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Harley MS 1344
- Record Id:
- 040-002047173
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002047173
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000652.0x000352
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100153852615.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 1344
- Title:
-
Narratives of events in the career of Sir Francis Vere
- Scope & Content:
-
This volume provides copies of five narratives describing events in the career of Sir Francis Vere (b. 1560/61, d. 1609), army officer and diplomat, as Lord Marshal in the campaigns of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, against Cadiz and the Azores, and as general commanding the English companies in the service of the Dutch Republic. The first narrative is an account of Vere being challenged to a duel by Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland (1602), the latter 'having Just cause to call Sr. Fraunces vere In question'. The four others are Vere's own 'Commentaries' on the Cadiz (1596) and Azores (1597) expeditions, and on the Battles of Turnhout (1597) and of Nieuwpoort (1600).
The narratives are all in the same hand, but the account of the challenge was originally written as a separate piece. It has its own individual endorsement, 'The questions betwixt the erle of northum[berland] and Sr fraunces vere' (f. 4v). It has also been folded across, unlike the Commentaries.
This volume contains four of Sir Francis Vere's 'Commentaries', but does not include a number of others on his military encounters in the Low Countries. The Commentaries were written by Vere between 1604 and 1609, looking back on his military career. They had a significant manuscript presence in the early seventeenth century. When William Dillingham edited them for publication, The Commentaries of Sr. Francis Vere (Cambridge: John Field, 1657), he was able to collate his text from three copies and Vere's own original text (sig. A4r.-v.). That manuscript presence is evident in the number of surviving copies of all or some of the Commentaries (at least seven manuscripts in the BL alone). and also in the number of copies of Northumberland's challenge and Vere's response. There are 9 other copies of the account of the Northumnberland challenge, as well as a significantly different version of the same event in Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.321, ff. 18r-19v (facsimile and transcription in A seventeenth-century letter-book : a facsimile edition of Folger MS. V.a. 321, ed. by A.R. Braunmuller (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983).
Contents:
- ff.1r-4v: Account of the Earl of Northumberland's challenge of Sir Francis Vere to a duel and his response.
- ff. 5r-10r: Vere's account of the expedition to Cadiz ('The Jurney of cadez')
- ff. 11r-17r: Vere's account of the Azores expedition ('The Iland Jurney')
- ff. 18r-19v: Vere's account of the battle of Turnhout ('The Defeate at turneholt')
- ff. 20r-24v: Vere's account of the Battle of Nieuwpoort ('The Battaile of newport')
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002047173", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1344: Narratives of events in the career of Sir Francis Vere" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002047173 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 1344 : Narratives of events in the career of Sir Francis Vere - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[1344]/040-002047173
- 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_100153852615.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1602
- End Date:
- 1655
- Date Range:
- 1602-c 1650
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper
Dimensions: 320mm x 200mm (writing area 290mm x 180mm)
Foliation: 24ff (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 1 at the end); after f. 24 there are 38 unfoliated blank paper leaves that contain the same watermark as ff. 5-24.
Script: Early 17th-century hand. All the items were written by the same scribe.
Binding: British Museum. The volume was rebound in 1878, when some re-ordering took place from the volume catalogued in the early 19th century. The Northumberland challenge was moved from the last to the first item.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
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 External References:
- 1344
35.V.A
68.D.22 - Information About Copies:
-
"Manuscript Pamphleteering in Early Stuart England" website: transcription and digital images of BL, Add MS 22591, ff. 96r-98v: "The Coppy of the Challenge, sent by the Earle of Northumberland to Sir Frauncis Vere, on St Georges daye, the last yeare Queene Eliz: Anno 1602, and Sir Frauncis his Aunswere".
(https://mpese.ac.uk/t/PercyVereChallenges1602.html, accessed 21 Feb 2019).
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. by Robert Nares and others, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808–12), no. 1344.
The Commentaries of Sr. Francis Vere (Cambridge: John Field, 1657), ed. by William Dillingham
Trim, D. (2008, January 03). Vere [de Vere], Sir Francis (1560/61–1609), army officer and diplomat. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. Retrieved 21 Dec. 2018, from http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-28209.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)