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Add MS 48039
- Record Id:
- 032-003475858
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-003475858
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100097955180.0x000001
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100162984270.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 48039
- Title:
- Papers of Robert Beale relating to religious affairs, c. 1584-1591
- Scope & Content:
-
The papers of Robert Beale (1541-1601) on religious affairs, c. 1584-1591, are largely copies in the hands of Beale's scribes, often with headings, marginalia and notes in Beale's own hand. The last entry is so full of corrections in the hands of Beale and his scribe that it is arguably better seen as a draft.
The papers are all copies of writings either by Beale or on matters and themes with which he, as a puritan and at odds with Archbishop Whitgift, was heavily concerned. The pages are of a uniform size.
What was probably the original cover - a medieval bifolium - has been removed and is now Add MS 48039/1.
Contents:
ff. 1r-61r: Letters and papers of Beale relating to his dispute with John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1584. Copies, with headings, corrections and notes in Robert Beale's hand. The papers are linked by Beale's narrative (ff. 40r, 47r, 56v) of the dispute. As follows:
- ff. 1r-39v: Treatise on religious questions submitted to Archbishop Whitgift by Robert Beale in April 1584. Draft. Heading in Beale's hand, 'To the most reverend father the L[ord] Archbishops Grace'; marginalia in Beale's hand. Whitgift's summary, sent to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, is British Library, Lansdowne MS 42, ff. 175r-178v.
- f. 40r: Beale's narrative.
- ff. 42r-45v: Letter from Robert Beale to John Whitgift, 7 May 1584. Copy. Heading and marginalia in Robert Beale's hand. Following the archbishop's refusal to return Beale's MS. Whitgift's copy to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, is British Library, Lansdowne MS 42, ff. 184r-v; Whitgift's covering letter to Burghley, 8 May 1584, is printed in HMC, Bath MSS, ii, 1907, p. 23.
- f. 47r: Beale's narrative.
- ff. 48r-56r: 'The answer of Robert Beale concerninge such thinges as have passed between the L. Archbishopp of Canterburye and him'. Copy. Dated by Robert Beale (f. 48r) 'Primo Julii 1584. For my L Thres'. The marginalia may in be Beale's hand at its neatest and most italic.
- f. 56v: Robert Beale's narrative.
- ff. 57r-61r: 'Meanes how to settle a godlie and charitable quietnes in the churche etc.' Dated by in Robert Beale's hand (f. 57r) 'October 1584. For Mr Secretary [Sir Francis Walsingham] and by him sent to the L. Archebishop before the parlement'.
ff. 63r-70r: Letter from Robert Beale to Sir Christopher Hatton, London, 25 Nov 1589. Copy. Heading and day in the date in Beale's hand. On behalf of his ward John Hales, of Whitefriars, Coventry, arrested in Aug. 1589 for harbouring the Marprelate press.
ff. 74r-88v: Papers relating to the proceedings against Thomas Cartwright and other Puritan ministers arrested in 1590; 1590-1591. For other papers of Beale's about the imprisoned ministers see British Library, Add MS 48064. As follows
- ff. 74r-75v: Letter from Robert Beale to John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, [1590]. Asking for bail for Humphrey Fenn, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Coventry.
- ff. 77r-88v: Notes 'Touching the proceedinge against the ministers': a draft of an address sent by Robert Beale to Archbishop Whitgift, [1591]. Copy. Marginalia in Robert Beale's hand. British Library, Add MS 48064, ff. 134r-143r is a copy.
ff. 89r-202v: Papers relating to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and particularly to the Court of High Commission, [c. 1591]. As follows:
- ff. 89r-90v: Opinion of William Aubrey and other civil lawyers, in favour of the ex officio oath in ecclesiastical courts, [c. 1591]. Copy. Heading, which notes that the opinion was delivered to the Lord Treasurer (Lord Burghley) by Aubrey, marginalia and notes [f. 90r-v] in Robert Beale's hand. The opinion was drawn up following the reference to the Privy Council of the indictment of John Hunt, the Bishop of Norwich's commissary; see James Morice's 'A Iust and Necessarie Defence of a Briefe Treatise', 1594, Lambeth MS 234, in which another copy of the opinion is ff. 100r-101v. The other civil lawyers who put their names to it are Richard Cosin, Robert Forth, William Lewin, Thomas King [in error for Byng?], John Lloyd, Edward Stanhope, Daniel Dunn and Nicholas Styward.
