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Add MS 17492
- Record Id:
- 032-002027736
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002027736
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000050.0x000129
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100195246672.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 17492
- Title:
- Anthology of Tudor courtly verse, mostly attributed to Sir Thomas Wyatt, with other poems by Henry Howard, Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas Hoccleve (‘The Devonshire Manuscript’)
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains an anthology of early-modern Tudor courtly verse from the 1530s, which was compiled by three women who attended the royal court: Mary Shelton, Mary Fitzroy and Lady Margaret Douglas.
The majority of the verses recorded in the volume are attributed to the English politician and poet Sir Thomas Wyatt (b. 1503, d. 1542), and many are also unique to the manuscript. Other works include poems by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; Lady Margaret Douglas; Richard Hattfield; Mary Fitzroy (née Howard); Lord Thomas Howard; Sir Edmund Knyvett; Sir Anthony Lee; Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley; Geoffrey Chaucer; Thomas Hoccleve; Richard Roos; Mary Shelton; as well as a number other unidentified or unattributed pieces.
The volume is now known as the 'Devonshire Manuscript' after the Cavendish family, who owned the book between the 16th and 19th centuries, and who have held the title of Duke of Devonshire since the 17th century.
Contents:
f. 1r: Original flyleaf, with inscriptions.
f. 1a: Remnants of a flyleaf.
f. 2r: ‘Take hede be tyme leste ye be spyede’.
f. 3r: ‘My harte I gave the not to do it paine’.
f. 2v: ‘O cruell causer of vndeserrved chaynge’.
f. 3v: ‘My pen take payn a lytyll space’.
f. 4r–v: ‘At last withdrawe yowre cruellte’.
f. 5r: ‘To wette yowr Iye withouten teare’.
f. 6r: ‘I lowe lovyd and so doithe she’.
ff. 6v–7r: ‘Suffryng in sorow in hope to attayn’.
f. 7v: ‘My ferefull hope from me ys fledd’.
f. 8r: ‘Yowre ferefull hope cannot prevayle’.
ff. 8v–9r: ‘Bownd am I now & shall be styll’.
ff. 9v–10r: ‘Farewell all my wellfare’.
f. 10v: ‘May not thys hate from the estarte’.
f. 11r: ‘Yff I had sufferd thys to yow vnware’.
f. 11v: ‘The hart & servys to yow profferd’.
f. 12r: ‘At most myscheffe’.
ff. 12v–13r: ‘What menythe thys when I lye alone’.
f. 13v: ‘Pacyence tho I have not’.
f. 14r: ‘ys yt possyble’.
f. 14v–15r: ‘My lute awake performe the last labor’.
f. 15v–16r: ‘Alas poore man what hap have I’.
f. 16v: ‘Marvell nomore Altho’.
f. 17r: ‘And wylt thow leve me thus’.
f. 17v: ‘That tyme that myrthe dyd stere my shypp’.
f. 18r: ‘The restfull place Revyver of my smarte’.
f. 18v: ‘All women have vertues noble & excelent’.
f. 19r: ‘What no perde ye may be sure’.
f. 19v: ‘Was neuer yet fyle half so well fylyd’.
f. 20r: ‘As power & wytt wyll me Assyst’.
f. 20v: ‘Sum tyme I syghe sumtyme I syng’.
f. 21r: ‘Pacyence of all my smart’.
f. 21r: ‘Who wold haue euer thowght’.
f. 21v–22r: ‘In faythe methynkes yt ys no Ryght’.
f. 22v: ‘The knot which fyrst my hart dyd strayn’.
f. 22v: ‘He Robyn gentyll robyn’.
f. 22v: ‘A wel I hawe at other lost’.
f. 23r–v: ‘The knot which fyrst my hart did strayn’.
f. 24r–v: ‘Hey Robyn Ioly Robyn tell me’.
ff. 24v–25r: ‘It was my choyse It Was my chaunce’.
f. 26r: ‘Now may I morne as one off late’.
f. 26v: ‘Wyth sorowful syghes and wondes smart’.
f. 27r: ‘What thyng shold cawse me to be sad’.
