16th-Century Manuscript Attributed to Queen Elizabeth I

News December 4, 2019

(Lambeth Palace Library)
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Elizabeth I Translation
(Lambeth Palace Library)

NORWICH, ENGLAND—A manuscript in Lambeth Palace Library has been identified as a work produced by Queen Elizabeth I, according to an announcement released by the University of East Anglia. Researcher John-Mark Philo was looking for translations of works written by the Roman historian Tacitus when he found the manuscript, which was written on a kind of paper stock favored by the Tudor queen. He identified it through a watermark including a rampant lion, the initials “G.B.,” and a crossbow countermark present on paper used for her known translations and personal correspondence. The script of the newly identified translation is a match for the elegant handwriting of one of the queen’s known secretaries in the mid-1590s, but the corrections are in the queen’s own notoriously messy handwriting, Philo said. He added that the subject matter focuses on the death of Augustus, the rise of Tiberius, and the centralization of governmental powers in a single ruler. To read about a grand country estate in Kent that was passed down to Elizabeth I, go to “The Many Lives of an English Manor House.”

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