Add MS 78919

: THOMAS OSBORNE, 1ST DUKE OF LEEDS: correspondence between William III and Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby. Marquess of Carmarthen and 1^st Duke of Leeds; 1690-1699. Partly French. Partly drafts and copies. Having been Lord Treasurer to Charles II and one of the signatories to the invitation to William of Orange to invade England in 1688, Danby was created Marquess of Carmarthen and appointed Lord President of the Council after the throne had been offered to William and Mary in 1689, and was one of the Council of Nine who advised Mary when William took his army to Ireland in 1690. The bulk of his archive is now in the British Library (Add. MSS 28040-28054 and Egerton MSS 3324-3359) and West Yorkshire Archive Service (DD5, 192), with a small quantity in Yale University Library (Osborn MSS 6). However the surviving papers for the period after 1689, his second major period of office, have always been recognized as being very scanty; see Andrew Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds (Glasgow, 1944), II, p. 159. In particular the only surviving correspondence between him and William III after 1690 was thought to be the limited number of his letters retained by the King, and now in the Public Record Office; these are printed in Browning, II, pp. 163-218. The present letters supplement the correspondence between the two, 1674-1689, in Egerton MSS 3324, ff. 3-77, 3335, f. 61, 3336, ff. 120, 128, 151, 171 and 3337, f. 1. They complete the King’s side of the correspondence for the remainder of Carmarthen’s public life, and in retained draft and copy form add twice as much to the latter’s side. Purchased from Arthur Freeman Rare Books, February 2003. See also Sotheby’s sale catalogue, 12 Dec. 2002, lot 152.

Paper; ff. 126.

1. ff. 1-36. Letters from William III to Carmarthen; 1690-1694. [italics]Autograph. French[/italics]. Including a [italics]copy[/italics] as well as the original of the last letter.

2. ff. 37-120. Letters to William III from Thomas Osborne, Marquess of Carmarthen, 1[superscript]st[/superscript] Duke of Leeds; 1690-1699. [italics]Drafts[/italics] and [italics]copies[/italics]. Including one letter to Arnold Joost von Keppel, Earl of Albemarle, the King’s favourite, 9 Sept. 1698. For further letters from Leeds to the King forwarded through Albemarle at this period, see Add. MS 63630, ff. 112, 122-129v.

3. ff. 121-126. Letters to Leeds from his chaplain, Christopher Tanckred, 1696, with a letter to the latter from an unidentified correspondent, endorsed by Leeds as having been given to him by Tanckred’s widow in 1704.