f. 27v: ‘Alas that men be so vngent’.
f. 28r: ‘Who hath more cawse for to complayne’.
f. 28v: ‘I may well say with Ioyfull harte’.
f. 29r: ‘To yowr gentyll letters an answere to resyte’.
f. 29v: ‘And now my pen alas wyth wyche I wryte’.
f. 29v: ‘O very lord / o loue / o god alas’.
f. 30r: ‘O ye louers that hygh vpon the whele’.
f. 30v: ‘It was my choyse yt was no chaunce /’.
f. 31r: ‘Suche Wayn thowght / as wonted to myslede me /’.
f. 32r: ‘So vnwarely was never no man cawght /’.
f. 33r–v: ‘The knott whych ffyrst my hart dyd strayn /’.
f. 34v: ‘Yff fansy wuld favour’.
f. 35v: ‘The Wandryng gadlyng in the somer tyde /’.
f. 36v: ‘The lyvely sparkes that yssue frome those Iies /’.
f. 37v: ‘Tho I can not yowr cruelte constrayne /’.
f. 38v: ‘Somtyme I fled the fyre that me brent /’.
f. 39v: ‘What deth ys worse then thys /’.
f. 40r: ‘thy promese was to loue me best’.
ff. 40v–41r: ‘I se the change ffrom that that was’.
f. 41r: ‘ther ys no cure ffor care off miyd’.
f. 41r–v: ‘as ffor my part I know no thyng’.
f. 42r–v: ‘to my meshap alas I ffynd’.
f. 43r: ‘how shold I’.
ff. 43r–44r: ‘what nedythe lyff when I requyer’.
f. 44r: ‘and thys be thys ye may’.
f. 44v: ‘Too yoye In payne my will’.
ff. 45r–46r: ‘Yff reason govern fantasye’.
ff. 46v–47r: ‘What helpythe hope of happy hape’.
f. 47v: ‘This rotyd greff will not but growe’.
ff. 47v–48r: ‘Hartte aprest with dessperott thoughtes’.
ff. 49r–50v: ‘So feble is the therd that dothe the burden staye’.
f. 51r: ‘ffull well yt maye be sene’.
ff. 51v–52r: ‘Syns loue ys suche that as ye wott’.
f. 52v: ‘Lo how I seke & sew to haue’.
f. 53r: ‘My loue ys lyke vnto theternall fyre’.
f. 53r: ‘Syns so ye please to here me playn’.
f. 53v: ‘Yf in the worlde there be more woo’.
f. 54r: ‘Now must I lerne to lyue at rest’.
f. 54v: ‘fforget not yet the tryde entent’.
f. 55r–v: ‘o happy dames that may enbrayes’.
f. 57r: ‘My hope is yow for to obtaine,’. 4 blank leaves follow folio.
f. 58r: ‘when I bethynk my wontet ways’.
f. 58v: ‘O myserable sorow withowten cure’.
f. 58v: ‘Sum summ say I love sum say I moke’.
ff. 58v–59r: ‘my hart ys set not remove’.
f. 59r: ‘wan I be thyng my wontyd was’.
f. 59r: ‘lo in thy hat thow hast be gone’.
f. 59v: ‘Wyly no dought ye be a wry’.
f. 59v: ‘To dere is bowght the doblenes’.
f. 59v: ‘for thylke grownde that bearyth the wedes wycke’.
f. 60r: ‘to men that knows ye not’.
f. 60v: ‘Myn vnhappy chaunce / to home shall I playn’.
f. 61v: ‘Go burnynge siths vnto the frosen hert’.
ff. 61v–62r: ‘ffanecy fframed my hart ffurst’.
f. 62r: ‘fancy framed my hart ffrust’.
f. 62v: ‘In places Wher that I company’.
f. 63v: ‘If that I cowlde in versis close’.
ff. 64r–v: ‘blame not my lute for he must sownde’.
f. 65r: ‘my hart ys set nat to remowe’.
f. 65r: ‘I ame not she be prowess off syt’.
f. 65v: ‘myght I as well within my song be lay’.
