Add MS 8719

MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, in prose and verse, relating to France; 1574-1589. French, and Latin. Copies. Satirical verses and other papers relating to the reign of Henry III (1574-1589), together with contemporary copies of about 10 letters of the period. Title (reversed on f. 1v) by a later hand ‘avril 1585. / Verses et Lebelles contre Henry 3. et toute la cour’, with remark ‘Bon a Imprimer’. Vellum flyleaf (ff. 1-1v) from a 14th cent. French MS. containing a fragment of Bartholus de Saxoferrato (1314-1357), Tractatus de insigniis et armis, inc. 'Ita in vexillo respicitur’, expl. 'Incipimus enim a latere sinistro scribere et protrahimus...' (cf. O. Cavallar - S. Degenring - J. Kirshner, A Grammar of Signs. Bartolo da Sassoferrato's "Tract on Insignia and Coats of Arms" (Berkeley CA, 1994), Appendix 1. Edition: Bartolo da Sassoferrato, De insignis et armis, chapters 20 (line 269) - 29 (line 352), pp. 116-118). Other MS. copies of the treatise in Add. 19977, ff. 6v-13v, 29901, ff. 79-86v, Arundel 489, ff. 163-165, Cotton Nero A VIII, ff. 118-125 (but 122-129), and Add. 28791, an excerpt, ff. 2-4v; printed edition by Baldus de Periglis (Paris: Pasquier Bonhomme, 1475; B.L. copy IA 39270), d²-e⁵; see list of MSS and first printed editions in DBI, 6 (1964), p. 656. Owned by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, but lacking his armorial bookplate. ‘544’ in pencil in top left margin of f. 1. Purchased, possibly together with Add. 8564, 8674, 8786, and possibly also 8538 and 8800, from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 544 (part.).

Contents as follows:

1. ff. 2-3. ‘Discours faict au mois D’Avril 1585 sur les troubles qui arriverent en ce temps. du regne du Roy Henry de Vallois m.^me de ce nom’, four sonnets relating to the League; April 1585. Inc. (f. 2) ‘Le Roy na poinct d’enfant pour succeder en france’, inc. (f. 2) 'Je le veoy, je le veule, il me plaise de le croyre', inc. (f. 2v) 'La victoire et pour euls, car le peuple grommelle', inc. (f. 3) 'Je ne suis pas nay Roy, mon estat miserable'. Published in Journal de l'Estoile pour le règne de Henri III (1574-1589), ed. L.-R. Lefèvre (Paris, 1943), pp. 410-411.

2. ff. 3v-8. ‘Cocq a lasne d’Arnault a Thony’ and ‘Responce de Thony a Arnault’, in verse; [1585]. Inc. (f. 3v) ‘Thony pour te donner plaisir’, inc. (f. 7) ‘Jay fort contenté mon esprit’. Printed with other satirical poems in 1585, according to Registre-Journal de Henri III publié d’après le manuscrit autographe de Lestoile, presqu’entièrement inédit, par MM. Champollion-Figeac et Aimé Champollion fils in J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat, Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France depuis le XIII siècle jusq’à la fin du XVIII, t. i, p. i (Paris, 1837), pp. 193-194; republished with a different end in Journal de l'Estoile pour le règne de Henri III (1574-1589), ed. L.-R. Lefèvre (Paris, 1943), pp. 420-424.

3. f. 8v. ‘Sonnet’; n.d. Inc. ‘(Le roy Despagne) Voulloir pauses discours’.

4. ff. 9-9v. Canzone of 13 quartine; n.d. Inc. ‘Quitez donques las^le fremsie / L’ambition la Jalousie'.

5. ff. 10-16v. Letters; 1575-1585. Inc. ‘Monseigneur monseigneur labbe nous a confesse’.

6. ff. 17-18. ‘Ballet faict par le Roy Henry de Vallois m^re de le nom le jour de Caresme prenant lors que les Ambassadoures d'Angletaire et des Flandres retourn (?) a Paris au mois de marce 1585. Le quel ballet fut psumptueux (?) de (?) chants et (?) musicque’, with the name 'De Spernon' at the end, stanzas for a ballet composed for a reception given by the king to honour the English and Flemish Ambassadors on 10 March 1585; 1585. Inc. ‘Faictes sortir d'icy le vulgaire ignorant’. The name 'De Spernon' possibly refers to Jean-Louis de Nogaret de la Valette, duc d'Épernon, one of the favourites of king Henry. Published in the early 17th cent. with some variants and related to the Balet comique de la reine, composed for the reception held by Queen Louise in the Great Hall of the Louvre on 15 Oct. 1581 in honour of the marriage of her step-sister Marguerite de Lorraine to the king's favourite Anne de Châteauneuf-Randon, Duc de Joyeuse: (a) anonymously in Le Parnasse des plus excellens poètes, t. ii (Paris: chez Mathieu Guil, 1607), pp. 1b-2b, B.L. copy c.39.b.59; (b) as a work by Jacques Davy du Perron, in Recueil de poesies de Monsieur Du Perron, depuis Evesque d'Euvreux... (Paris, 1622; facsimile ed. Paris, 1988), pp. 107-108, B.L. copy 1551/524. For Henry III's reception see Journal de l'Estoile pour le règne de Henri III (1574-1589), ed. L.-R. Lefèvre (Paris, 1943), pp. 374.

7. ff. 18v-20. Satirical verses; n.d. Inc. ‘Je suis este tout estonné / D’un papier qui me fust donné’.

Paper and (f. 1) vellum; ff. 20+xv. 192 x 143mm. Two French hands. Guilford binding of quarter vellum with decorated paper covers over pasteboards. Medieval vellum leaf folded and mounted as f. 1 was possibly the former cover of the volume.