The Yale Center for Parliamentary History (YCPH) was organized in 1966 by Professor J. H. Hexter to continue the work begun by Professor Wallace Notestein in the study of English Parliamentary History. Aside from the primary task of editing the proceedings in the House of Commons in 1628, the Center, at its inception, undertook to collect and make available to scholars all known accounts (published and unpublished) of the proceedings in the English parliaments from 1558 to 1660, and relevant materials relating to the M.P.s who sat in those parliaments.

The YCPH's collection of manuscript materials is composed principally of photographic reproductions: microfilms, photostats, and xeroxes. We are indebted to various English archival repositories for having permitted us to film these materials. There are, however, certain restrictions on their use. The Center has agreed with the archival institutions not to make copies of the photographic reproductions supplied to the YCPH. In accordance with the 1956 Copyright Act scholars must secure permission from the owners of the original manuscripts if they desire to publish in toto or to quote extensively from filmed manuscripts studied at the Center. The situation vis a vis transcripts is somewhat different. In some cases the Center has made transcripts of manuscripts in the course of its editorial work. These transcripts are the property of the YCPH and, with permission, may be quoted in scholarly works, cited as “Transcripts), YCPH.” Certain of these transcripts are also available on loan from the Center (postage and, if necessary, xerox costs to be assumed by the requester). In other cases scholars working elsewhere in the country in Tudor-Stuart history have generously deposited copies of their transcripts for use at the Center. Permission to quote from these transcripts deposited at the Center must be obtained from the individuals who made them.

For all the pride which it engendered among contemporaries, who saw in the Tudor fisheries a nursery for English seamen and even a hallmark for the national identity, the fishing industry in the sixteenth century has received scant attention from English historians. This neglect has been doubly unfortunate. On the one hand, it leaves us in general ignorance of the industry itself: its organization, personnel, productivity, and economic importance in both national and regional terms. On the other, it has denied us the opportunity to observe a tradition-bound industry of considerable antiquity as it faced the political, economic, and technological changes of the post-medieval era.

The format of an essay cannot reasonably encompass a detailed study of a major industry, but the selection of a particular case for study can at least present a helpful paradigm for the whole, and fill part of the void in the existing literature. The fishing industry of Great Yarmouth seems an appropriate choice. The fact that herring collected off the mouth of the River Yare each September for as far back as man can remember has made the association of Yarmouth and fishing as old as it is logical. Fishermen plied those grounds from at least the sixth century, making the town one of the earliest recorded fishing centres of Northern Europe, and well before the Conquest townsmen had dedicated their parish church to St. Nicholas, patron of fishermen. Throughout the Middle Ages Yarmouth stood alone as the chief supplier of herring, a dietary staple to the English market, and ranked near the top of the European fishing industry.

The main feature which distinguishes Scottish local government from English local government in the later eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century is the presence there of professional men—the sheriffs. The sheriff, and later the sheriff-substitute, was the key to the legal and administrative system in the Scottish countries. He had no English equivalent. Essentially he was a representative of the central government who administered justice at the local level. After the reforms of 1748 the sheriff was a bureaucrat in the finest sense—highly trained and efficient. The substitute acquired strict standards more slowly, but by 1830 he too had to meet high standards in training and performance.

Before the mid-eighteenth century, the sheriff had hardly been a progressive figure. Indeed, the Scottish sheriff typified the backward state of Scottish local government, a state which had been little affected by the Act of Union. In 1700 Scotland lacked a uniform system of justice. Independent franchise courts and hereditary rights to judicial offices, including that of sheriff, were common throughout the Lowlands. They were relatively rare in the Highlands, because the king's justice had never made sufficient headway to make possible or necessary these particular legal perversions.

Britain's abortive attempt in January 1762 to conciliate Austria and restore the “Old System”—generally known as the Hague Overture—and its subsequent impact on Frederick II of Prussia (then Britain's ally), has never been investigated in detail. Altogether, only two works have ever focused on the episode directly: a brief, but in some ways useful monograph by A. von Ruville, the biographer of Pitt and a later article by W. L. Dorn. Essentially advancing the same interpretation, both authors agree that: Newcastle, by unduly interfering in the Northern Department (held by the Earl of Bute), stands solely responsible for the misleading proposals transmitted to Vienna; and that Bute, lacking a definite policy of his own, submissively followed Newcastle's lead throughout and finally, Kaunitz divulged the story in its most expansive form to Berlin where, as a result, it irreparably damaged Britain's already tarnished reputation. Though forming the nucleus of what is probably the traditional or standard account, endorsed uncritically by most historians up-to-date (among them D. B. Horn, F. Spencer, and R. Browning), these conclusions are highly questionable if not inaccurate, and clearly require substantial revision and modification when reappraised within a wider framework of documentary evidence. Equally, certain important, inter-related aspects have never been studied at all: for instance, the motive forces behind Newcastle's initial formulation of the scheme; the ambivalent role played by Lord Bute; the views and aims of the chosen mediator, Prince Louis of Brunswick; and the deliberations of Baron Knyphausen and Louis Michell, the Prussian envoys in London. This article by utilizing new material from heretofore unexplored sources, aims not only to rectify these and other vital defects, to provide a more coherent, comprehensive outline of events, but also to assess the significance of this episode for Anglo-Prussian relations during a singularly critical period of diplomatic history.

In the West, sexuality has always been viewed with suspicion and sexual acts which, on the surface, seem harmless have represented attacks of a most profound sort on society. At least until the nineteenth century, when masturbation moved to center stage, sodomy was probably the major taboo. The reasons for this fear are complex. On the symbolic level, sodomy was linked with death and evil. The sodomite was wedded to the bowels and thus to the bowels of the earth where men rotted and decayed. Further, because of the enormous power of the Sodom and Gommorah story in the Old Testament, few doubted that sexual acts had social repercussions. The sodomite was dangerous. Once before in history, sodomites had caused the destruction of two cities by defying the moral code of the Lord. While fear of fire and brimstone may have faded, there were innumerable other catastrophes which the Lord might visit on those who sinned. In the pre-nineteenth century world, where the idea of mastering nature was tempered by respect for its power, sodomy was a cause of grave concern. Sodomites were often executed because to allow them to live was to court disaster.

When disaster did strike, it was common for clergymen and other societal spokesmen to blame licentiousness and specifically homosexuality. After the relatively mild earthquakes that shook London in 1750, the Bishop of London stressed that “Blasphemous language was used openly in the streets. Lewd pictures illustrated all the abominations of the public stews, and were tolerated. There was much homosexuality.” A poet compared the London quakes with a similar disaster in Jamaica.