COPY OF AN MS ACCOUNT OF SIR RICHARD LOWTHER'S EXPENCES DURING HIS IMPRISONMENT IN THE TOWER IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH [Richard & Elizabeth Lowther] W.D. - Unidentified Antiquary Manuscript

Scholarly transcript from the early 19th century of Sir Richard Lowther's accounts during his imprisonment in the Tower of London for his involvement in the Duke of Norfolk's plot to marry Mary Queen of Scots and supplant Elizabeth I. A landowner in Westmorland, Lowther was briefly custodian of Mary Queen of Scots after she landed in England in 1579 and this manuscript was copied in the late 1820s from one then held by at Lowther Castle whose whereabouts is now uncertain (Lowther Castle's treasures were dispersed at auction in 1947; Hugh Owen's history of the Lowther Family, 1990, had access to an early manuscript of Lowther's expenses in the Tower.) The manuscript concludes with the writer signing himself (surely) 'W.D. June 30. 1830'. Mr W.D. has yet to be identified. The first part of Lowther's accounts record his journey south towards imprisonment via Middleton, Leeds etc, his appearance in Court at Windsor, including the cost of 'One rapier, one dagger & one girdle; One pair of silk nether stockings. One black bombazye doublet' etc and a huge payment - £100 - which was made 'to my brother Goodere for soliciting my cause at the court. so I might repair home to mine own house'. Lowther did not, it seems, learn the error of his ways and his second imprisonment swiftly followed for his involvement in the Duke of Norfolk's Ridolfi Plot which landed him back in the Tower for the whole of 1572. The accounts contain fascinating details both of Lowther's journeys to and from London as well as the cost of maintaining himself in the Tower, and securing his release, even as his co-conspirator, the Duke of Norfolk went to the scaffold. DESCRIPTION: Red straight grain morocco with gilt lines to spine and edges of boards and title in gilt to upper board. All edges marbled; a binder's ticket of 'Staunton and Son' on the Strand, London. 'Weatherley 1829' watermarked paper. A manuscript title page precedes the text which is written in a cursive hand to rectos only. Lowther's expenses in the Tower run to ff111; Elizabeth Lowther's accounts continue for a further [ff] 6. At the beginning of this second section, WD records that 'The manuscript copied in the preceding pages is contained in a Book which was afterwards used as a memorandum & account Book - It has this Title: "A Book of Account 1604 Elizabeth Lowther"' and he notes that Richard Lowther's accounts 'were not the first transcripts of the original accounts'. WD has inserted occasional marginal glosses about variant spellings and problems with the manuscript. Please contact Christian White Rare Books Ltd for more information or images of this item