Add MS 72242-72425

A. PAPERS OF WILLIAM TRUMBULL.

TRUMBULL PAPERS. Vols. I-CLXXXIV. Correspondence and papers of William Trumbull, the diplomat; 1509-circa [?1640], n.d. Partly copies. Partly Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Dutch. The collection consists chiefly of official papers collected during the three main stages of his career, first as secretary, circa 1599-1609, to Sir Thomas Edmondes, English Ambassador to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella; then as English Agent and later (1619) Resident in Brussels, 1609-1625; and lastly as one of the Clerks of the Privy Council and Muster Master General, 1615-1635. It also incorporates a quantity of personal correspondence and papers. Trumbull himself endorsed the incoming letters with dates and names of writers and arranged the minutes of his own letters to the Secretaries of State in chronological order. About 1829 the third Marquess of Downshire had the bulk of the archive arranged and bound up in volumes, as follows: (1) the Alphabetical Series, comprising letters from the principal correspondents arranged alphabetically by writer in forty-nine volumes, 1605-1631; (2) the Miscellaneous Series, comprising general correspondence and papers disposed more or less chronologically in nineteen volumes, 1571-1632, with further material, 1600-1635, distributed in twelve volumes numbered as Misc. XXXIV-XL, XLIV, XLVII, L, LV and LX; and (3) the Minutes of Letters written by Trumbull to successive Secretaries of State in five volumes, 1609-1625. Material surviving from the period 1605-1618 was largely calendared in the Historical Manuscripts Commission's 75th Report, Downshire Manuscripts, vols. II-VI, 1936-1995. While it has proved impractical to preserve the earlier arrangement intact in all respects, (1) and (3) have been retained largely as they stood (Add. 72242-72333 and 72374-72386), although in the interests of conservation the volumes have been split into smaller units. The former volumes I-XVIII of (2) have been preserved in general outline (Add. 72334-72373) despite frequent internal adjustments to chronology and the incorporation of documents extracted from volumes XXXIV-XL. A few items (see Add. 72390, 72416-72422 passim) have been exported to the later portion of the archive, which consists largely of material from the heterogeneous bundles of papers formerly known as 'Trumbull Additional MSS'. These escaped inclusion in the earlier arrangement and remained largely uncalendared by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, although a typewritten list was compiled at the Berkshire Record Office. They now form the bulk of the supplementary diplomatic, foreign and domestic papers (Add. 72387-72425). Also incorporated here are some documents formerly in the Downshire estate records, which were designated D/ED and D/ED Misc. in the Berkshire list. Seven further items are numbered as Add. Charters 76959-76965. For the most part locations within the earlier arrangements are retrievable from the numbers pencilled on the individual documents.

One hundred and eighty-four volumes, arranged as follows:

1. Special correspondence.

2. General correspondence and papers.

3. Minutes of letters to Secretaries of State.

4. Supplementary diplomatic papers and tracts.

5. Supplementary foreign papers and tracts.

6. Supplementary domestic papers and tracts.

7. Supplementary Privy Council papers.

8. Supplementary family correspondence and personal papers.