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Summonses, dated 25 April, 15 [?Charles I, i.e. 1639], to James Bridgman and Samuel Law, commanding them to appear before the Council of the Marches at Ludlow on 7 May.

Royal notification of jurisdictions and authority granted to the Lord President or Vice-president and the Council in the Marches of Wales to investigate fraud by county officials, perjury, libel and private legal actions [c. 1620]; a list of general grants of official positions and crown lands in North Wales and Montgomeryshire, [1660x1670]; and reasons for appointing customs officers in the ports of Cardigan Bay, [post-1662].

Records of the Welsh portion of the Duchy of Cornwall estate including include ministers' accounts, 1461-1552, of various lordships, including Bromfield and Yale and the March, including its constituent lordships mainly Montgomery; chamberlain's accounts for North and South Wales, 1487, 1520; receivers' accounts, 1544-1620; accounts of receivers of fines and amercements in the Council of Wales and the Marches, 1597-1616; accounts of receivers of Queen Henrietta Maria, 1671-1672; rentals and valuations, 1391-1698, including a rental of the rhingyllship of Iscoed, Denbighshire, 1391; petitions, 1620-?1723; certificates of survey, 1618-1695; surveys of castles, 1618-1625, including Carew, Caernarfon, Brecon, Holt, Beaumaris, Ruthin, Flint and Rhuddlan castles, deeds, 1563-1723; commissions and warrants, 1637-1727; ecclesiastical papers, 1804-1895, mainly relating to a dispute between the Prince of Wales and the Lord Chancellor over the right to patronage to certain ecclesiastical livings in Wales in 1863-1865; and manuscript plans, [c 1600]-[1650], including a manuscript plan of Holt Castle.

Official documents and other papers, 1675-1727, many of them addressed to the deputy lieutenants, etc. of Caernarvonshire and relating to the militia, musters, the confiscating of weapons in the possession of Papists, etc. Among the correspondents are Henry, 3rd marquis of Worcester and first duke of Beaufort, Lord President of the Council in the Marches of Wales, Col. Thomas Mostyn of Gloddaeth, John Wynne of Whitehall, mustermaster for Caernarvonshire, and Richard, 3rd baron Bulkeley of Baron Hill. The documents include a statement by Thomas Glynne relating to a 'conventicle' at the house of Ellis Owen, Llangybi, at which James Owen preached; a memoranandum by Thomas Mostyn relating to the refusal of William Wynne, sheriff of Flintshire, to read the proclamation of King George II at Holywell; and some papers of general North Wales interest.

The instructions are addressed to John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, who was President of the Council of Wales and the Marches.

Instructions, 9 September 1637, by Charles I to the President and Council of Wales and the Marches for the administration of justice in Wales and the working of the Council.

Copy of a letter, 9 October [1587], from [the Privy Council] to [Henry Herbert], earl of Pembroke, concerning provisions for the defence of Wales and the Marches against a likely Spanish invasion.

Manuscript London newsletters from John Gadbury and others, 1676-1710, addressed mainly to Sir Robert Owen, which strongly reflect the government, politics and society of the Stuart period. Recurrent topics are the relations between the Stuart monarchs and Parliament; proceedings of Parliament and government departments; English election results; events at the royal court; the establishment of Protestantism; antipathy towards Catholics and Protestant dissenters; political conspiracies; foreign affairs in Europe; British overseas trade and colonisation; local government in London; City gossip and Oxford University news. Items of specific interest include the murder of Sir Edmund Berry [Godfrey], 1679; rebellion of the Scottish Covenanters, 1679; the Titus Oates plot and its repercussions, 1679-1685; the trial of Lord Stafford, 1680; the Rye House Plot, 1683; the formation of a mounted bodyguard for Charles II, 1683; effects of Quo Warranto, 1683, and subsequent restoration of London and other corporation charters, 1688; the Austro-Turkish War, 1683-1691; the controversial electorship of Cologne, 1688; a protest by seven bishops against the Declaration of Indulgence, 1688; the abdication of James II and accession of William and Mary, 1688-1689; reviews of revenue and excise, 1688-1689; abolition of the Council of the Marches of Wales, 1688-1689; Jacobite rebellions in Ireland and Scotland, 1688-1691; War of the Grand Alliance, 1688-1697; the papal successsion, 1689; government of the Scottish Church, 1689; the suicide of Lord Teviot, 1694; the War of Spanish Succession, 1710; and activities of Dr Sacheverell, 1710.

