Add MS 39866

LETTER-BOOK of Sir Thomas Chamberlayne (see Lodge, Illustr. of Brit. Hist., i, pp. 195, 196, and Rudder, Hist. of Glouc., p. 705) as Ambassador to Spain, containing copies of (88) letters to Queen Elizabeth, the Privy Council, Sir William Cecil [Baron Burghley 1571], Secretary of State, and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Ambassador to France; 11 Feb. 1559/60-15 Nov. 1561. Until 20 June 1560 (cf. ff. 33, 39) [Anthony Browne, 1st] Viscount Montague was associated with Chamberlayne in the embassy. The letters are chiefly concerned with the Queen's marriage, French activities in Scotland, and preparations for the revival of the Council of Trent. Decyphered passages are underlined. The originals of a few of the letters, together with many others not in this letterbook, are in a volume in the Cambridge University Library numbered Mm. 3, 8 (cat., iv, p. 176, no. 2324). Cotton MS. Vespasian C. vii, ff. 210, 127, 133, 141, and Add. MS. 35830, f. 203 contain the originals of five more of the letters (ff. 24, 29, 53 b, 74, 102), Vesp. C. vii, ff. 133, 141 and 35830, f. 203 being in the hand of the clerk who drew up this MS. The entries on ff. 19 b, 36 are duplicates of those on ff. 17 b, 42. Letters have been printed or summarized in:-

Cal. of State Papers, Foreign, 1559-1562 ; Hist. MSS. Comm., 9th Rep., App., Hatfield MSS., i, pp. 179, 205, 236; S. Haynes, Burghley's State Papers, 1740, i, pp. 239, 285, 328; C. G. Bayne, Anglo-Roman Relations, 1913, pp. 253, 259, an extract wrongly stated to be addressed to Cecil. An inaccurate list of the letters is on f. 6. The volume also contains:-

(1) Political poems in a late 17th cent. hand, viz. (a) A satirical ballad on John Pym. Beg. " Truth I could chide you friends! why how so late." Printed as Pym's Juncto, Oxford, 1643. Another copy is in Harley MS. 393, f. 15. f. 2 ;- (b) Three poems, " In reditum Caroli secundi &c.," viz. "Wonder of gods and men! doth Charles appeare." f. 4; " A king! alas I stagger at the name." f. 5 ; " O Lætum Jubar! Aureamque Lucem." f. 5 b;-

(2) Accompts in Spanish, in two 16th cent. hands, viz. (a) "El nombre y cantidad y valor delas encomiendas " vested in the King of Spain as Master of the Military Orders of Santiago de Compostela, Calatrava and Alcántara. f. 108 ; -(b) " Lo que su magestad tiene de renta en todos sus estados," and " Lo que gasta su Magestad. " The amounts differ from those in accompts of similar type, dated 1561, in Cotton MS. Vespasian C. vii, ff. 216 b, 217. ff. 112, 113;-

(3) Two vellum strips from the leaf of a 14th cent. Missal, containing part of the office for Sat. after Pentecost (cf. J. Wickham Legg, Sarum Missal, 1916, p. 169). Formerly used in the binding. f. ii.

Paper (except ff. i, the old vellum wrapper, and ii) ; ff. ii + 114. Folio. A.D. 1560, 1561. On f. i are the names of Jhon Chamberlayne [probably of Maugersbury, co. Glouc., d. 1668, grandson of Sir Thomas] and Elizabeth [his wife ?].