State Papers Online, 1509-1714 ('SPO') offers a completely novel working environment to researchers, teachers and students of Early Modern Britain. Whether they are used for original research, for teaching, or for student project work, State Papers Online offers original historical materials across the widest range of government concern, from high level international politics and diplomacy to the charges against a steward for poisoning a dozen or more people. The correspondence, reports, memoranda, and parliamentary drafts from ambassadors, civil servants and provincial administrators, present a full picture of Tudor and Stuart Britain.

This major resource overcomes the fragmented experience of much historical research by re-uniting the Domestic, Foreign, Borders, Scotland, and Ireland State Papers of Britain with the Registers of the Privy Council and other State Papers now housed in the Cotton, Harley and Lansdowne collections in the British Library.

The Calendars are fully searchable, and each Calendar entry has been linked directly to its related State Paper. With these links, the difficulty of locating individual manuscripts has been substantially overcome. Among the Calendars included here are the HMC Calendars and the Haynes/Murdin transcriptions of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House.

The British State Papers in this online edition are predominately papers of the Secretaries of State in the 200 years up to the early years of the eighteenth century. These papers and those of other ministers were intended to be delivered on death or resignation to the Keeper of State Papers, but they were frequently retained. A mass of papers appears to have been kept by the secretaries of Lord Burghley, now preserved in the library of Hatfield House and in the Lansdowne Collection at the British Library.

Other extensive collections of scattered papers were made by Sir Robert Cotton and by Robert Harley in the seventeenth century, which are now also in the British Library, and are included in SPO. There are other stray state papers to be found in university libraries, private collections and in the Lambeth Palace Library, which, while not within the scope of this online publication, may be considered for inclusion at a later date.

The King's Secretary (who was at first styled the King's Clerk, then Secretary, afterwards Principal Secretary, and who was probably first called Secretary of State in the time of Elizabeth I) was increasingly employed to execute much of the business formerly pertaining to the Chancellor. In the reign of Henry VIII the King's Principal Secretary had become a person of such great importance that his rank and precedence were determined by statute, and the business and correspondence of his office increased so much as to require in the same reign a Second Principal Secretary.

Both domestic and foreign affairs were the joint responsibility of the principal secretaries. (For further details on the State Papers and the Calendars see [hotlink] the essays by Drs Bevan, Alford and Knighton.)

The Calendars are chronological catalogues prepared during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which, until recent times, have only been available in print editions. They provide abstracts or summaries of the documents and, despite huge variations in detail and consistency, are an invaluable basis for research on the documents.

All the Calendars are fully searchable, the page or Calendar entry references in the indexes are hyperlinked to the Calendar entries, and each Calendar entry is hyperlinked to its related manuscript document. The user is now able to identify a reference in a Calendar index, from a search or browse, and link directly to the Calendar Entry and from there to the manuscript document. The scholarship in the Calendar indexes is made accessible and given a central role in SPO.

Users may -

• choose to start with the series of essays by leading historians on key themes covered by the materials. Each essay has hyperlinks to the State Papers mentioned and provides an instructive way into study of the Papers themselves
• look at Calendar entries and manuscript documents side by side
• compare two manuscript documents or two Calendar Entries side by side
• use a notepad for transcribing or making notes
• create a Personal Archive in which to save Calendar entries, notes and links to manuscript documents from session to session
• use such research tools as lists of abbreviations, glossary, chronology, details of dates, weights and measures, as well as holders of the main offices of government

State Papers Online includes links to related online sites to provide a complete research environment:

• online palaeography courses
• online Latin courses
• Biographical dictionary
• other sites of related primary sources
• online printed book texts
• catalogues and bibliographies
• maps and place name sites
• key portrait collections

State Papers Online is being published in four Parts which will ultimately form one seamless research resource covering two hundred years of British and European history.

Part I: The Tudors, 1509-1603: State Papers Domestic
The National Archives of the UK: SP 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15
British Library: Lansdowne Collection's Burghley Papers
HMC Calendars and Haynes/Murdin transcriptions of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House

Part II: The Tudors, 1509-1603: State Papers Foreign, Scotland, Borders, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
The National Archives of the UK: SP 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, PC 2
British Library: Selected Cotton, Harley and Yelverton Papers

Part III: The Stuarts and Commonwealth, James I - Anne I, 1603-1714: State Papers Domestic
The National Archives of the UK: SP 8, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34


Part IV: The Stuarts and Commonwealth, James I - Anne I, 1603-1714: State Papers Foreign, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
The National Archives of the UK: SP 46, 47, 57, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 71, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, PC 2

Dr Paul Ayris, University College London
Dr Amanda Bevan, The National Archives of the UK
Dr John Cooper, University of York
Professor Tom Cogswell, University of California, Riverside
Dr Richard Cust, University of Birmingham
Professor Norman Jones, Utah State University
Professor John Miller, Queen Mary University of London
Professor John Morrill, University of Cambridge
Dr Neil Younger, University of Birmingham

General Editors:
Parts I & II: Dr Stephen Alford, University of Cambridge
Parts III & IV: Professor John Miller, Queen Mary, University of London

Gale/Cengage Learning acknowledges the assistance given by the following in the creation of this publication:
The members of the Advisory Board, Dr Simon Adams, Hugh Alexander, Dr Stephen Alford, Dr Steven Gunn, Miss Melanie L. Harrington, Professor Richard Hoyle, Mrs Caroline Kimbell, Dr C. S. Knighton, Mr Aidan Lawes, Mr Ben White, Dr Andrew Zurcher and the Irish Manuscript Commission.

Copyright:
Images of documents from the holdings of The National Archives of the UK contained within this collection are © The National Archives. TNA has granted permission for their reproduction in this digital edition. No unauthorised reproduction is allowed.

Images of manuscript documents from the British Library are © The British Library Board. All rights reserved. Licence no. PL07293.

The compilation of the Papers and Calendars in State Papers Online 1509-1714 is the copyright of Gale/Cengage Learning. The terms of use are set out in the User Agreement.