f. 65v: ‘to cowntarffete a mery mode’.
f. 66r: ‘Myght I as well within my songe’.
f. 66r: ‘The pleasaunt beayt of swet Delyte Dothe blynd’.
f. 67v: ‘am el mem’.
f. 67v: ‘the sueden ghance ded mak me mves’.
f. 68r: ‘Madame margeret’. 8 blank leaves follow folio.
ff. 68r–v: ‘my ywtheffol days ar past’.
f. 69r: ‘To cause accorde or to agree’.
f. 69r: ‘All yn the sight my lif doth hole depende’.
f. 69v: ‘Beholde love thye powre how she despisith’.
f. 69v: ‘thou haste no faith of him that eke hath none’.
ff. 69v–70r: ‘Theye fle from me that some tyme ded me seke’.
f. 70r: ‘Ceaser whan the traytor of egipte’.
f. 70v: ‘yf chaunse assignid’.
ff. 70v–71r: ‘perdye I saide yt not’.
f. 71r: ‘patiens for my devise’.
f. 71v: ‘I have sought long with stedfastnesse’.
f. 71v: ‘Nature that gave the bee so fete agrace’.
f. 71v: ‘to wishe and wante and not obtaine’.
f. 71v: ‘Ons me thoght ffortune me kist’.
f. 72r: ‘Resounde my voyse ye woodes that herithe me plaine’.
f. 72r: ‘The fruite of all the seruise that I serue’.
f. 72v: ‘Sins ye delight to kno’.
f. 72v: ‘Venus thorns that are so sharp and kene’.
f. 72v: ‘Ineternum I was ons determined’.
f. 73r: ‘Lyk as the swanne towardis her dethe’.
f. 73r: ‘Yf with complaint the paine might be exprest’.
f. 73r: ‘Cruell desire my master and my foo’.
f. 73r: ‘She sat and sewid that hathe done me the wronge’.
f. 73r: ‘Who hathe harde of such tyrannye before’.
f. 73v: ‘Ye know my herte my ladye dere’.
f. 73v: ‘Sins you will nedes that I shall sing’.
ff. 73v–74r: ‘Ons me thought fortune me kiste’.
f. 74r: ‘comforte thy self my wofull herte’.
f. 74r: ‘What dethe is worsse then this’.
f. 74r: ‘I am not ded altho I had a falle’.
f. 74v: ‘My hope alas hath me abusid’.
f. 74v: ‘Me list no more to sing’.
f. 75r: ‘Nowe fare well love and theye lawes forever’.
f. 75r: ‘ffor to love her for her lokes lovelye’.
f. 75r–v: ‘To Rayle or geste ye kno I vse yt not’.
f. 75v: ‘My herte I gave the not to do yt paine’.
f. 75v: ‘The Ioye so short alas the paine so nere’.
f. 75v: ‘Eche man telles me I chaunge of my devise’.
ff. 75v–76r: ‘Payne of all payne the most grevos paine’.
f. 76v: ‘lament my losse my labor and my payne’.
f. 77r: ‘what shulde I saye’.
f. 77r–v: ‘howe shulde I’.
f. 77v: ‘Gyve place all ye that dothe reioise’.
f. 77v: ‘Dyvers dothe vse as I have hard & kno’.
f. 77v: ‘the losse is small to lose suche on’.
f. 78r: ‘Spight hathe no powre to make me sadde’.
f. 78v: ‘Grudge on who liste this ys my lott’.
f. 78v: ‘ffortune dothe frown’.
f. 78v: ‘A my herte a what eilith the’.
f. 78v: ‘hate whom ye list for I kare not’.
f. 79r–v: ‘Greting to you bothe yn hertye wyse’.
f. 79v: ‘Mye love toke skorne my servise to retaine’.
ff. 79v–80r: ‘Tanglid I was yn loves snare’.
f. 80r: ‘lengre to muse’.
f. 80v: ‘love doth againe’.
f. 81r: ‘Wythe seruing still’.
f. 81r–v: ‘now all of chaunge’.
