Egerton MS 3878

‘Leicester’s Commonwealth’; 1584. Copy, late 16^th cent. This is one of many manuscript copies of the Catholic libel on Robert Dudley (d. 1588), Earl of Leicester, that circulated following the suppression of the printed version of 1586. The full title (f. 1) runs ‘The Copie of a Letter written by a Master of Arte in Cambridge to his friend in London concerninge some talke past of late betwen two wor^ll and graue men about the present state, and some procedings of the Ea: of Leyc: and his friendes in England.’. The present text omits the quotation, in Latin and English, from the Book of Job, ch. 20, vv. 4-29, that concludes the printed one. The contemporary attribution to the Jesuit Robert Parsons or Persons is rejected in the critical edition edited by D. C. Peck, Athens, Ohio, 1985, pp. 25-32, in favour of a putative shared authorship by the Catholic exile Charles Arundel (1540-1587) and others. Peck also prints (pp. 224-227) a list of the forty-four complete and six imperfect manuscripts that were known to him; nineteen of which are in the British Library. Purchased at Christie’s, 12 July 2000.

Paper: ff. v+95. 195 mm x 150 mm. Limp vellum covers secured by four leather thongs and two sets of green fabric ties. Spine carries later label of black leather lettered ‘parsons letter 1584’. Copied in a professional Secretary hand, with italic script for titlepage, marginal notes and names within the text. Text-pages ruled in black ink, with final eleven (ff. 90v-95v) ruled but left blank, scribal foliation (ff. 2-90) from 1 to 89. Catchwords rare after f. 27v, and ff. 79v, 80) left blank by oversight, with no loss of text. Front cover bears vertical inscription ‘Memento 2th’ in early-mid seventeenth-century hand. Written inside front cover (f. i) are various booksellers’ markings in pencil, including number ‘249’. Notes of debts ‘due to Me R. Richardson’ in late 17^th-cent. hand on verso of final leaf (f. v). Typewritten description of manuscript subscribed ‘e.z.v. 30/3/36’, tipped in at front (ff. ii, iv). Owned, before ? 1950, by the bibliographer James P. R. Lyell (oval bookplate bearing crest and motto pasted inside front cover, f. i) and, before 1963, by the bookseller William Alfred Westropp Foyle (red leather and gilt bookplate of Beeleigh Abbey pasted on f. i): see sale-cat. of his collection, part III, Christie’s, 12 July 2000, lot 311.