Correspondence Of Robert Dudley, Earl Of Leycester, During His Government Of The Low Countries In The Years 1585-86 (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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Excerpt from Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester: During His Government of the Low Countries, in the Years 1585 and 1586

In the year 1840 Frederic Ouvry esquire kindly placed at the disposal of the Camden Society a MS. volume which had been found amongst certain old papers preserved in the office of a solicitor in the city of London. Besides a treatise upon another subject, Mr. Ouvry's volume contains a transcript of a collection of letters of Robert Dudley earl of Leycester, written between the 3rd of April and the 25th of October 1586, during his first mission to the Low Countries as lieutenant-general of the forces sent by queen Elizabeth to the aid of the united provinces in their great contest against Spain.

In the course of inquiries instituted by the council of the Camden Society, it appeared that the originals of these letters were not known to be in existence, but that there were preserved in the national collection at the British Museum certain other letters written by and to the earl of Leycester during that same mission to the Low Countries, which tended to complete the correspondence of which the letters contained in Mr. Ouvry's volume formed a part.

Such being the case, it was proposed that a selection from those letters in the British Museum should be published together with those in Mr. Ouvry's volume, in such manner as to present, as nearly as possible, a complete view of the correspondence between the earl and the English government during the mission alluded to.