[Mildmay MS]
A folio volume principally of speeches by Sir Walter Mildmay (1520/1-1589), Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a single professional secretary hand, 52 leaves. Late 16th century.
Inscribed names including ‘Noah Duckett 1706’, ‘J Stockdale...Gift of Mrs Duckett’, and ‘William Brookes’. According to a note on the flyleaf the MS was once in an old house in Leicester, then owned by Dr John Barcley, MD; bought from him by his brother-in-law George Cardale 5 March 1884; then owned by Joseph Green of Jayshill House, Stansted, Essex, who sold it to Charles Lowe, bookseller of Birmingham; offered in his sale catalogue in 1889, and purchased by Mildmay's descendant Mary, Viscountess Falmouth.
A bound set of photocopies of this volume is in the Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/RO/1/49.
ff. 24r-5r
• ElQ 208: Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Elizabeth's Speech at the Closing of Parliament, March 29, 1585
Copy, headed ‘Her Maties: speech delivered by her owne mouth in ye Parliamt last holden at Westm: Anno Regin &c. 27:/ 1584’.
Beginning ‘My lords and you of the Lower House: My silence must not injure the owner...’. Hartley, II, 31-3. Collected Works, Speech 16, pp. 181-3.