The Clarke Papers - v. 49 Author:William Clarke Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Council of the Camoen Society desire it to be understood that they are uot answerable for any opinions or observations that may appear in the Society's publi... more »cations ; the Editors of the several Works being alone responsible for the same. chapter{Section 4PEEFACE. The collection from which the papers printed in this volume are selected was bequeathed to Worcester College, Oxford, in 1736. Their donor, Dr. George Clarke, a great benefactor of that college and of the University, was Judge Advocate-General from 1684 to 1705, and Secretary at War from 1692 to 1704. His father, Sir William Clarke, was the original owner of these papers. Lives of both lather and son are given in the Dictionary of National Biography (vol. x. pp. 424, 448). An account of the papers themselves is contained in Mr. Coxe's Catalogue of Manuscripts in the possession of Oxford Halls and Colleges, 1852, vol. ii. It is strange that no historian has hitherto thought fit to make use of them. My own attention was first called to the collection by the librarian of Worcester College, H. A. Pottinger, Esq., to whom and to the authorities of the college the thanks of the Camden Society are due for their kindness in facilitating the use of these papers, and the permission to publish them. Since the papers were inspected by Mr. Coxe, Mr. Pottinger has discovered some additional volumes, including the most valuable of all, that containing the debates of the Council of the Army in 1647. William Clarke, who was probably born about 1623, was admitted a student of the Inner Temple in 1645. When the New Model was organised, John Rushworth was appointed Secretary to the General and Council of War, with William Clarke and another assistant as subordinates. Clarke acted as secretary to the commissioners who negotiated ...« less