Early Modern Scottish Provenance in a 1605 Arcadia

Among the many books the late Professor William A. Ringler (1912-1987) donated to the Center are five early printed editions of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, all published between 1598 and 1674. Ringler received two of these books from one of his mentors, Professor Robert Kilburn Root (1877-1950) of Princeton University. Today's post highlights the most prized "Ringler Sidney" in our collection, a 1605 edition of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. The book's Ringler and Root provenance certainly make it special, but its high density of seventeenth-century Scottish ownership inscriptions and manuscript notes make it extraordinary: the volume once belonged to the noble Carr/Ker family of Ferniehirst Castle, and may have passed through the hands of Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset (and King James I's disgraced favorite).

By researching and transcribing this volume's unique manuscript content, this post examines the "anthropology of the book" (to borrow Jason Scott-Warren's term), and draws on material evidence to illuminate the literary reading and writing practices of an early modern noble family. (Jason Scott-Warren, "Reading Graffiti in the Early Modern Book," Huntington Library Quarterly 73.3 (2010), 380.) 

The front flyleaf offers the first few pieces of evidence we can use to trace the book's provenance.

“This book of Arcadia was given me by my Dearest Ant ^dam Ann Ker^ [i.e. Dame Anne Ker] Lady Balmerino in Anno 1647 Jedbrugh" [“Jedbrugh” being a variant spelling for the Scottish town of Jedburgh]

The story of this book's ownership begins in medias res, forty-two years after it was printed in London. Ann Ker/Carr (Scottish/English) was the wife of John Elphinstone, 2nd Lord Balmerino (whose ownership inscriptions fill the margins later on in the book), the daughter of Sir Thomas Carre of Ferniehirst Castle, and the brother of Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset (1585/6?-1645). The inscription's implied nephew is probably Robert Carr, 3rd Lord Jedburgh, who died in 1692 without issue. When Lady Ann (d. 1650) presented this book to Robert in 1647, its pages were already deeply marked with the signs of former owners and reading practices, having been circulating among noble Scottish readers associated with the Kers/Carrs of Ferniehirst Castle and John Elphinstone, 2nd Lord Balmerino. 

But before moving to the volume's interior manuscript content, we must consider the remaining evidence supplied by the front flyleaf, which further illuminates the book's life in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Jacobean-style armorial bookplate of "Mr George Carre Advocate" fills the middle of the page, bearing Carre's personal Latin motto "fortunam sapientes ferunt." (Translating to "the wise endure fortune," the motto derives from "stulti timent Fortunam, sapientes ferunt," or "the foolish fear fortune, the wise endure her.") The motto "tout droit" ("to the front" or "straight ahead") frames the lawyer's arms from above. Magnae Britanniae Notitiae of 1748 lists a "George Carre, advocate," while the twenty-eighth volume of the Scots Magazine records a "George Carre of Nisbet, Esq, one of the Lords of Sessions," dying on February 21, 1766.

The flyleaf's final provenance notes chronicle the book's ownership trajectory in the twentieth century: "After a century and a half it was given to William Ringler by R.K. Root" and "This is the 1605 edition (STC 22543-43a). WR." It is likely the first note is a gift inscription written by R.K. Root, and the second a bibliographical note by William Ringler (although also possible that both are in Ringler's hand). Root's death in 1950 provides the terminus ad quem for dating the book's transfer of ownership. The "century and a half" of the first note may correspond to ca. 1790-1940, perhaps the period of time the book remained in Root's family after they acquired it from the Carrs in the late eighteenth century. There is simply not enough evidence here to establish such dates for certain, however, so this part of the book's biography must necessarily remain incomplete. 

Three approximate points in time (1647, mid eighteenth century, mid twentieth century) punctuate major periods in the book's provenance history, adumbrating its movement from the Scottish nobility to an eighteenth-century lawyer, and finally to a pair of modern literary scholars. Looking beyond the flyleaf into the margins of the Arcadia itself, however, the inscriptions and "graffiti" of former owners supply a rich portrait of the book's seventeenth-century life, which in this case is more thoroughly documented than its later provenance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

As one can see from this typical page in Book One, the volume has seen heavy use over time (note the water stain and generally worn appearance); a former owner also rotated the book to write a horizontally oriented manuscript note in the right-hand margin.

