I must first of all thank the Royal Historical Society for conferring on me the distinguished honour of its Presidency. I am proud to be thus closely associated with its work. Yet I am very conscious that my past discharge of the duties of membership gives me but a modest claim on its suffrages. It is true that I have been a member of the Society since 1891. I vividly remember how at that time I fell, a coy, but not an unwilling, victim to the blandishments of Mr. Oscar Browning, who used to the full the opportunities of a mountain holiday in the Engadine to preach the sound doctrine that no self-respecting historian could discharge the whole duty of his station unless he enlisted under the Society's banner. Between 1894 and 1901 I acted as a member of the Council, until, doubtless for the sufficient reason of non- attendance, I was relegated to the position of an ordinary member. In 1915 the Society was good enough to raise me to the dignity of an Honorary Vice-President, an office the more welcome to a member then dwelling in what are sometimes quaintly called the “provinces,” since it involved neither the obligation nor the privilege of attending meetings. All that I can claim to have done in return for these favours was the contribution in 1894 to the Transactions of a paper on the “Earldoms under Edward I,” and an edition in 1906 of the “State Trials of Edward I” to the Camden Series.