Add MS 72242-72333

1. Special correspondence.

TRUMBULL PAPERS. Vols. I-XCII. William Trumbull: Letters and diplomatic despatches, etc., arranged alphabetically by writer; 1605-1635. Partly Latin, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. Partly copies. The bulk of the material consists of letters of foreign and domestic intelligence sent to Trumbull by his principal correspondents during the period that he served as agent at Brussels, interspersed with a few copies of his replies. Some of the letters are copied in the hands of secretaries and signed by the writers. The eighty-five writers include English diplomatic representatives, agents and merchants living on the continent, along with French, Dutch and German diplomats. Prominent amongst them is a group active in the service of Frederick V, Elector Palatine (Add. 72282, 72287, 72292, 72301, 72302, 72307-72309, 72316-72319, 72326). Occasional letters, surviving partly as enclosures, of writers whose names are not listed in the main sequence are also incorporated here. Writers of letters subscribed only with pseudonyms, along with those of various unsigned enclosures and copies, are identified from Trumbull's dockets. The overall arrangement, which is roughly alphabetical by writers' surnames or titles, follows with a single exception (see Add. 72283-72285) that of the forty-nine volumes of the former Alphabetical Series. Although some volumes have had to be divided for conservation purposes, so much of the material has appeared in published form that the internal order has been left as it stood. Some stray letters that escaped from the series in the former arrangement, along with most of the original enclosures, are now included among the General Correspondence in section 2 below, and in Add. 72425. Material dating from the period between 1605 and 1618 is largely calendared by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, op. cit., vols. II-VI, while a few were printed in Edmund Sawyer's Memorials of Affairs of State, vol. II (1725). For Trumbull's despatches to some of the Secretaries of State represented here see the Minutes of Letters in section (3) below. Formerly Alphab. Series I-XLIX.

Ninety-two volumes, alphabetically arranged, as follows: