Catalogue description ORDER BOOKS

Details of Subseries within SP 25
Reference: Subseries within SP 25
Title: ORDER BOOKS
Note: These cover longer periods than the draft order books, and being accurately and more legibly presented were preferred for the Calendar when available. There are gaps, however: from 4 July 1650 to 17 February 1651; from 28 April to 1 December 1651; from 10 June to 1 December 1652; and from 2 February to 29 April 1653. These are supplied from the draft order books except for 16-28 April 1653, for which copies in the Admiralty papers provide evidence of the Council's sitting. Occasionally the Calendar gets its references to these books wrong, most famously in the sixth volume (1653-1654), p 230, where 'I 71' is re-started and should read 'I 72', as it suddenly does from p 232 onwards. These errors are generally picked up in the 'Errata' at the very end of each volume, and the wary reader may detect them in advance by checking that the sequence of Council of State daily proceedings entries is continuous in its references. It may be noticed that SP 25/73 and 74 are not calendared. This is because they are alternative and virtually identical with SP 25/75 and 76, which were chosen for calendaring, the last being of longer continuance than SP 25/74. The anomalous SP 25/76A is calendared: it is not a book of orders as such, but contains (a few) instructions and (many more) letters sent by the President of the Council. Some of the books have their own indexes, but these are usually selective.

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