Add MS 48047

This volume is part of the Yelverton Manuscripts. The initial pasted on the front, H', points to it belonging to the early core of the collection, the library of Robert Beale (1541-1601), administrator and diplomat. It contains some headings and notes, and one text and (probably) one transcription, by Beale.

The texts include an extract made from a 13th-century text (ff. 59r-79v), 'A booke of thinges inquirable in all inferior Courtes', dating to 1537. Other texts can be dated to between 1549 and 1574. Moreover, the texts are copied into a book that was ready-bound; the first item can be dated to between 1565 and 1583, between its composition and publication.

Many of the tracts were written by, or have been attributed to Sir Thomas Smith (1513-1577), scholar, diplomat and political theorist. These include versions of his two most famous works: The Discourse of the Commonweal (written in 1549 and published in 1581, and once attributed to John Hales) and De Republica Anglorum (written between 1562 and 1565, and published in 1583).

For the former, see Dewar, 'The authorship of the "Discourse of the Commonweal' (1966). She took the text here as the basis for her edition, A Discourse of the Commonwealth of this Realm of England (1969). Of the five early manuscript copies of the Discourse known, this text has the fewest omissions and is closest to the original text (p. v); she discusses the relationship between the different texts at pp. 149-56.

The version of De Republica Anglorum here is one of nine surviving manuscript copies, all of which can be dated to before it appeared in print. Mary Dewar in her edition of Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum (1982), lists the manuscripts and discusses their strengths and weaknesses, pp. 11-36. Of the version here (pp. 22-23) she notes, 'The Yelverton copyist … was merely copying it carelessly and somewhat mindlessly'. Beale himself recommended De Republica Anglorum in his 'Instructions for a Principall Secretarie', 1592: 'It is convenient for a secretarie to seeke to understande the State of the whole Realme, to have Sir Thomas Smithe's booke, althoughe ther be manie defects which by progresse of time and experience he shalbe able to spie and mend' (quoted Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed. Dewar (1982), p. 7).

Contents:

fol ii recto: Monogram at the top, 'R P' or RVP' and an illegible name (possibly Robertes). This is the reverse of the cover.

f. iii recto: Doodle and initials (RB and TH). Evidently later than the contents of the volume.

f. iii verso: 'Mss. Yelert. N. 52'.

f. iv recto: Contemporary index.

ff. 1r-50v: [Sir Thomas Smith,] 'De Republica Anglorum'. The present text concludes 'Finis huius Libri . . . T.S.' and beneath the monogram 'RP' 'RVP'?, as on f. ii verso.

ff. 54r-55r: 'Orders to be taken for the placinge of Lordes and Ladies accordinge to their Degrees . . . '. Another copy, Cotton MS Tiberius E VIII, f. 109r, lacks the table of precedence in the present text (f. 55), but contains some additional material and notes.

ff. 59r-79v: 'A booke of thinges inquirable in all inferior Courtes' (so titled in contents list, f. iv). A royal charge to juries in inferior courts to investigate various offences and to refer cases they were not competent to try to the Court of Star Chamber. See Elton, Policy and Police (1972), pp. 336-39, for discussion and extracts. Reference (f. 62r) to 'the Quene' and 'hir sonne and heire apparante' suggest that the work was begun between the birth of Edward VI and the death of Queen Jane, 12-24 Oct. 1537.

ff. 84r-92v: 'The Memorandum for the understanding of the Exchange'. This tract was edited in R. de Roover, Gresham on Foreign Exchange, 1949, pp. 290-309, from copies in the Kress Library at Harvard (which the present text closely resembles), the Huntington and Yale Libraries and the National Archives. See Challis, 'On the Authorship and Dating of the Memorandum For the Understanding of the Exchange' (1983), which places the treatise at between the accession of Elizabeth I and the revaluation of base coins (between 17 Nov 1558 and 27 Sep 1560), and is sceptical of the evidence for the different candidates for its authorship, including Sir Thomas Gresham and Sir Thomas Smith.

ff. 96r-135r: Sir Thomas Smith. 'A Communicacion or Discourse of the Queenes hignes mariage', generally entitled the 'Dialogue on the Queen's Marriage' [1561?]. Text in J. Strype, The Life of the learned Sir Thomas Smith, 1820, App. III, pp. 184-259. The present manuscript varies slightly but frequently from the Strype edition, and it has marginal notes not in Strype, e.g. ff. 99v, 100bv, and different headings to the orations (see Strype, p. 223 and f. 118) here. Among these are references to Machiavelli, ff. 102r, 133v, and to Sir Thomas Wyatt's Rebellion, f. 129v. Other copies are Add MSS 48023, ff. 181r-219v, 48088, ff. 52r-60v (an abstract) and those listed in the description of Add 46366, art. 1, The British Museum: Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts, 1946-1950: Part 1, (British Library, 1979), p. 60 and in Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office (1964), p. 86, n. 1.

ff. 138r-165r: [Sir Thomas Smith,] 'A booke touching the wages geven to the Romane souldior' [1562] (title, f. iv). Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith, pp. 86-87, lists surviving copies. The present text lacks both the dedication to Sir William Cecil found in some texts, and the final chapter xxx (frequently missing in manuscripts) although it is included in the list of contents on f. 139r.

ff. 170r-226v: [Sir Thomas Smith,], 'A Discourse of the common weale of this Realme of England' (title, f. iv and f. 174r). The present text resembles closely (but with many minor variants) Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Add. C.273, rather than the published version or the copy owned by William Lambarde in University College, London.

ff. 229r-230r: 'A note of the Estate of the controversy betwene Mr Lenison and Mr Martin. 1574. given to Mr Secretary Walsingham by William Dodington.' The title is given in Beale's hand. Outline of the consequences of the practices of John Lonison, Master Worker of the Mint, opposed by the Warden of the Mint, Richard Martin, as forwarded by Dodington, the Auditor of the Mint. For this dispute see Challis, The Tudor Coinage (1978), pp. 134-41; related papers are Harley MS 698, ff. 37 sqq. and Lansdowne MS 18, ff. 97-100. Probably c. Aug. 1574; see Challis, p. 137.

ff. 234r-235v: 'A note of the Allyes of the Coynes of france which I had of Monsieur fauchet President of the Chamber of Monayes in Paris. 1571':. A memorandum in the hand of Robert Beale, who was with Francis Walsingham in Paris, 1571-1572. The date looks to have been added later.

ff. 238r-248v. Tract on coinage, entitled (index on f. iv) 'Liber de ratione faciendae monetae et examinationis censura' and headed 'In libro Rubeo in Scaccario in custodia Remembratoris Regine existente, fol. 259'. In Latin. In Beale's hand. A lengthy extract of the13th-century tract, The Red Book of the Exchequer.

ff. 255r-259v: Notes concerning British and foreign coinage, partly (ff. 256r-257v) by Robert Beale.

f. 260r: 'A good way how to ioyne & make fast ii great stones together . . . ' or to repair broken stone or plaster objects. A recipe for 'the master masons sement speciall suer and trewe'.