St John's College L.7 (James 364)

Thomas Sackville, The Complaint of Henry Duke of Buckingham. English, c. 1560

'The Complaint of Henrie Duke of Buckinghame made bye T[homas] S[ackville]', Lord Buckhurst, later Earl of Dorset (1527/36-1608). The Complaint was Sackville's contribution to the second part of the Mirror for Magistrates, first published in 1563 (STC 1248). It has usually been published as two separate works, the Induction and the Complaint, but appears as one under the latter title in this autograph MS. The significance of L.7 was first noted by Marguerite Hearsey; see her letter in the TLS, 18 Apr. 1929, and her edition of the MS, published as The Complaint of Henry Duke of Buckingham, including the Induction, or, Thomas Sackville's Contribution to the Mirror for Magistrates (New Haven, 1936). A full collation of the MS with the earliest published version is included in Lily B. Campbell (ed.), The Mirror for Magistrates (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 532-47.

Manuscript extra information

315x230 mm. 34 fos inc. original covers, blank from 26v. College bookplate (eighteenth century) at fo. 2r. Later College bookplate inside new front cover. No indication of provenance.

Three, or perhaps four distinct autograph hands, with many corrections. Paper, damaged and imperfect at outer corners, ruled margins in red. Original paper covers, rebound in cloth, half leather, 19th cent.