"Harry stewart wth my hand at Edenburgh 12 day feb: 1644”

This is one of the volume's many untraceable ownership inscriptions, being written by an unremarkable person with a commonplace name. But the note succeeds in locating the book in a very specific time and place three years before Ann Kerr gave it to her nephew, and suggests it moved back and forth between Edinburgh (site of her husband's political career) and the Scottish border towns around Jedburgh over the course of the seventeenth century.

A few pages later a "Kristian Thomsene" signed his name in a secretary hand that looks much older in style than "Harry Stewart's" above. The note seems to read "Kristian Thomsene printed her[e]," "printed" being OED "print" trans. 4: "to commit something to writing; to express in written words; to write down." (The OED has the sense falling out of usage after 1612, which would corroborate the early date suggested by the handwriting.)

Later in the volume (Book Three), this same "Kristian Thomesane" signed his name again. Another frequently repeated signature belongs to a "Walter Lorrane."

"Walter Lorane"

"Walter Lorrane"

"Walter Lorane"

"Walter Lorrane with my hand At Barntoun the 24 of October 1646"

The last of these inscriptions, like the Harry Stewart signature of 1644, dates to the last few years of Lady Ann Ker's ownership, and again locates the book in a specific time and place. ("Barntoun" or Barnton lies a few miles outside of the capital, being the Edinburgh home of John Elphinstone, 2nd Lord Balmerino.) Ten years earlier a "William Goldmane" dated his signature 1634; he (and his kin) signed the book several times.

"Williame Goldmane 1634"




"Per me Guilielmum Goldmane"




"James goldmane Margret ogilis [or ogilvie] Williame goldmane"

Similar to "Kristian Thomesane" above, most former readers/owners of the volume did not date their inscriptions, although paleographical evidence dates all of them to the seventeenth century.

The name "John Glandinine/Glendonying" also appears at several points in the book.

"John Glendonying"




"Jhone o glandinine Jhone o glandinine"

As does "John Douglas."

"Johne douglas wth my hand"

One inscription offers a brief glimpse of a reading experience: "Alexander Wodde" signed his name at the end of Book One to signal his completion of the Arcadia's first section, writing "finish amen be me alexander wodde." At some point a subsequent owner/inscriber added otiose descenders to the name "alexander wodde," rendering the name partially illegible. We have no way of knowing what Wodde thought about his reading.

As I mentioned above, the provenance information presented on the volume's front flyleaf accompanies a series of additional inscriptions related to the Scottish nobility (the Carrs/Kers and John Elphinstone, 2nd Lord Balmerino).

"J. Elphinston J. Elphinston"




"J. Elphinston Mr of Balmerino"




"J. Elphinstone"

Elphinstone (d. 1649)—husband of the Ann Ker mentioned on the flyleaf inscription—left behind several ownership inscriptions, and it is likely he added his name after marrying Ann Ker in 1613. (I will write more about this below, but it seems the book passed primarily through the Carr/Ker family, only picking up the Elphinstone associations through marriage.) Balmerino had an early run-in with Charles I in 1634, when he was sentenced to death by the King's council for possessing "a petition critical of royal ecclesiastical policy" (ODNB entry by John Coffey). Charles would remit the punishment in 1635, allowing Elphinstone to return to his estate at Balmerino (Fife, Scotland) and launch an eventful political career lasting until his death in 1649. But the book's history goes back even further than the Kerr-Elphinstone marriage in 1613. Several "Carr/Ker/Qere" inscriptions, all written in secretary hands appropriate for ca. 1605-1612, point to the volume's earlier circulation among the Kerrs of Ferniehirst castle. There are several "Robert Carr" signatures, and these could refer to either Ann's brother (later 1st Earl of Somerset) or her nephew (3rd Lord Jedburgh); in other words, they could date to the book's life either before or after the Balmerino marriage. In all likelihood, the signatures of both men are represented here.