- ff. 91r-95r: 'Of othes in Ecclesiasticall Courtes', an opinion in favour of High Commission, [c. 1591]. Copy, with marginalia in the hand of Robert Beale. Other copies are British Library, Cotton MS Cleopatra F I, ff. 75r-80v and ff. 82r-87v, and Bodleian Library MS. Jones 39, f. 73r.
- ff. 95v-96r: Opinion on whether an ecclesiastical judge may hold plea and minister an oath in any but matrimonial and testamentary causes. Copy, with marginalia in Robert Beale's hand. Another copy is Cotton MS. Cleopatra F I, ff. 87v-88v.
- ff. 92r-202v: 'A Collection shewinge what iurisdiction the clergie hath heretofore lawfully used, and maye lawfullye use in the Realme of Englande'. A copy, with marginalia and many notes (sometimes extensive notes, e.g. ff. 114v-115r, 132r, 146r, 148r) in Robert Beale's hand: f. 147* is where a folio was removed, but this seems to have been to be replaced by the extensive corrections on f. 148r. Other copies are British Library, Cotton MS Cleopatra F I, ff. 5r-54r (which incorporates Beale's corrections to the present manuscript) and Inner Temple, Petyt MS. 511.16, 4v. The numerous corrections, some in the hands of a scribe, many in Beale's own hand, suggest this may be a draft than a simple copy.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-003475858", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 48039: Papers of Robert Beale relating to religious affairs, c. 1584-1591" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-003475858
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-003475858
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100162984270.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1584
- End Date:
- 1601
- Date Range:
- 1584-1601
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 310mm x 210mm (writing area: 240-250mm x 150-165mm).
Foliation: ff. v + 209 + f. 147* + f. 150* (plus two unfoliated modern flyleaves at the front and two at the back). 17th-century foliation (with modern additions).
Script: Late 16th-century secretary and italic hands.
Binding: British Library. Formerly bound in a bifolium (not consecutive leaves) of a 14th-century biblical commentary, I Corinthians, chs. 1, 3-5. 'Herbarium Turn[iseri] Lat' is written in a late 16th-century hand, and with the folding pattern, indicate that the sheet was used as a binding prior to employment as a cover for the present MS. On the spine, '44' was written twice. This is now Add MS 48039/1. The current covers are British Library, modern vellum. Preserved separately in the box in which the volume is stored are the volume's original alum-tawed sewing tapes.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Collected by Robert Beale (1541-1601), administrator and diplomat, though probably not bound in his life-time (Taviner, 'Robert Beale', p. 39; British Library Catalogue: Yelverton MSS, p. xxix).
From him it passed to his son-in-law Sir Henry Yelverton (b 1566, d 1630), judge and politician. The Yelverton papers descended to Henry Yelverton, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin. 1st Viscount de Longueville and in due course to his grandson, to Henry Yelverton, 3rd Earl of Sussex, who in 1795 gave them to his cousin Sir Henry Gough-Calthorpe, 2nd Baronet and later first Baron Calthorpe (b 1749, d 1798). The papers remained in his family until Brigadier Richard Hamilton Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe sold the Yelverton papers to the British Museum in 1953.
- Former External References:
- Yelverton MS 44
- Publications:
-
The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts: The Yelverton Manuscripts: Part 1: Description (London: British Library, 1994).
Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967).
Patrick Collinson, 'Servants and Citizens: Robert Beale and other Elizabethans', Historical Research, Vol. 79 (2006), pp. 488-511.
John Strype, The Life and Acts of John Whitgift, D.D., 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1822).
Mark Taviner, 'Robert Beale and the Elizabethan Polity' (University of St Andrews, Ph.D. thesis, 2000).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)