A manuscript copy, [1610x1650], of a petition by the counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire seeking to be removed from the jurisdiction of the Council of Wales and the Marches; it formed part of a petition of grievances presented by a deputation of Members of Parliament to King James I at Whitehall on 7 July 1610, during negotiations concerning the Great Contract (f. 17 recto-verso).
It is probable that the original petition is now in Kew, The National Archives SP 14/56/part 2; a number of other manuscript copies are also known (see Proceedings in Parliament 1610, ed. by Elizabeth Read Foster, 2 vols (New Haven and London, 1966), II: The House of Commons, pp. 253-254). The text of the petition is printed in William Petyt, Jus Parliamentarium (London, 1739), pp. 330-331, and Foster, pp. 261-263. In the different sources the number of MPs attending the audience is variously given as twenty, seventeen and twelve (see Foster, p. 254); the preamble to the present manuscript states that the grievances were presented 'by Sir Francis Bacon and Twelve more of the lower house of Parliament' (f. 17).

A photostat copy of a document belonging to the Birmingham Reference Library, being a petition, [c. 1620]-1636, by one John Feild of Kings Norton, Worcestershire to the Rt Hon. William Compton, Earl of Northampton (d. 1630) and President of the Council in the Marches of Wales, requesting the Council to compel certain tenants of the manor of Kings Norton to fulfil their promise to bear a part of the expenses of Feild's action, while holding the office of bailiff of the manor, against one Thomas Rea in a dispute concerning the goods of two women who had been executed for witchcraft.

Petitions and cases, dated between 1660 and 1781, presented to the monarch, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, parliamentary committees or individual politicians by prominent public figures, town corporations, local officials, private landowners and tradesmen. Most are in connection with political crimes, religious abuses, government legislation, taxation on trades, borough election rights, navigation and drainage, personal hardship and private bills for establishing titles or implementing family settlements. Items relating to Wales concern the abolition of the Court of the Council in the Marches of Wales, 1689, the Rectory of Llandinam [c. 1695] and revenue from crown lands, 1779. Petitioners or appellants include Major General Harrison and the other Regicides [1660], Lord Bristol, 1663, the Duke of Grafton [c. 1674], Edward Larkin [c. 1688?], Titus Oates, 1689, Thomas Price [of Plas Iolyn] 1690, a door-keeper of the House of Commons [1695?], 'One of Queen Elizabeth 's Shillings', 1696, the Covenanters to the Earl of Essex [18th cent. copy], Henry Earl of Lincoln [c. 1767], and the Duke of Ancaster, 1781.

An exposition, [1600x1689], of an argument that the English border counties are in the marches of Wales 'according to the words of the Statute 34 Henry VIII'.

Personal papers and especially papers relating to the public offices of members of the Wynn family of Gwydir, Caernarfonshire. These include letters and orders from the Privy Council and from Thomas Gerard, Ralph Eure, William, earl of Northampton, etc., as Lords President of the Council of Wales and the Marches to Sir John Wynn, 1st baronet, relating to the government of Caernarfonshire and the mustering of soldiers for various wars. The papers from the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary chiefly relate to preparations for wars in Scotland and France, whilst the papers from the reign of Elizabeth I chiefly relate to preparations for wars in Ireland and against Spain. The archive also includes papers relating to the Civil war and to elections in Caernarfonshire. The archive is an important source for local administration in late sixteeenth and seventeenth century Wales and for the relationship between local and central government. Most of the papers relating to the Gwydir estate for this period have not survived.