"Robert Carr"




"Robert Carr" [different hand]




"Robert Qere"

The strongest impression of the italic "Robert Carr" signature (matching the second example shown above) can be found in the next image, which also bears the inscriptions of Walter Lorrane and Thomas Carre (and a secretary-hand "Robert Carre").

It seems two hands are responsible for the book's "Robert Carr" inscriptions, but without comparing these specimens to known examples of hands from potential candidates, it is difficult to tell for certain if this is true.

"Jeane Ker" (unidentified) signed the book in italic with a creatively embellished majuscule "J" and K."

"be me Jeane Ker with my [hand]"

Robert Carr/Qere (x2), Thomas Carr, Jean Ker, Ann Ker, John Elphinstone, William Goldmane, James Goldmane, Margret Ogilvie, Christian Thompson, Walter Lorrane, John Glendonyne, Harry Stewart, John Douglas, Alexander Wodde. From this tangle of names and dates we can pinpoint specific moments of the book's life, although significant temporal gaps remain.

Dated inscriptions:

1634 William Goldmane [probably same time as James Goldmane and Margret Ogilvie] 

1644 (Feb. 12) Harry Stewart [at Edinburgh]
1646 (Oct. 24) Walter Lorrane [at Barnton]
1647 "Jedburgh" [prob. Robert Carr, 3rd Lord Jedburgh]

Other ownership dates:

[1650 Death of Ann Ker]
[mid-eighteenth century] George Carre, Advocate
[ca. 1790-1940? book in Root family?]
ca.1940s? R.K. Root gives two early printed Arcadias to Ringler

But this information by no means creates a full or complete picture of the social practices defining this book's ownership history. Other marks in the volume, including a full set of indexical secretary-hand notes in the margins of Book Three, embody material interactions  between readers and text through writing. Heidi Brayman Hackel's chapter on "Noting readers of the Arcadia in marginalia and commonplace books" is the standard study of Sidney's prose romance as "reading material," and her conclusions about the types of annotations found in surviving copies (pp. 138, 156-169) inform my own assessment of the Center's heavily inscribed "Ringler Sidney."

[Heidi Brayman Hackel, Reading Material in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)]

Unfortunately for our efforts to transcribe such annotations, many of the notes on recto pages were slightly trimmed during an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century rebinding.

"Philo. her *** to cecrop[??]" AND "a relation o[f] Cecro: of a[**] false prat[***] against B[***] and of ye lades [***] to her son"

"Cecropia wooing for her sone Amph:"

These two examples (representing only a very small fraction of the Book 3 MS notes) are typical in the way they indexically summarize the prose romance's labyrinthine plot. The notes do little to express the personal opinion or taste of the reader, but rather function as reference tools for private use or as guides to new readers. I have not been able to match the hand of these notes to any of the early ownership inscriptions described above.

To conclude the post, I present the volume's "miscellaneous" manuscript content, comprised of transcriptions from prayers, poems, and the printed Arcadia itself.

"MOMO"—a child's hand?




"The countess of pembroke's Arcadia Written be Sr philip sidney" [in a stylish secretary hand, the style especially evident in the majuscule "W"]




"Since that ye storme of pas Robert" [transcribing/altering the beginning of the printed italic verses]




"ye lord is only my support and"




"Let him drinke this whom longe in armes to fold
thow doest desuere [desire] and wth free power to hold"
[these lines are transcribed from the facing page (p. 365)

"in the o lord doe I put my trust let me never be confounded nor put
to shame that puts there the trust in ye" [Psalms 31:1]

These transcribed fragments of prayers and poems may not present a complete view of the reading practices historically associated with the book. But their presence nonetheless adds to the total picture of its early modern provenance, and helps us flesh out its life from the jumble of names and dates inscribed within. Since we can confidently link some of these names to figures for whom biographical information exists, it is possible to contextualize inscriptions, reading notes, and marks in books against other types of historical documentation, including additional printed books owned by these readers, their manuscript writings, and their personal correspondence. Piece by piece, a fuller picture of reading history could emerge from collaborative, trans-institutional work on such inscriptions. 