f. 81v: ‘Dryven bye desire I dede this dede’.
f. 81v: ‘I abide and abide and better abide’.
ff. 81v–82r: ‘Absens absenting causithe me to complaine’.
f. 82r–v: ‘I finde no peace and all my warre is donne’.
f. 82v: ‘patiens for I have wrong /’.
ff. 82v–83r: ‘whan that I call vnto my mynde’.
f. 83r–v: ‘To make an ende of all this strif’.
f. 84r: ‘Wyll ye se / What Wonderous love hathe wrought’.
f. 84v: ‘Deme as ye list vppon goode cause’.
f. 85r: ‘I am as I am and so wil I be’.
ff. 85v–87r: ‘My nowne Iohn poyntz . sins ye delight to know’.
f. 87v: ‘My mothers maides . when they dyd sow or spin’.
f. 88r: ‘now that ye be assemblled heer’. 8 blank leaves follow folio.
f. 89v: ‘Womans harte vnto no creweltye’.
f. 89v: ‘ys thys afayre avaunte / ys thys honor’.
f. 90r: ‘yff all the erthe were parchment scrybable’.
f. 90r: ‘O marble herte and yet more harde perde’.
f. 90r: ‘Alas what shuld yt be to yow preiudyce’.
f. 91r: ‘how frendly was medea to Iason’.
f. 91r: ‘for thowgh I had yow to morow agayne’.
f. 91r–v: ‘yff yt be so that ye so creuel be’.
f. 91v: ‘Wo worthe the fayre gemme vertulesse’.
f. 91v: ‘for loue ys yet the moste stormy lyfe’.
f. 91v: ‘Also wyckyd tonges byn so prest’.
f. 92r: ‘And who that sayth that for to love ys vyce’.
f. 93r: Fragment of a flyleaf, with remnants ‘Stoppe me of my’, ‘for who so ends’, ‘but now helpe god to quenche all thys sorow’, and ‘ffortyn ells’; drawing of a shield.
f. 94r: Fragment of a flyleaf, with inscriptions.
f. 95r-v: Fragment of a 15th-century Italian copy of the Codex Iustinianus (recto Cod. Just. VII.62.32 & 33-34 verso: Cod. Just. VII.62.30 & 32), which once formed part of the binding.
f. 96r: An added set of inscriptions, 'Wlbe lined / nl owe' and the slogan, 'Nowe or / neuer'.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002027736", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 17492: Anthology of Tudor courtly verse, mostly attributed to Sir Thomas Wyatt, with other poems by Henry Howard, Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002027736
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002027736
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100195246672.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1530
- End Date:
- 1539
- Date Range:
- 1530s
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Paper.
Dimensions: 230 × 155 mm.
Foliation: ff. i + 96, with additional blank pages, foliated 1a, 30a, 57a–d, 68a–h, 88a–h, 90a, 96a–b.
Script: Gothic cursive, written by at least nineteen different hands, including those of Margaret Douglas, Mary Shelton, Thomas Howard, Mary Fitzroy (née Howard), and Henry Stuart.
Binding: Covers early 16th century, English, leather with blind tooling. The front and back covers are stamped, respectively, ‘M.F.’ (Mary Fitzroy) and ‘S.E.’ (Stewart, Elizabeth). Rebound and rebacked at the British Museum.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
London, England.
Likely purchased as a quarto-size album of blank pages by Henry Fitzroy (b. 1519, d. 1536), Duke of Richmond and Somerset, or Henry Howard (b. 1516/17, d. 1547), Earl of Surrey.
Provenance:
Mary FitzRoy (b. c. 1519, d. 1555?), Duchess of Richmond, née Howard: inscribed with part of the name of ‘Mary Howard’ (f. 1r), with her initials stamped on the upper cover.
Mary Shelton (b. 1510x15, d. 1570/71): inscribed, ‘mary shelton’ (f. 1r).
Lady Margaret Douglas (b. 1515, d. 1578), Countess of Lennox: one of the manuscript's compilers.
Henry Stewart (b. 1545/6, d. 1567), Duke of Albany, son of Margaret Douglas, known as 'Lord Darnley': responsible for the added the poem (f. 57r).
