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Royal MS 17 B XXVIII
- Record Id:
- 040-002107317
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x0001cd
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100176155482.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 17 B XXVIII
- Title:
- Book of expenses of Princess Mary, with an inventory of her jewels; catalogue of printed books in the Royal Library
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a record of the household expenses of Princess Mary, later Mary I (r. 1553-1558), Queen of England, for the period 1536-1544.
The accounts feature marginal notes and corrections written in Mary's hand, and her signature inscribed at the end of each month for the first year. Among the entries are references to the christening of her half-brother Edward (ff. 1r, 27r), the burial of Jane Seymour (f. 28r), to Princess Elizabeth (ff. 6r, 53v, 59r) and Anne of Cleves (ff. 76v, 78r).
The household expenses are followed by an inventory of Mary's jewels that were entrusted to the custody of Mary Fynche (b. 1508, d. 1557), one of her courtiers. Princess Mary also added notes throughout the text and her signature features in the lower margin of each page.
For an edition of the household expenses and the inventory, see Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary (1831).
Contents:
f. 1*r: An added title-page.
ff. 1r-110v: A record of the expenses of Princess Mary, for the period 1536-1544.
f. 111r-v: A parchment leaf, once used as the binding for the household expenses, featuring a set of rough calculations relating to the household expenses.
ff. 112r-125v: An inventory of jewels belonging to Princess Mary, entrusted to the custody of Mary Fynche, dated 1542, followed by other lists up to the year 1547.
ff. 128v-145v: A catalogue of books in the 'Newe librarye', most likely part of the Royal Library, placed by Thomas Knyvet (b. 1545, d. 1622), gentleman of the chamber to Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), with a list of the six rules adopted for cataloguing; dated 20 December 1581.
ff. 1*v, 30v, 54v, 61r, 88v, 90v, 111v, 119v, 126v, 127v-128r, 129v, 130v, 131v, 132v, 133v, 134v, 135v, 136v, 137v, 138v, 139v, 140v, 141v, 142v, 143v, 144v, and 145v are blank.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Medieval and Renaissance Women
Royal Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002107317 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 17 B XXVIII : Book of expenses of Princess Mary, with an inventory of her jewels; catalogue of printed books in the Royal Library - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1478]/040-002107317
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100176155482.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1536
- End Date:
- 1581
- Date Range:
- 1536-1581
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Paper; parchment (f. 111 only).
Dimensions: 202 x 155 mm (written space: approximately 160 x 110 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 145 (+ 4 paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated paper leaf after ff. 32, 70, 87, 110, 125, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143 and 144 + 2 unfoliated paper leaves after f. 58 + 3 unfoliated paper leaves after f. 60 + 4 paper flyleaves at the end); f. 1* is a paper leaf; f. 111 is a parchment leaf formerly used as a cover for the manuscript.
Collation: Mounted on paper guards.
Script: 16th-century secretary hand.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Brown half-leather binding, with the Royal arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers. Rebound 1969.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Mary I (r. 1553-1558), Queen of England and Ireland: her added marginal notes and corrections in the inventory of her household expenses (ff. 1r-110v); her signature inscribed in the lower margin of each page of the inventory of her jewels (ff. 112r-125v).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): not included in any of the old catalogues.
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Publications:
-
Frederic Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Prince Mary, Daughter of King Henry the Eighth, afterwards Queen Mary (London: W. Pickering, 1831) [edition].
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, p. 231.
Arthur Brown, 'Two Notes on John Redford', The Modern Language Review, 43 (1948), 508-10 (pp. 509-10).
Louise Rayment, 'A New Context for the Manuscript of Wit and Science', Early Theatre, 17 (2014), 49-73 (p. 60 n. 71).
Carlo M. Bajetta, 'Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Ralegh's Classics: The Case of Sophocles', in Oedipus at Colonus and King Lear: Classical and Early Modern Intersections, ed. by Silvia Bigliazzi (2019), pp. 61-88 (p. 65).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)