Egerton MS 3881

Henry Montagu, 1^st Earl of Manchester: Docquet-book as First Commissioner for the Great Seal; 1621; with personal and estate notes; 1611-1640. Partly autograph. The docquets (ff. 1-18) emanate from the period between 1 May and 6 July 1621, when the Great Seal was held in Commission (see f. 1) by Montagu, then Viscount Mandeville and Lord Treasurer, the Duke of Lennox, and the Earls of Pembroke and Arundel. Each docquet or group of docquets is assigned in the left-hand margin to a named clerk in the Signet Office, while in the right margin occur occasional notes in the form ‘per ipsum Regem propria manu signat’ (ff. 1-9), ‘per Dominum Thesaurarium’ (ff. 2-17v), ‘per brevem’ (ff. 1v-18) or ‘Curia Wardorum’ (ff. 1v-17v). The most extensive group of entries comprises, under the dates of 21, 23 and 26 June (ff. 11-12, 13v, 15), some fifty-four licences issued for the sale of wines, following the collapse of Sir Giles Mompesson’s monopoly (cf. Add. MSS 74241, 74242). The volume was subsequently retained by Montagu and used in June and August 1631 and 1640 for a series of autograph notes (ff. 19v-32) relating to his career and estates. The first section (ff. 19v-20v) comprises a list of patents issued to him, from his appointment as one of the King’s Serjeants-at-Law (1611) to that as Lord Privy Seal (1628), and including his creation as Baron Kimbolton and Viscount Mandeville (1620), and Earl of Manchester (1626). This is followed (ff. 21-27) by notes of his extensive manors in cos. Huntingdon, Northampton, Bedford and Essex, etc., with prices paid and other details. A memorandum (ff. 28-29) of ‘The greate Intayle of my Lands uppon my sons Marriadge’ to Anne Rich, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, in July 1626, is followed by a list (ff. 29v-32) of properties acquired thereafter, partly between Aug. 1631 and Michaelmas 1633, and (f. 30v) of fee farms due to the King, with a note (f. 31) of his purchase of tenements in Wentworth Street, London, 24 Dec. 1639 and 27 Feb. 1640. For notes of fees on his creation as Earl, with some personal and estate accounts, see Montagu’s letter-book as Lord Treasurer, 1620-1635, now Add. 4147. Purchased from Messrs. Quaritch, 13 Oct. 2000.

Paper: ff. v+32. 387 mm x 255 mm. Modern morocco case with gilt lettering. Contemporary binding of limp vellum with double-ruled compartment blind-stamped on covers. At head of spine legend ‘Docket of Com’ und^r y^e greate seale a^o 1621’ written in contemporary ink, and at foot printed label bearing Phillipps MS number. Inscribed on back cover (f. v verso) in Montagu’s hand ‘The Docquett’ and on front cover (f. i) ‘The Docquett Booke Anno Dni 1621 ([when] I w^th 3 others kepte the Greate Seale). Herein is also sett downe under my owne hand writing Notes of all the generall patents granted unto me and purchases and [words illegible] Written 15 Junij 1631’. Watermark similar to Briquet, no. 2291 (dated to 1587) and Heawood, no. 481 (1602). Docquet-book paginated from 1 to 35 and furnished with marginal annotations in modern pencil. Booksellers’ code ‘Enn [?]’ pencilled inside front cover (f. i verso), with ‘Δ [L reversed] Ο E169’ on verso (f. iv verso) of final leaf. Owned, after circa 1826-1828, by Sir Thomas Phillipps as MS 3573 (f. ii), and, before 1963, by William Alfred Westropp Foyle (red leather and gilt bookplate of Beeleigh Abbey pasted inside front cover, f. i verso); see the sale-cat. of his collection, part III, Christie, sale-cat., 12 July 2000, lot 323.