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Harley MS 2412
- Record Id:
- 040-002048243
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048243
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x000398
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2412
- Title:
- Thomas Legge, Richard Tertius
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains one of the eleven extant copies of Richardus Tertius, a play about King Richard III by the Cambridge playwright Thomas Legge (b. c. 1535, d. 1607).
Contents:
ff. 1r-72v: Thomas Legge, Richardus Tertius, here entitled: ‘Richardus Tertius – Tragedia in tres actiones divisa’ [also in Harley MS 6926]; beginning with a list of ‘Dramatis Personae’; ending: ‘Finis W C’.
ff. 73r-74v: A plan for dividing Actio III into two Actiones, entitled: ‘Heare foloweth how the third action may be devided into twoe actions, so that in the whole ther shalbe 4 actions’.
f. 75v: Preces Deo Fundamus: fragmentary music (with notes on 5-line staffs) for the end of Actio I by ‘Mr Bird’ [probably William Byrd, a wait of Cambridge, according to John Harley, William Byrd (2017), p. 27].
ff. 76r-76v: Stage directions omitted from the exemplar and derived from another copy, entitled: ‘Certayne notes to be observed in divers places unto the which you may repayer by the mark’.
The manuscript contains a few later additions:
f. ii*recto: A note by Frederic Madden (b. 1801, d. 1873): ‘Written by Dr Thomas Legge [etc.]’.
ff. 77v-78r: Latin proverbs and notes; added in the 16th century.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048243", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2412: Thomas Legge, Richard Tertius" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048243 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2412 : Thomas Legge, Richard Tertius - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2413]/040-002048243
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1588
- End Date:
- 1588
- Date Range:
- 1588
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 195 x 135 mm.
Foliation: ff. i-iii + 78 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); + 1 unfoliated blank paper leaf between f. iii and f. 1; f. 43 and f. 44; f. 75 and f. 76; 7 between f. 76 and f. 77; each quire has been mounted onto a paper guard.
Script: 16th-century script.
Binding: British Museum in-house; re-bound on 25 October 1968; the previous binding (blind-stamped and gold-tooled brown leather) has been pasted on the insides of the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
William Collnam [or Collman] [‘Wilk[i]nson’] of Gonville and Caius College, copied the manuscript in 1588 [date on f. 1v] (see Thomas Legge, ed. by Sutton (1993), p. xxviii): his initials on f. 72v and his name inscribed on f. 77v, perhaps also on f. 78v: ‘William homo; Benevolentiae Francis’ (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
John Batteley (b. 1647, d. 1708), Church of England clergyman and antiquary: sold to Edward Harley with the many other manuscripts from his collection through his nephew John Batteley on 5 November 1723 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 66-68).
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, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘5 die Novembris, A.D. 1723’ (f. iii recto).
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.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 690.
John Harley, William Byrd: Gentleman of the Chapel Royal (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 27, 806 n. 11
Thomas Legge: The Complete Plays, ed. and trans. by Dana F. Sutton, 2 vols, American University Studies Series 17, Classical Languages and Literature, 13-14 (New York: Lang, 1993), I: Richardus Tertius, p. xxviii (‘E’), pp. 380-85 (edition of ff. 73r-74v).
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 408.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Places:
- England