Elizabeth Cavendish (b. 1555, d. 1582), Countess of Lennox: initials of her married name, 'Elizabeth Stuart', on the lower cover; the manuscript most likely remained in the possession of the Cavendish family at Chatsworth House until the early 19th century.
George Frederick Nott (b. 1768, d. 1841), Church of England clergyman and literary editor: borrowed from the duke of Devonshire for preparation of his edition of the works of Surrey and Wyatt; his sale, Sotheby's, 11 November 1848, lot [Check].
Sotheby’s, Nott sale, 11 November 1848: sold at auction to Thomas Rodd.
Thomas Rodd the younger (b. 1796, d. 1849), bookseller: acquired for the British Museum.
- Publications:
-
Baron, Helen, ‘Mary (Howard) Fitzroy’s Hand in the Devonshire Manuscript’, The Review of English Studies, 45 (1994), 318–35, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XLV.179.318.
Beal, Peter, and others, Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700, http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/repositories/british-library-additional-17000.html.
Crompton, Constance, Daniel Powell, Alyssa Arbuckle, Ray Siemens, and Maggie Shirley, ‘Building A Social Edition of the Devonshire Manuscript’, Renaissance and Reformation, 37 (2015), 131–56, http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/renref/article/view/22644.
Harrier, Richard C., The Canon of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Poetry (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1975).
Harrier, Richard C., ‘Notes on Wyatt and Anne Boleyn’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 53 (1954), 581–84, https://jstor.org/stable/27706483.
Harrier, Richard C., ‘A Printed Source for “The Devonshire Manuscript”’, The Review of English Studies, 11 (1960), 54, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XI.41.54.
Heale, Elizabeth, ‘Women and the Courtly Love Lyric: The Devonshire MS (BL Additional 17492)’, The Modern Language Review, 90 (1995), 296–313, https://doi.org/10.2307/3734541.
Irish, Bradley J., ‘Gender and Politics in the Henrician Court: The Douglas-Howard Lyrics in the Devonshire Manuscript (BL Add 17492)’, Renaissance Quarterly, 64 (2011), 79–114, https://doi.org/10.1086/660369.
Lennox, Margaret Douglas, and Elizabeth Heale, The Devonshire Manuscript: A Women’s Book of Courtly Poetry, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 19 (Toronto: Iter, 2012).
Lerer, Seth, ‘Latin Annotations in a Copy of Stowe’s Chaucer and the Seventeenth-Century Reception of Troilus and Criseyde’, The Review of English Studies, 53 (2002), 1–7, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/53.209.1.
Murray, Molly, ‘The Prisoner, the Lover, and the Poet: The Devonshire Manuscript and Early Tudor Carcerality’, Renaissance and Reformation, 35 (2012), 17–41.
Powell, Jason, The Complete Works of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Powell, Jason, ‘Marginalia, Authorship, and Editing in the Manuscripts of Thomas Wyatt’s Verse’, English Manuscript Studies, 1100–1700, 15 (2009), 1–40.
Seaton, Ethel, ‘“The Devonshire Manuscript” and Its Medieval Fragments’, The Review of English Studies, 7 (1956), 55–56, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/VII.25.55.
Shirley, Christopher, ‘The Devonshire Manuscript: Reading Gender in the Henrician Court’, English Literary Renaissance, 45 (2015), 32–59, https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6757.12043.
Siemens, Raymond, and others, ‘A Social Edition of the Devonshire Manuscript’, Wikibooks, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Devonshire_Manuscript.
Southall, Raymond, ‘Mary Fitzroy and “O Happy Dames” in the Devonshire Manuscript’, The Review of English Studies, 45 (1994), 316–17, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XLV.179.316.
Southall, Raymond, ‘The Devonshire Manuscript Collection of Early Tudor Poetry, 1532–41’, The Review of English Studies, 15 (1964), 142–50, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XV.58.142.
- Exhibitions:
- Discovering literature: Shakespeare and Renaissance, (online), 30 April 2016-
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)