I am often asked whether it is possible to buy individual articles from back issues. Well now you can. The National Archives’ Documents Online service has a selection available from recent issues, with more to be added shortly. Subjects covered include parish magazines, convicts in Bermuda and an introduction to the Archives and its work. To download a PDF of a single article costs 75p or a package of four is just £1.50. To find out more visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/featuresonline.asp. This new service is very much an experiment, so please leave your comments and suggestions for articles you would like to download. Since our first edition we have included well over 600 articles, so there is plenty to choose from.
Incidentally we are also working on a detailed index to back issues which should be available in the Autumn
Some of the most important documents of Henry VIII’s reign are now available online.
Marking the 500th anniversary of the monarch’s accession an online exhibition "Henry VIII: Power, Passion and Parchment" tells the story of Britain’s most famous King, through his own records.
From the elaborate splendour of Valor Ecclesiasticus – his survey of the wealth of the churches of England and Wales – to his divorce papers, the exhibition provides an intriguing insight into Henry’s reign and turbulent private life.
The exhibition, at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/henryviii, allows visitors to use the documents, and learn how these unique records have survived long after Henry’s reign ended.
The majority of the records from Henry VIII’s reign are made of parchment, which predates paper, and the exhibition has pages on the conservation techniques used to care for these centuries-old documents.
Without such documents, building a reliable picture of the past would be impossible.
The National Archives’ homepage also has examples of documents which were used by Dr David Starkey in the Chanel 4 series "Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant".
A colleague here at Kew, Alex Ritchie from the National Advisory Service which is responsible for the National Register of Archives, produces a monthly selection of sources from the Register on a particular theme. It’s only available on The National Archives’ intranet and a mailing list for archivists. I think it is worthy of a wider audience. April’s suitably tongue in cheek edition relates to piracy in the records:
A National Strategy for Pirate Records
Pirates don’t worry none about no stakeholders. Plank holders, maybe! They has their own priorities. Pieces of eight. A fair shake. Plenty of duff. And rum. Now, how to turn all that into a strategic document? How to make a sea chest compliant with BS 5454*? There’s some as say it can’t be done, but documents is important to pirates and, even more, treasure maps. Them as "surfs the Internet" ain’t never seen no real surf, you may lay to that! But treasure maps is everywhere, just follow the link.
http://www.nls.uk/rlstevenson/pics/picture-j2.html
The World According to Pirates
Pirates has places as is special to them: the Barbary Coast, the Spanish Main, the Dry Tortugas. They don’t mean nothing to a lubber, but to a salt-caked buccaneer they be a home from home. Mark you, I used that ARCHON once and it answered. And you may lay to that! Follow the links to the Colonial Bank and there’ll be doubloons enough for every man Jack as can swing a cutlass.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/searches/locresult_details.asp?LR=759
Pirates and Identity Theft
Long John Silver be an iconic figure for us buccaneers. But, mark you, he weren’t no real pirate. Truth to tell, he weren’t no pirate at all. That swab Stevenson took his mate, slapped a parrot on his shoulder, and wrote him into pirate history. Without as much as a by your leave. And you may lay to that! I reckons as how Mister Stevenson should’ve stuck to family business-building lighthouses. Leave pirating to pirates, I says. Still, that Henley fellow must’ve had something about him to make so thorough a pirate. Click on the link for more on the swab.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P13655
Pirates is Angry
Pirates is not stupid. We knows the importance of branding. So, when we found a bunch of lubbers playing music from some ship at anchor. And when we found some as would call them "Pirate Radio". Then think as how our blood did boil. And they didn’t play no pirate tunes, neither. We waited in vain for "Lillibullero". But they was scuppered soon enough, not by angry buccaneers, but by angry bureaucrats. And you may lay to that! Follow the link.
[url]www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=6&CATID=3878491&SearchInit=4&CATREF=HO+255%2F1001[/url]
Pirates Celebrates Diversity in the Workplace
Now I wouldn’t want to turn Turk myself, but it if was that or Davy Jones, then I might think again. Pirates from the Barbary states (North Africa from Morocco to Libya), corsairs, they be called. They sailed close to the wind and didn’t give no quarter or ask none neither. Fair play to them, they was good at their job. But they put themselves in harm’s way. If you wants to read of a sea fight with an Algerine corsair in the year 1678, then this link should answer.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P13715
That be enough for now, but the National Register of Archives be a one-stop shop for Pirate history, if you do but look. And you may lay to that!
* BS 5454: recommendations for the storage and exhibition of archival documents."
Let me know if you liked this and whether you like more along these lines. Otherwise you might be forced to walk the plank!
