Catalogue description Secretaries of State: State Papers Domestic, Charles II

An assortment of letters, papers and petitions received by the Secretaries of State in their domestic capacity during the reign of Charles II. The series includes papers the secretaries accumulated for business purposes or drafted for public use or personal reference, petitions to the King for which, as custodians of the Signet, they procured the sign manual if a grant ensued, and pleas for pardon. The series includes Admiralty business papers, journals and memoranda of Sir Joseph Williamson (Secretary of State 1674-1679), fees books, a draft charter of the Merchant Adventurers, an Admiralty entry book and ships' licences, military commissions, Post Office labels, a list of royal signings, Nonconformist preaching licences, and Titus Oates and Rye House Plot papers.

A collection was mostly put together at the State Paper Office at Whitehall by Sir Joseph Williamson who was also keeper of the records. Subsequent additions derived chiefly from secretaries Sir Leoline Jenkins, 1680-1684, and Edward, Earl of Conway, 1681-1683. The series was subsequently augmented from other series: Admiralty, Board of Trade, Foreign, Miscellaneous, Scottish, Dunkirk, Tangiers, petitions and undated papers.

No official papers were left in situ by Charles II's other Secretaries of State, who do not seem to have regarded them as state property. Sir Edward Nicholas requested the return of his papers in 1665, once copied, and the Earl of Sunderland's were probably destroyed.

Most, but not all, printed items, such as pamphlets, were bound up as library volumes and are now in SP 9

Documents too large to be bound into standard volumes are in SP 30

The records are calendared in Calendar of State Papers Domestic Charles II ed M A E Green F H B Daniell and F Bickley 28 volumes (London 1860-1947). Please speak to staff at the Map and Large Document Room enquiry desk for the precise location.