Reformation, Rebellion, and Murdered Monarchs:

Historical Research Requests at the Crown’s State Paper Office in the Long Eighteenth Century

Isabel B. Taylor

DOI: 10.69099/RCBI2025-2-04-E3F

ABSTRACT

This paper continues The Crown and Its Records’ examination of historical research at the State Paper Office (SPO) to cover the period following 1689 and examine how political concerns influenced the granting of access to the archive’s materials during this tumultuous era.

The nineteenth-century readers’ register is analysed in detail for the first time, in tandem with internal papers from the SPO and other sources, to provide insight into specific use cases and an overview of historical research at the SPO in general. Narrative history was still an important vehicle for constitutional-political polemic, and the Government provided generous access for projects that supported its own interests, such as David Hume’s ‘Tory’ history of England. Conversely, the administration was concerned to prevent uses that could contribute to a febrile political situation, such as the crisis of 1812 or later tensions with the United States. Overall, however, a picture emerges of increasingly liberal access decisions --particularly following the 1832 Reform Act-- with generosity shown to non-Jesuit Catholics researching Reformation history, female historians exploring the lives of English Queens, and foreign scholars (against whom the Government was fearful of being perceived to discriminate).