Add MS 40662

"L'HISTOIRE dela mort d'Aiine Boullene, royne d'Angleterre": poem in French decasyllabic couplets on the trial and death of Anne Boleyn, beg. "Les cas nouueaux et choses merueilleuses." The author dates his work from London, 2 June 1536, a fortnight after Anne's execution on 19 May. His name is given in the first printed edition (Lyons, 1545) as [Lancelot del Carles, almoner to the Dauphin (and afterwards Bishop of Riez), but a MS. at Valenciennes (no. 419 in Cat. Gén. des MSS. des Bibliothèques Publiques, vol. xxv, 1894, p. 377) and Meteren in L'Histoire des Pays-Bas, 1618, p. 21, ascribe the poem to a certain Anthoine de Crespin (al. A. Crispin), seigneur de Miherne (al. Miherve). The latest editor, G. A. Crapelet, in Lettres de Henri VIII à Anne Boleyn, 2nd ed., 1835, pp. 167-214, does not commit himself. The text varies considerably between the various versions and is extended in the present MS. by four extra verses at the end: "Mille cinq cens que l'on comptoit ainsi Ie prie à Dieu quil vueille auoir mercy De ceste Royne aussi de ces seigneurs I Et auec luy soient en gloire et honneurs." Vellum; ff. iv + 42. 8.1/4 in. x 5.1/2 in. xvi cent. Perhaps a presentation copy, as title and first initial are in gold. Belonged to Thomas Thomson, Deputy Clerk-Register of Scotland (Sotheby's sale-cat., 26 Jan. 1866, lot 137), then for a time to Sir William Tite, to whom a letter of 11 May 1866 from John Bruce, antiquary, respecting the MS. is inserted (f. iii). Lot 56 at Sotheby's, 22 May 1922.