Add MS 72426-72440

B. PAPERS OF GEORG RUDOLPH WECKHERLIN.

TRUMBULL PAPERS. Vols. CLXXXV-CXCIX. Correspondence and papers of Georg Rudolph Weckherlin; 1556-1652. Partly drafts and copies in Weckherlin's hand. Partly Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Arabic. Weckherlin (1584-1653), the son of a Lutheran official at the ducal court of Würtemberg, was working as a diplomat when he met and in 1616 married his English wife, Elizabeth Raworth (d. 1645). In 1622, following the conversion of the then Duke to Catholicism, he transferred his allegiance to the Elector Palatine. He first entered the public service in England in 1625, serving in various capacities until Nov. 1652. These papers, which constitute a section of the Trumbull archive wholly uncalendared by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, divide into two main sections. The first incorporates official papers of Weckherlin from 1625 to 1643, during which period he served in succession all the Secretaries of State from Sir Edward Conway to Sir Henry Vane. As Latin Secretary to Charles I he was responsible both for the King's diplomatic correspondence with European heads of state and his dealings with English ambassadors (Add. 72426-72433). His diary of official business covers the years 1633-1642 (Add. 72433). The second section begins with the outbreak of civil war, when he took sides with the Parliament and gained employment as Secretary for the Foreign Tongues to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, 1644-1649. From this period derives some diplomatic correspondence with English representatives in France, Holland and Denmark (Add. 72434-72436), together with other parliamentarian and confiscated royalist papers (Add. 72437, 72438). In 1652 he was briefly recalled from retirement to assist his successor John Milton. The remainder of his papers consists of personal and family correspondence, etc. (Add. 72439, 72440), and includes documents relating to his work as licenser for the press. Finally, in addition to composing and collecting occasional verse in English Weckherlin was a published poet in the German baroque tradition (see Add. 72439): his collected Gedichte were edited by Hermann Fischer in Bibliothek des Literarischen Vereins zu Stuttgart, nos. 199, 200, 205, Tübingen (1894-1907). For a discussion of his life and work see L. W. Forster, Georg Rudolph Weckherlin. Zur Kenntnis seines Lebens in England (Basel, 1944), which includes (pp. 131-133) a summary description of the present papers and prints some of his letters. The same writer's 'Sources for G. R. Weckherlin's life in England: the correspondence', Modern Languages Review, vol. XLI (1946), pp. 186-195, lists letters, many now in the present collection, that Weckherlin wrote to members of his family. In the former arrangement his papers were distributed rather randomly throughout the Trumbull archive, and consequently the precise line of demarcation between them and those of the elder and younger William Trumbull is no longer always clear. This is the case, for example, with the Miscellaneous Tracts (Add. 72452-72480 below). Nevertheless the location of individual documents within the earlier arrangement is largely recoverable from the numbers pencilled on them. From Misc. III, XVI-XXII, XXXV, XXXVII-XLV, XLII, XLVII-XLIX and LVI, LXI, D/ED Misc., Misc. D/ED/C36 and Add. 2, 7, 13-18, 20, 31, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 60.

Fifteen volumes, arranged as follows:

1. Correspondence and papers as Latin Secretary to Charles I.

2. Correspondence and papers as Foreign Secretary to the Committee of Both Kingdoms.

3. Miscellaneous official, personal and family papers.