Add MS 78178

ff. 1r–81v: Volume XI of the Evelyn Papers. Imperfect disbursement book of the Earl of Leicester, 1584–1586. The entries, dated 10 and 17 April 1584, 2 October–13 December 1585, 21–31 March and 26 May–30 June 1586, record payments made on Leicester’s warrant to household servants, tradesmen and others. The text is printed in Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586, ed. Simon Adams, Camden Society, 5th Series, 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 177–366; see pp. 9–10 for a description of this manuscript and pp. 1–12 passim for other Leicester account-books formerly at Wotton.

A similar disbursement book from Wotton, covering the period 11 December 1585–8 April 1587, figured as lot 53 in the Upcott sale of 22 June 1846 but was destroyed in 1879 during the fire at the Birmingham Reference Library, and its text is known only from transcripts (see Adams, pp. 4–8). Formerly Evelyn MS 258b.

The volume is unbound and imperfect, missing all but the two outer leaves of the first gathering and the last leaf of the final one. Present collation 2, 16, 18, 16, 16 and 13 leaves respectively.

Copied in at least three distinct secretary hands, with marginalia in others, including that of Leicester. Hand A ends in the middle of the entry for 4 June, B at the foot of that for 12 June 1585 and C covers 14 June–5 July 1585, with the remainder in the same or a similar script.