Unique Copy of an East India Company Printed Oath

The Center's copy of King James I's Works (1616), as so many other copies of books with elaborate frontispiece portraits, is imperfect. It lacks the half-title leaf, the verso of which bears a portrait of the seated King engraved by Simon van de Pass. In complete copies the portrait faces the elaborate title page engraved by Renold Elstracke, which depicts peace and religion flanking a triumphantly ascendant crown. 

This happens of course—missing frontispieces. Art-lovers remove their favorite images for presentation on a wall or preservation in a scrapbook. Thieves and unscrupulous dealers excise illustrations (and more famously, maps) for individual sale. What is strange about this particular copy isn't the leaf's absence (a common enough condition), but the presence of something else, something that doesn't belong. 

At some point in the eighteenth century a former owner or bookbinder augmented the volume with a new leaf, an unrelated bibliographical item most likely printed over a century after the Workes' original date of publication. 

The leaf is actually a printed oath of allegiance to the East India Company, an ephemeral  document related to early commercial administration abroad. According to the document's text the company administered this oath to all commanders, mates, pursers, super-cargoes, and factors sailing on ships belonging to the United East India Company. 

Generically speaking, the leaf is a printed form intended for manuscript addition (the document contains a space left blank for the ship's name), and since the space has not been filled in we can assume it was never used as an official company document. 

Dating this item is extremely difficult for two reasons: 1) it lacks any and all publication data; and 2) it seems to be the only surviving copy. John Lancaster (our volunteer rare books cataloger) discovered this item, and he could not find a record of the imprint in any of the usual sources. It appears to be a unique copy (see ESTC N477829). Upon further examination, the sheet reveals a few more clues as to its approximate date range of publication. 

From 1698 to 1708 there were two commercial entities in England known as the "East India Company." Earlier legislation (1694) had deregulated English commerce on the Indian subcontinent, thereby encouraging a group of investors to form "The English Company Trading to the East Indies" in 1698. A decade of competition finally ended in 1708, when the two merged as "The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East-Indies." Since this is the specific company name used on the form in question, we can confidently set a terminus a quo at 1708, the date of the merger.

document verso

document verso, inverted

document verso, inverted, detail

By flipping the document over, we see that it was once folded up and sent as correspondence. The little packet is docketed "James Goodchild at ye Green Man Canon Street ouer a Gainst Abchurch Laine Cuttler," in what looks like an eighteenth-century hand. The identity of this James Goodchild may reveal yet another clue about the date of the printed document. 

By searching for "James Goodchild" among Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) wills (via the National Archives' "Documents Online" service), I found two mid-eighteenth century Londoners of the same name: the first, a glazier, whose will dates 1729; the second, a cutler, with a will dating to 1751. Is this cutler the "James Goodchild...Cuttler" to whom the folded form is addressed?

The same figure is recorded in a few mid-eighteenth century London commercial directories. A "James Goodchild, Hardwareman, Cannon Street" is listed in the 1737 edition of The Directory: containing an Alphabetical list of the Names and Places of Abode of the Directors of Companies, etc. (p. 22). The same entry appears four years later in A compleat guide to all persons who have any trade or concern with the City of London and parts adjacent (p. 129). (Many tradesmen were known as both "cutlers" and "hardwaremen.") The Court Kalendar for both 1736 and 1737 lists a "James Goodchild" as Common-Councilor representing Candlewick Ward (a small ward just north of the Thames close to London Bridge, encompassing the areas of Abchurch Lane and Cannon Street).

