CROWN SERVANTS: SERIES TWO

The Papers of The Wynns of Gwydir, 1515-1690 and the Clenennau Letters and Papers, 1584-1698 from the National Library of Wales

Related Project: Crown Servants, Series One: The Papers of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1593-1641)

The papers of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, from the archives of Sheffield City Libraries consist of some 2800 holograph letters, mainly addressed to Strafford himself, and a number of letter books in which copies were kept of his own correspondence, along with 16 volumes of manuscript material.  For all scholars and researchers studying the origins of the English Civil War, the crisis between Crown and Parliament in early Stuart Britain, and the nature of Government and Society in the seventeenth century, this collection provides an ideal starting point.

An impressive hoard of royal letters from Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, immaculately preserved letterbooks of correspondence with Charles I, Cottington, Weston, Archbishop Laud and the Royal Secretaries Sir John Coke and Sir Francis Windebank, 45 Guard-books of correspondence, and significant papers on Strafford’s trial and execution in 1641, provide a wealth of evidence on the tumultuous confrontation between King and Parliament leading up to the English Civil War.  Strafford’s role as President of the Council of the North, Privy Councillor, Lord Deputy and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Scottish and Irish affairs; Puritanism; Arminianism, Archbishop Laud and the policy of "Thorough"; financial expedients and the years of "Personal Rule", 1629-1640, are all well documented.  Early papers in the collection allow a comparison between Wentworth’s role at the forefront of the parliamentary ‘opposition’, 1625-1628, and his service after 1628 as chief adviser to Charles I.

<back