Add MS 32646-32657

OFFICIAL correspondence and state papers relating to transactions between England and Scotland during the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII., from 1532 to 1545; and (in the last volume) a few similar letters of the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., in 1548, and the correspondence of Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State, with Edward Wotton, Ambassador to Scotland in 1585. Twelve volumes. A large portion of the series relates to the embassy of Sir Ralph Sadler to Scotland in the spring of 1543, to negotiate a treaty of peace and a marriage between Prince Edward of England and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, which failed from the sudden defection of the Earl of Arran, then Governor of Scotland, to the party of Cardinal Beaton and the French interest. Sir Walter Scott in 1809 edited the "State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler" from imperfect transcripts of these originals in the Advocates' Library. Several letters in Vol. I. are endorsed by Lord Burghley, and were probably seen and handled by him in 1560, when Queen Elizabeth sent him to Scotland on a mission relating to Mary, Queen of Scots. The collection appears to have formed part of the archives of the English Council of the North at York, where they remained until the reign of Charles I., when James, Duke of Hamilton, removed them to Scotland, and added them to his own library. The contents are as follows:-