I think it is probable that all of these refer to the same James Goodchild, who is also the James Goodchild who received the folded up East India Company document. This information allows us to set 1751—the date of James Goodchild's PCC will—as our publication date range's terminus ad quem. It appears, then, that the printed form could date anywhere between 1708 and 1751, although typographic evidence would suggest a date closer to 1751.

These binding scraps, made from what seems to be part of an uncut sheet used as printer's waste, could reveal even more clues about publication date, but I have been unable to identify the text. 

The title-page inscription of Stephens Thomson records that the book was a gift from "E. Stephens." The title page also features an early circular book stamp belonging to "Samuel Tvrner," perhaps the East India Company officer who lived from 1759 to 1802. 


The first few pages of the book contain some manuscript doodlings of minor importance.

The beginning of a face.

Fancy "R"?

Poor imitation of the historiated initial? 

While clues in the book have answered some of our questions, many more problems remain. I would be very interested in more information about East India Company printed forms c. 1700-1750 and the publication activities of the Company more generally in the eighteenth century. I found some information about an "R. Penny," printer for the East India Company, who died in the early 1760s, but I'm not sure if he had a hand in the printed oath. Catherine Pickett's Bibliography of the East India Company...1600-1785 (to be released on July 5) looks to be a promising resource.

Look for a potential update next week when I look for a watermark. 

UPDATE (6/23): Although I found a watermark on the printed document in question, its contours are obscured by the woodcut image of the East India Company's coat-of-arms. The watermark looks to be a large coat-of-arms, but without better equipment I simply can't determine for sure what it is. 

In other news, John Lancaster has identified the printed text used as binder's waste in this book:


John Downame, Lectures vpon the foure first chapters of the prophecie of Hosea. At London : Imprinted by Felix Kyngston [and T. East], for William Welby, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Churchyard at the signe of the Greyhound, 1608. 
STC 7145, ESTC S110223 (about a dozen copies recorded).


While the waste does not help us date the printed form (it was printed too early), it does help us date the binding to sometime after 1608.

Customizing Camden III

This will be the third and final post on "Customizing Camden," a multi-part series of entries I began three weeks ago that presents images and commentary on the Center's collection of annotated books written by the antiquary William Camden (1551-1623). Today I will focus on two books formerly owned by major figures in early modern England, the London stationer Humphrey Robinson and the Professor of Music at Oxford from 1661-1682, Edward Lowe. 

William Camden, Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha. Lug. Batauorum [Leiden]: Ex officina Elzeviriana, MDCXXV [1625]. [16], XVI, 855, [41] p. :  port. ;  18 cm. (8vo). 

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary calf (lacks portrait); in phase box; inscription on front free endpaper: "Ex dono charissimi amici mri Humphredi Robinson Stationarij Londinensis. a. d. 1627. R.E.", and ms. initials "R.E." on title page; armorial bookplate of J. W & O. Farrer and stamp of the University of Illinois Library on front pastedown; bookseller’s description and invoice (of C.A. Stonehill) to William A. Ringler, Jr., laid in.

First published in 1615, Camden's Annales was the first biography of Queen Elizabeth I. This copy of the 1625 Elzevir edition contains not only the work's first three parts (completed in 1615), but also its fourth (completed in 1617), which Camden instructed his friend Pierre Dupuy of Leiden to publish only after his death (Herendeen, ODNB).

The book was formerly owned by "J.W. and O Ferrer," whose "die-and-sinker style" bookplate (popular in the nineteenth century) sits alongside the ink stamps of the University of Illinois (at Urbana-Champaign) library. 

While the bookplate and stamps may strike one as rather typical marks of provenance in antiquarian books, this gift inscription (on the front free endpaper) is a rarer bird, documenting the book's association with Humphrey Robinson (d. 1670), one of seventeenth-century London's most important and prolific bookseller-publishers. 

The inscription reads:

Ex dono charissimi amici Mri Hum=

phredi Robinson Stationarij

Londinensis. a.d. 1627

                                         R.E.

Translated:

From the gift of [my] dearest friend Mr. Humphrey Robinson of the London Stationers. a.d. 

