My thanks are due to Mr Maurice Cowling, who suggested this edition, and has cast a helpful editorial eye over it (without, of course, incurring any responsibility for its blemishes); to the Marquis of Salisbury, who has very kindly allowed me to quote from the Salisbury Papers at Christ Church, Oxford; to the librarian of Christ Church, Dr J. F. A. Mason, who most courteously aided my work there; to Messrs Hodder and Stoughton, for permission to quote from Lady Gwendolen Cecil's life of her father; and not least to my wife, who has patiently borne with my unreasonable working habits.

A few words are necessary about the editing of the articles. Each is prefaced by an introductory note, designed to supply the essential background. Otherwise, annotation has been kept to a minimum, in the belief that a heavy apparatus of footnotes would be more of an impediment than an aid to the articles' use. An outline historical knowledge has been assumed in the reader, and therefore of the very large number of events, persons, and pronouncements, historical and contemporary, to which Salisbury alludes, only those not figuring prominently in general history receive notes. In the introductory note and footnotes to each article, Lord Salisbury is given the title by which he was known when the article was written (i.e. Lord Robert Cecil to 1865, Viscount Cranborne from 1865 to 1868, and Lord Salisbury thereafter).