, and almost the whole of the third Council, which only sat from the 17th of February to the end of November 1651. The constituents of this latter Council differed considerably from those of the two first, Parliament having ordered that fifteen of the members should be fresh men. We miss from the third Council the Earl of Salisbury, Lords Denbigh, Fairfax, Howard, and Lisle, Colonels Hutchinson, Edmund Ludlow, Henry Martin, and Herbert Morley; Alderman Pennington, Alex. Popham, Walter Strickland, and several less prominent members. On the other hand, we have for the first time Major-Generals Harrison and Skippon, Sir Wm. Brereton, Bart., Sir John Bourchier, Sir John Trevor, Rob. Goodwin, Sir Thos. Widderington, serjeant-at-law, and Alderman Fras. Allein, and Nich. Love, both eminent financiers. The last four of these were frequently present. The tables of the attendances of Council for the time of their appointment, from February to November 1651, will be found at the end of this preface. The Council met 249 times, and the average attendance was 19.18, being a slight advance on the 18.3 of the second Council. The average attendance at Parliament during the same period was only 50.4, and almost all the 41 members of Council were also members of Parliament. |