ELIZABETHAN ARCHIVES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27098, 22 July 1953, Page 9

ELIZABETHAN ARCHIVES

British Museum Pays £lO,OOO For Papers

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 21. The British Museum has acquired for £lO,OOO the Yelverton Manuscrips from Brigadier R. H. Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, who is a direct descendant of Robert Beale, Clerk of the Privy Council during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. whose papers form the basis of the collection. The manuscrips consist of about 20 volumes and constitute one of the most important archives of the history of Elizabeth’s reign.

The most important group, and the one which gives the collections its great historical and financial value, consists of the working papers and collections of Beale, who acted as Secretary of State on several occasions during the absences of -his brother-in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham. Between 1581 and 1584 he was employed on negotiations with Mary, Queen of Scots, at Sheffield, and in 1586 was sent with Lord Buckhurst to Fotheringay to notify her of the sentence of death passed upon her. His papers include an instruction signed by Elizabeth and Walsingham for dealing with Mary, draft accounts of his with her, official copies of her letters, original letters of her secretaries, accounts with pen sketches of her secretaries, accounts with pen sketches of her trial and execution, and also many papers relating to the conspiracies of the Duke of Norfolk and Anthony Babington, including the only known copy of some of the confessions of the latter.