The work of J. Murstfield and H. E. Sell hns directed the attention of historians to the importance of the English court of wards and liveries, both as an instrument of fiscal policy and as a welfare organisation for the children and widows of the king's tenants. In the Public Record Office, Lonclon, a great mass of material remains to throw light on every aspect of the court's activity. More recently Dr H. F. Kearney has published a uselul and suggestive paper on the Irish court of wards which was principally concerned with the reign of Charles I. A more detailed appraisal of the earlier period is not easy since the records of the Irish court of wards have, like those of other departments of state, suffered wholesale loss or destruction. It seems unlikely that the wards papers were ever placed in public archives: they apparently never reached the old Public Record Office in Dublin to be consumed in the holocaust of 1922. Consequently, the student has to work from public and private papers scattered throughout these islands in libraries, record ofices and private collections.