Add MS 70984

WILLIAM HARRISON: 'The fourth and last part of the Chronology Conteninge the periode of time from the comming of the Normans unto the yere of expectation which is of grace 1588 . . .'; circa 1580-1593. Fair copy, with autograph additions and revisions. The 'Chronology', which was in the event extended as far as 1593, deals with European equally with British history, a full page being allotted to each individual year. Marginal dates by anno domini and anno mundi are accompanied from 1207 A.D. by the name of the current Lord Mayor of London. Revisions and corrections to passages are frequently added on slips pasted over the original entries. On f. 2v occur Harrison's directions for the proper placing of passages. Formerly inserted loose in the text, and bearing scribbled calculations by Harrison, are a single bifolium (ff.ii, iii) comprising lists of European rulers to circa 1588, and a sheet of blotting paper (f.iv) on which some offset from the text is visible. F. J. Furnivall published extracts from the present manuscript for the New Shakespeare Society, 6th series, no. 1, 1877, Appendix I, pp.xlvii-lx. The whereabouts of the second and third volumes, covering the period from the creation to the last Anglo-Saxon king and noted in H.M.C., 8th Report, Appendix, Part 1, 1881, p.640, are now unknown. Owned, after Harrison's death in 1593, by his son-in-law George Downham, Bishop of Derry, who in 1634 bequeathed it along with his own books to the Diocesan Library there, from which it was alienated in the 1890s. See also Bonham's sale-cat. of 18 Nov. 1991, lot 265. Purchased of Messrs. Pickering and Chatto, 12 March 1992.

Paper: ff.v+267. 427mm x 289mm. Binding, now boxed with manuscript, of contemporary smooth calf over boards, with blind-stamped device and treble rules on front and back covers. Spine, replaced circa 19th cent., gilt-stamped between bands with 'CHRONOLOGY IV' in Gothic lettering.