Add MS 37419

DIARY of Adam Winthrop, of Groton Manor, co. Suffolk, father of John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts; 1592-1610. With loose papers of 1560 and 1623. ff. 2-18 are headed by Scripture quotations, but chiefly contain accompts, rentals, etc., as do also ff. 42-69. The diary proper (f. 19) begins with 1595, and records family visits, births, marriages and deaths, attendances at manor courts and assizes, journeys to Cambridge and London, land transactions, etc. Included are references to the writer's Auditorship of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1594 to 1609 (ff. 33 b, 40 b, 50); to loans of books named (ff. 2, 22 b); to his son John's admission to Trinity College (f. 26), marriage to Mary Forth (f. 32), and birth of his son John (f. 33 b) and to proceedings against "my cosyn Alibaster" for "popery" (ff. 22, 23 b, 28 b, 30 b, 45). References to public events include the death in the Tower of Philip, Earl of Arundel, 1595 (f. 19 b); the death of Q. Elizabeth, and the accession, progress and coronation of James I. (ff. 26-27); Proclamations against Elizabeth's grants of monopolies, against profaning the Sabbath by interludes, bull-baiting and other games (f. 27 b), and for adopting the name of "Great Britain" (f. 31 b), etc. The diary was bound in a cover made of two vellum folio leaves (ff. 1, 70) from an Antiphonal (14-15 cent.), containing part of the Epiphany service. Extracts were printed by Robert Charles Winthrop, of Boston, U.S.A., a descendant, in the Life and Letters of John Winthrop, Boston, vol. i. At the end are letters (a) from R. C. Winthrop, junior, to J. J. Muskett, to whom the diary was entrusted by him for editing, expressing his wish that, if he predeceased the latter, it should go to the British Museum; Boston, U.S., 3 Feb. 1899. f. 79;-(b) from J. J. Muskett to the Keeper of MSS. on the same subject; S. Tottenham, 3 Oct. 1906. f. 81. Paper; ff. 82. Small folio (originally 7½ in. x 5½ in.). Bequeathed by Robert Charles Winthrop, of Boston, U.S.A.