The first clear evidence of the existence of a royal secretary is in the reign of David II (1329-71). It was the task of the royal secretary and his officers to draft treaties, credentials for envoys, the king's letters to foreign potentates and other diplomatic documents. Very little survives, however, from the Scottish secretariat, and much that does was once in private hands. It seems that many of the Scottish secretaries were tempted to retain the papers as their private property. In contrast to England, no attempt was made to recover these papers after the Secretary had resigned or died. For this reason, the State Paper series held at National Records of Scotland (NRS) is the result of a random accumulation or a conscious selection. Some documents and letter books, such as the Declaration of Arbroath, 1320, the earliest letter of Mary Queen of Scots, 1550 and the Exemplification of the Act of Union, 1707, have found their way back into the national archives. Others, like the letters of Mary Queen of Scots to the Earl of Cassillis, are preserved in private papers in NRS, the National Library of Scotland and elsewhere.
