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Royal MS 18 B XV
- Record Id:
- 040-002107509
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x0002ea
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165176901.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 18 B XV
- Title:
-
Basilikon Doron, or Book of the Institution of a Prince
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains the autograph copy of the Basilikon Doron (The Royal Gift), a treatise on kingship and government written in the form of a private letter by James VI, King of Scotland (r. 1567–1625) and England (r. 1603–1625) for the instruction of his son Prince Henry (b. 1594, d. 1612) around 1598. The text is written in Middle Scots and features the king's own revisions and corrections. It is preceded by a dedicatory sonnet, written in a different hand.
Seven copies of the Basilikon Doron were printed in Edinburgh in 1599 by Robert Waldegrave (b. c. 1554, d. 1603), including the dedicatory sonnet and another sonnet on the text's Argument that is not featured in the manuscript. One of these printed copies is now housed at the British Library as G.4993. A revised version of the text was subsequently published in London in 1603, when it sold in the thousands.
Contents:
f. ii-r: A dedicatory sonnet written in Middle Scots, beginning, ‘Loe heir my son a mirrour viue and fair’;
ff. 3r-33r: Basilikon Doron or Book of the Institution of a Prince.
[f. 33v is blank].
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002107509 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 18 B XV : Basilikon Doron, or Book of the Institution of a Prince - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1662]/040-002107509
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165176901.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1593
- End Date:
- 1603
- Date Range:
- c 1598
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper (inlaid).
Dimensions: 305 x 190 mm.
Foliation: ff. ii + 34 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Late 16th-century secretary hand.
Binding: Pre-1600. Original binding of purple velvet (rebacked) with the King’s initials and arms on each cover, cornerpieces and clasps (a crowned thistle) in plates of gold. One of the plates of arms, one of the corner-pieces, the whole of one of one clasp and the moving part of the other are lacking.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Scotland.
Provenance:
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
Andrew Gifford (b. 1700, d. 1784), Assistant-Librarian of the British Museum: his note on f. i-v, observing that parts of the binding were lacking before it came into his hands.
- Publications:
-
George F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, p. 293.
The Basilicon Doron of King James VI, ed. by James Craigie, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Printed for the Scottish Text Society by William Blackwood & Sons, 1944-50).
Elkin Calhoun Wilson, Prince Henry and English Literature (New York: Cornell University Press, 1946), p. 8 n. 17.
Stanley Rypins, 'The Printing of ‘Basilikòn Dôron’, 1603', The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 64 (1970), 393–417 (p. 393 n. 1).
King James VI and I: Poltical Writings, ed. by Johann P. Somerville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. xviii-xx, 268 n. 1.
- Exhibitions:
- Discovering literature: Shakespeare and Renaissance, (online), 30 April 2016-
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)