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Harley MS 180
- Record Id:
- 040-002046008
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002046008
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000596.0x000195
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100166750156.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 180
- Title:
-
Printed and manuscript tracts on royal marriages, collected by Sir Simonds D'Ewes
- Scope & Content:
-
This is a collection of four tracts, the first two printed and the last two in manuscript, on royal marriages between 1555 and 1624.
A Supplicacyon to the quenes maiestie [1555], an attack on the marriage of Queen Mary I to Philip of Spain (later King Philip II), was written by a Protestant exile in Strasbourg, where it was published under a fake London imprint (STC: 17562a; ESTC: S126113).
John Stubbe's The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf was published in Aug 1579, opposing the proposed marriage between Queen Elizabeth I and the Catholic Francois de Valois, Duke of Anjou (as heir to his brother the King of France, also known as "Monsieur") (STC: 23400; ESTC: S117921)..
Lord Henry Howard's riposte to Stubbe in defence of the Anjou match (1580) is an early 17th-century transcription.
The final tract, an attack on the proposed Spanish match between Prince Charles (later Charles I) and the Infanta Maria, was composed for the Parliament of 1624 by Robert Cotton: it presents itself as a memorial from the Lords and Commons. It takes the story of Habsburg ambition and perfidy from 1503 to 1612. It was later printed as "A Remonstrance of the Treaties of Amitie and Marriage, before time, and of late of the House of Austria and Spaine, with the Kings of England. to advance themselves to the Monarchy of Europe" in Sir Robert Cotton, Cottoni Posthuma, ed. by James Howell (London: 1651), 93-107. Peter Beal, 'Robert Cotton', Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700, online: http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/authors/cottonsirrobert.html [accessed 22 February 2019] identifies one other copy in the British Library and five elsewhere.
These tracts were collected by Sir Simonds D'Ewes and bound together with the title-page, "BAZILEGAMUS or Roial Marriages discussed, approoved and improved Betweene Queene Mary & King Philip finished A[nn]o Do[mini] 1554 ... Queene Elizabeth and Mounsieur frustrated A[nn]o Do[mini] 15 ". D'Ewes wrote the title-page for the whole volume and the individual title-pages for the manuscript tracts; he added glosses to the title-pages of the printed tracts. He also signed the Hebrew mottoes which prefaced the volume and Stubbe's tract, dating them to 2 Apr 1627. It is very likely that he transcribed in a fair hand the tracts in manuscript: the headings which open the texts and the running heads are clearly in his hand. Cotton's text is followed by a passage in D'Ewes more distinctive spiky hand, where he quotes Cotton telling him that he had only written as far as he did, leaving the rest, about the proposed treaty between Charles and the Infanta itself, to be added by Parliament in line with the account presented to them by the Duke of Buckingham on 3 March 1624. D'Ewes signed this account and in a postscript noted that afterwards Parliament voted to break off the marriage treaty.
Contents:
f. 1v: Hebrew motto: "The Lord saw the beginning of knowledge." Signed by Simonds D'Ewes, dated 2 Apr 1627.
f. 2r: Title-page to the collection: "Bazilegamus", in D'Ewes's hand.
ff. 3r-29r: A Supplicacyon to the quenes maiestie [1555], printed to title D'Ewes has added: "written to the Queene MARIE Ao. Do. 1555. shewing the miseries brought to Religion & the realme by her Mariage with King Philip" (f.3r).
f. 30: Greek motto: "God grant me humility that I may be faithful." Signed by Simonds D'Ewes, dated 2 Apr 1627.
ff. 31r-73r: The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf (1579), printed. D'Ewes glossed on the title-page: "Written against Monsieur's desiring Q: Elizabeth in marriage by Iohn Stubbs", and specifies the published date of 1579 as the regnal year of Elizabeth 21.
ff. 75r-148r: "The Lord Henry Howard after Earle of Northampton his defence of the French Monsieurs desiring Queen in marriage written in Ao. 22o. Eliz. Ao. Do. i580 in Answare to Mr. Stubbs treatise foregoeing which was intituled The Discouerie of a gapeing gulfe" (title-page, f. 75r). Title-page, heading to the text and running heads in D'Ewes's hand; text very possibly in D'Ewes's hand.
ff. 149r-169r: "A Declaration against the Spanishe matche propounded betweene Prince Charles and the Infanta Maria of Spaine penned by that unmatched Antiquarie Sir Robert Cotton by the Command of King Iames during The Parliament Ao. Do. 1624. Ao: 22o. Jacobi" (title-page: f. 149r.). In the slightly different title to the text itself, D'Ewes as "A Declaration Against the matche propounded and after dissolved in the Parliament ...". Title-page, heading to the text and running heads in D'Ewes's hand; text very possibly in D'Ewes's hand.
f. 149r: Passage by D'Ewes on the Declaration and on Parliament's vote against the match.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002046008", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 180: Printed and manuscript tracts on royal marriages, collected by Sir Simonds D'Ewes" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002046008 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 180 : Printed and manuscript tracts on royal marriages, collected by Sir Simonds D'Ewes - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[0179]/040-002046008
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100166750156.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
Greek, Ancient
Hebrew - Scripts:
- Hebrew
Latin - Start Date:
- 1555
- End Date:
- 1627
- Date Range:
- 1555-1627
- Era:
- CE
- Place of Origin:
- Strasbourg (West Germany); England.
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 140 mm x 95 mm (115 mm x 70 mm).
Folaition: ff. 169 + ff. 29*, 29**, 74* and 148* (plus three contemporary unfoliated leaves at the front and thirty at the back; plus one contemporary fly-leaf at the front and one at the back). There was an original foliation, which has been superseded and covered some of the blank pages at the back).
Script: early 17th century hands.
Binding: Post-1600 calf binding. Gold-tooling and gold-stamped with crest of Sir Simond D'Ewes on front and back covers. A pair of metal clasps. Rebacked in the British Museum with a modern spine and stamped title and call numbers. Inside the front and back covers, book plates bearing the Harley coat of arms.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
Sir Simonds D’Ewes (b. 1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani, 1972): the manuscript is recorded in his catalogue (Watson 1966, no. A19).
Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450.
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
- Former Internal References:
- 180
28f / V
31.g
36.A.10
4 VIII A
43.g
LX.G - Information About Copies:
- Berry, Lloyd E., ed., John Stubbs’s Gaping Gulf with Letters and Other Relevant Documents, Folger Documents of Tudor and Stuart Civilization (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1968), pp. lix–lxi, 155–94. A transcription of Lord Henry Howard's defence of the Anjou match, based on Add MS 48027, ff. 197r-215, with some of the variations with this text noted.
- Publications:
-
Peter Beal, 'Robert Cotton', Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700, online: http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/authors/cottonsirrobert.html [accessed 22 February 2019]
Berry, Lloyd E., ed., John Stubbs’s Gaping Gulf with Letters and Other Relevant Documents, Folger Documents of Tudor and Stuart Civilization (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1968), pp. lix–lxi, 155–94.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. by Robert Nares and others, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808–12).
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts Preserved in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)