When the Parliament of 1621 convened, it had been seven years since the dissolution of the so-called ‘Addled Parliament’ of 1614, which had foundered on a fundamental disagreement between King James I and the House of Commons about the legality of impositions. The Parliament of 1621 faced more than unresolved domestic issues; it met under the shadow of the gravest international crisis of the early modern era. The defenestration of Prague in 1618 had marked the beginning of the Bohemian rebellion and the Thirty Years' War, and in the following summer James's son-in-law, Elector Palatine Friedrich V, accepted the Bohemian crown from the rebels, who had just deposed their Habsburg monarch, Ferdinand of Styria. Two days later Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor, and he was determined to retake the Bohemian dirone from the new Palatine occupant. In the autumn of 1620, the emperor's Spanish cousins aided his cause by dispatching a large portion of the Spanish Army of the Netherlands to invade the Lower Palatinate, Friedrich's rich patrimonial estates on the Rhine.

Post Karolum regnavit in Britania Caduanus. Post Caduanum Cadwallanus. Tempore vero Cadwallani fuit tanta caristia, tantæ pestilentiæ, et tanta fames invalescebat quod magnates mutuo se amplexantes submerserunt se in aquis. Cui dictum est in voce per angelum quod filius ejus expelleret seipsum de regno, et quod moriturus esset Romæ, et quod deberet numerari in decatalogo Sanctorum. Qui quidem rex quæsivit causam tanti mali in regno suo. Cui respondens Angelus dixit, Negligentia prelatorum; Rapina potentum; Cupiditas Judicum; detestanda Luxuria; Rabies perjuriorum; inordinatus Cultus Vestimentorum.

Auguste 13. UPON Satterdaie, beinge the 13. of Auguste, my lord,(2) havinge intelligence that those of Roan mente to give him a camisado in the nighte, in his army provided all things necessarie to welcome them, together with a determynation, that if they came not that nyghte, then the next morninge he would have surprysed some of them in some of their owne holds and fortresses nere adjoynynge; and for that purpose had caused all his owne cariage-horses and others of th'armye (which would have been above five or six score horses) to be in a-readiness to mownte his beste muskatiers upon. And being ordering of all those things, sir Roger Williams came from the kinge with letters.(3) Whereupon he resolved to goe the nexte mornynge to the kynge, with all his lawnces, and many other voluntarie gentlemen, with a commaundment that none should carrie baggage, but merely a shirte.

Chamberlain emerged from the government reshuffle which followed the ‘Coupon’ election as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In many respects the appointment appears unremarkable given his past experience and reputation. His first tenure of the office had been in October 1903 in the immediate aftermath of his father's departure from the Balfour Cabinet. Although only a few days from his fortieth birthday and widely regarded as a ‘hostage for Joe’, he soon proved himself to be a capable minister. During this period a future Permanent Secretary at the department ‘thought highly’ of him as a ‘hard worker and good official’. Walter Long went even further in contending that he was ‘without exception the best Chancellor of the Exchequer he ha[d] ever worked with’ After leading the opposition to Lloyd George's 1909 budget, even former detractors were obliged to concede that Chamberlain was ‘in the first rank as a debater and as a leader’ It was a measure of this stature that at the outbreak of war in 1914 Lloyd George had invited him to attend the Financial Conference assembled to tackle the initial emergency. On one occasion the Chancellor had even asked Chamberlain to preside while he attended a Cabinet meeting. Although Lloyd George later presented this unique occurrence as ‘a foretaste of the Coalition’, others rejoiced that Chamberlain was ‘practically acting as chancellor of the exchequer’ because Lloyd George, ‘who knows very little of finance, has completely lost his head’: a preference initially echoed within the Treasury itself.

The Goschens spent the first nine months of 1903 in Copenhagen, apart from a visit that Goschen himself paid to Gisselfeld in February. On 7 October Hosta Goschen left for Tentschach, where her husband joined her later in the month. On 25 November they left for England. Goschen returned to Copenhagen at the end of December.

The most important surviving documentation concerning the succession case arising from the death of Duke John III of Brittany in 1341 consists of the arguments put forward in the names of John de Montfort and Charles de Blois (on behalf of his wife Joan de Penthièvre), the two chief contenders for the ducal title, and the procès-verbal of the interrogation of witnesses brought to testify about these arguments. Montfort's case, presenting reasons why Philip VI of France should allow him to do homage for Brittany, can be found in two contemporary copies, first, Archives départementales de la Loire-Atlantique, Nantes, E 6, which is the chief text edited here, and secondly, Archives Nationales, Paris, J 241, no. 44. There is also an abridged Latin version of Montfort's case in another contemporary copy, Archives Nationales J 241, no. 44bis. The arguments of Blois can now be found only in a late sixteenth-century copy, probably made by the celebrated Breton jurist, Bertrand d'Argentré (1519–90). Similarly a transcript or precis of the interrogation can be found only in d'Argentré's notes and in those of the antiquarian and genealogist, André Duchesne (1584–1640), these two manuscripts being respectively Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français, nos. 18697 and 22338. Several copies exist of these documents, the chief amongst them being a copy of Archives Nationales J 241, no. 44 made following a commission issued in the Parlement of Paris on 15 January 1652 and now contained in Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. Nouvelles acquisitions françaises 7270, and another seventeenth-century copy of the same document, now British Museum, Additional Manuscript 30752.

1 Richard Whalley 22 July 1628 (2644, f. 275)

My honourable and most worthy lady sister The flyinge report of the death of your truly noble, perfectly religious and most well merittinge common wealth's husband, Sir Frances Barrington, rightly remembreth unto mee that godly and true sayinge of the prophet Isaiah, cap. 57,1: the righteous perisheth, and no man considereth it in heart, and mercifull men are taken away, and no man understandeth that the righteous is taken away from the evill to come.Give mee leave even thoroughly to grieve with yow, both for myselfe, the whole common wealth and my children's trust reposed in him; yet to rejoyce and to comfort my selfe with you for him by these words in the next vearse: peace shall come, they shall rest in their bedds, evryone that walketh before him,as most assuredly hee dooth; and therefore in great thanksgivinge say yow, with all that knew him, beatus est ille, qui mortuus est in domino, quia opera ejus sequuntur ilium.Hee lived in honour, dyed in peace, forewent God's heavy judgement - most like to befall us - and shall rise in glory eternall. Oh sister, rejoyce; good maddam rejoyce, rejoyce, even contrary to flesh and blood, rejoyce for his departure, show your humble thanckfullnes to almighty God that hath these many yeares yoke fellowed in your bosome one more then an angell: and for your selfe rejoyce that you have beene as a fruitfull vine unto your husband's house, and have received most plentifully children, the especiall blessinge about your table. And why? Because you both have lived in the feare of the lord; and therein dooe I holde myselfe happy that you please to vouchsafe the educacion of my poore daughter, your niece whom, good maddam, let continue with you, and God graunt her grace either to please you or never to accounte mee her father; and whom I likewise beseech you to bestow in marriage, and her porcion, I hope shall surely in convenient tyme bee provided with advantage. I have sent her by this bearer the third and last volume of Mr Parkins' workes which were her mother's, and further will remember her if I may understand her dutifull care to please you. But, good maddam, keepe her from overmuch liberty and fantasticke new fashions.