Prose miscellany of recipes, prayers, meditations, accounts, and a description of the trial, execution, and funeral of Mary Queen of Scots c. 1550-c. 1590.

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Speech.

Prayer.

Meditation.

Accounts.

Ledbury (England).

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Summary:

The manuscript was originally compiled by several hands in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Notes:

AMDigital Reference:MS E.a.1

Anne Denton married into a prominent family from Hillesden, Buckinghamshire, so perhaps she began compiling the manuscript when she lived in that county. Latin is used at several points in the manuscript. Folger Shakespeare Library MS E.a.1 is a prose miscellany containing a variety of materials from the second half of the sixteenth century. The manuscript contains recipes, accounts, notes on births and deaths of family members, prayers, meditations in English and Latin, and a description of the trial, execution, and funeral of Mary, Queen of Scots. The first hand in the manuscript was probably that of Anne Denton's, which has written on the first folio, centred as a kind of title, "Sum Annae Denton & amicorum" [translation: I am Anne Denton's and her friends']. Denton seems to be conceiving of the manuscript as a repository for her own and her friends' words. Denton's hand may also be that which has written a note on the following page (fol. 2r, msItem 2) saying that there were 267 links in Anne Denton's chain on 5 April 1564. Denton may have also written the cookery and medical recipes that appear on fols 3r-6r (msItems 3-18) and 49v (msItem 24). Interestingly, Denton seems to use both secretary and italic script. A different, though similarly early, hand has written some commentary in Latin on St. Paul's letter to the Romans (fols 9r-12r, 13r, 17r, and 23r-24r; msItem 20). The next addition to the manuscript is the passages on the trial, execution, and funeral of Mary Queen of Scots (fols 6v-8v, 12v-16v, 17v-22v; msItems 19-19.6). It is obvious that the commentary on the book of Romans was transcribed before the Mary Queen of Scots material since the latter sometimes appears on the bottom half of pages that already have Latin commentary on them. A new section of prayers, including a pater noster in Latin, has been written on fols 25r-36v (msItems 21-21.19). A new section of meditations, some extracted from Luis de Granada'sOf Prayer and Meditation. Contayning foure-teene Meditations, for the seauen dayes of the Weeke: both for Mornings and Euenings. Treating of the principall matters and holy misteries of our fayth. Written by F. Lewes de Granada., first published in 1582, has been written on fols 37r-48r (msItems 22-22.16). At the end of the manuscript are a recipe for sore breasts (fol. 49v, msItem 24), probably written by Anne Denton, some accounts (fols 48v rev. and 50v rev., msItems 23 and 26), and a short rhymed prayer (fol. 50v, msItem 25). Another hand probably wrote the Latin notes on the dates of birth and death of Anne Denton and a relative on fol. 1r (msItem 1). The exact number of hands in the manuscript is uncertain. The dates associated with the manuscript are sixteenth-century. The portions contributed by Anne Denton (fols 1r-6r, 49v) must predate her death in 1566; indeed two pages contain the dates 1564 (fols 2r, 3r). The sections on the trial, execution and funeral of Mary Queen of Scots (fols 6v-8v, 12v-16v, 17v-22v) describe events from 25 September 1586 until 1 August 1587. Accounts on fol. 48r rev., refer to amounts spent after 23 December 1573. Several items in the manuscript suggest Roman Catholic sympathies. The first is that the dates of birth of Anne Denton and John Willison on fol. 1r are described as feast days (All Saints' Day: 1 November, and The Annunciation of the Virgin: 25 March). Secondly, the account of Mary Queen of Scots' execution is depicted in a light largely favourable to her: she eloquently defends her faith and dies nobly in this account. Pro-Mary tracts were not published in England or in English after her death, so the scribe probably had access to a manuscript account of events. The description of her funeral (fols 20v-22v, msItem 19.6) was eventually printed in 1686 by Symon Gunton. Thirdly, a Latin pater noster prayer appears amidst other prayers in English (fol. 32v, msItem 21.13). Finally, Luis de Granada was a Catholic Spanish divine, though his meditations once translated into English were appreciated by Protestants. The manuscript in its current state was bound in the late nineteenth century. An early nineteenth-century owner of the volume was John Biddulph, who has dated his ownership of the volume 1821 on the front pastedown. The Biddulph family had links with Ledbury from about 1680, when Anthony Biddulph married Constance, the daughter and co-heir of Francis Hall of Ledbury. The John Biddulph, esquire, of the signature on the inside front cover is the great-grandson of that man. Born in 1768 and still alive in 1852, he inherited estates in the area. Conceivably after Anne Denton's death the manuscript returned to her family, the Willisons, who were linked to Ledbury by Anne's mother and grandmother; from there it passed to later landowners of the town, the Biddulphs, who may have even owned a house formerly lived in by the Willisons (see Watkins, pp. 79-95 and J. Bernard Burke, pp. 94-95, bibliography).Portions of the manuscript resemble a fair copy (for example the meditations, prayers, and Mary Queen of Scots section), but at other times recipes and prayers are incomplete, and portions of the trial description spill onto the bottoms of pages. The accounts seem to have been added on blank pages, sometimes reversed. The volume is announced in Latin as belonging to Anne Denton and her friends. But Denton had died by 1566, earlier than most of the material in the manuscript's pages. This heading on fol. 1r seems to signify a neat reversal of a pattern we often see in manuscripts in which a woman signs an already complete volume. In Denton's case, her largely blank volume was to become a place where later compilers, "friends" in a sense, could add material to its pages, material which was often recusant in nature. Here we see a young, probably Catholic compiler with gentry connections paving the way for further Catholic contributions: a historical rather than a contemporary literary circle.