1627

It may be impossible to determine who "R.E." was (I eagerly invite speculation), but the inscription nonetheless documents the gift-giving activities of an important stationer in the first few years of his full company membership (he became a freeman in 1623). Robinson's career spanned nearly fifty years (1624-1670), during which time he produced such eminent literary works as the Beaumont and Fletcher first folio (with Humphrey Moseley, 1647), John Milton's A Masque presented at Ludlow Castle [Comus] (1637), and Francis Bacon's Essays (1669). As was customary with gift inscriptions of this kind, the text here was written by "R.E.," the recipient of the gift, rather than Humphrey Robinson, the gift-giver. I believe the manuscript price ("4s") is in a different hand, and may have been a retail price associated with the London book trade. 

William Camden, The historie of the most renowned and victorious Princess Elizabeth: late Queen of England: contayning all the important and remarkeable passages of state both home and abroad, during her long and prosperous raigne: composed by way of annals: neuer heretofore so faithfully and fully published in English. 
London: Printed for Benjamin Fisher and are to be sold at his shop in Aldergate streete, at the signe of the Talbot, MDCXXX [1630]. 

[22], 138, 120, 104, [6], 105-148, 224, [20] p. :  port. ;  28 cm. (fol.)

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary (?) calf (lacks Aaa⁴; hinges split at top; final leaf torn); signature "Ed: Lowe" on recto of pi1 and "Edwd. Lowe" on inside front cover; earlier signatures "Richard Whyting [?]" and "John [---]" on recto of pi 1 are partially obliterated in ink; ms. notes on front free endpaper, including "Second hand Cost 4s 2d" in an early hand.  

This 1630 translation of the Annales, "neuer heretofore so faithfully and fully published in English" as the title advertises, contains several interesting manuscript notes dating to the seventeenth century. 

The first of these two inscriptions (the one partially obliterated by ink) appears to read "Robert Whesting." I have been unable to identify him. The second inscription, on the other hand, belongs to Edward Lowe (c. 1610-1682), who served as Professor of Music at Oxford University from 1661-1682. His italic hand and signature survive in a number of contemporary music MSS held in UK institutions. A less stylized version of his signature, from a music manuscript at the British Library, can be seen here.

Lowe also signed the book's inside front cover. 

Perhaps the most interesting manuscript writing in this copy of The Historie of Elizabeth appears on the front free endpaper, a page bearing a number of signatures, scribbles, sums, and notes. I haven't fully worked out the manuscript notes on this page, but there seem to be at least three (probably four) different hands at work. The "Robert Whesting [?]" who signed [pi]1r seems to have begun his signature at the very top of this leaf, to the right of the sum that comes out to 15:0:5. The descender of the majuscule "R" he uses looks very similar to that of the "R" in the note reading "A Receipt" near the edge of the page (both shown below).

Near the top center of the page, in a different hand, a "John W [...]" started to sign his name. In the bottom left-hand corner of the page, in yet a different hand, is a note recording the book's second-hand price: "Second hand / Cost 4s:2d" (shown below).

Finally, in the page's messiest secretary hand (possibly by "John W."), there are a series of notes that appear to relate to someone borrowing the book. 

The annotator begins this note twice (upper center of the page)—"This vnto" and "The Co" —before committing to the substantial note in the page's right center. 

The note itself (marked by two heavily inked vertical lines) reads:

Condicion (of this obligacion)
    is such      s
                               this vnto her returne

                               I affecte as deare

                               as my owne heart

                               yet that receue 

                               mee neare                       

(Special thanks to Heather Wolfe for helping with the transcription.)

The note seems to outline a situation in which someone (probably a lover) was required to return a book to an unknown woman ("her") who the borrower "affecte[d] as deare / as [his] owne heart." This note, along with the book's other manuscript additions, afford us with brief but tantalizing glimpses at both the second-hand book trade and the social practice of book lending in early modern England.

That does it for this week's post and the "Customizing Camden" series. Hope you have enjoyed the entries.