Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599-1605

Front matter

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REFERENCE LIBRARY OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

Foreword

Tue diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, printed in the following pages, has been transcribed and edited from the original which is preserved amongst the manuscripts at the British Museum. It is numbered Egerton 2614, but nothing is known of its history beyond the fact that it was purchased, by the trustees of the Museum, from the Rev. C. St. B. Sydenham on roth November, 1883.

The manuscript consists of a hundred and eighteen folios, each measuring 5,%, inches in breadth by 7,4, inches in length. The first two folios and the last one are torn, so that it is impossible to say whether the whole of the diary has been preserved. Moreover, it has now been put into a modern cover, and, in addition, the inner edge of each folio has been bound with a narrow Strip, the stitching of the binding being done then through these strips.

Each folio is written on both sides, but the diary covers only a few years of its author’s life—from August, 1599, to July, 1605. The long full entries of the early part would seem to indicate Lady Hoby’s interest in a new pastime of which she afterwards came to weary. The entries from 1oth August, 1599, to that date in 1600 occupy fifty folios; thence, to August, 1601, thirty-five ; while August, 1601, to July, 1605, is all comprised in folios 85-118.

The water-mark in the paper upon which Lady Hoby wrote her diary is the same throughout the book. It appears to be a kind of Greek vase with a bunch of grapes at one end. The mark usually occurs at the edge of the page, in about the middle, and cut in half or a quarter of its length by the binding. It does not show on every page, but, taking @ and + to represent the two ends of the design, is found as follows for the first thirty folios: none, a, none, a, a, 4, b, none, 4, none, none, a, none, none, a, a, none, none, 4, 4, none, none, J, a, none, b, none, a, none, none.

In some parts of the diary the writing is much faded, and in others the ink has stained through from one side of the page ix x FOREWORD to the other. In places it is still a good black; elsewhere, the green in it is very distinét. The hand-writing throughout 1s that of the diarist herself, Lady Margaret Hoby of Hackness, Yorkshire, the wife of Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby. She wrote in a current Italic hand, which is sometimes very bold, and shows few Secretary forms. It is the calligraphy of one well accustomed to the use of the pen. “The page reproduced shows its chara¢teristics. It varies in size throughout the diary, becoming on occasions very large and thick. It can be small and exquisitely neat, especially when Lady Hoby squeezes in a last line or two at the foot of a page. ‘The letters are not all made consistently throughout, and she made use of the strokes of abbreviation in common use at this period. Occasionally, when the edge of a page cramped her for space, the ending of a word disappeared completely.

Sometimes the hooded form of the letter @ occurs, but the diary contains few such Secretary forms. At times it was found impossible to decide when the initial L or V was intended by the writer for a capital letter. Size has been made the determining factor, especially as regards the tail of the ZL, for this letter is more or less the same throughout the diary. “The usual dificulty over » and uw cropped up: it was hard to know, for instance, if Lady Hoby intended to write soun or sonn. Sometimes it was fairly obviously the latter. She usually wrote gonn or gone. Sometimes a capital letter occurs in the middle of a word.

Smudges, blots, crossings-out, alterations, the stains of age, all decorate the diary, rendering it in parts almost indecipherable. Throughout, however, Lady Hoby keeps a wide and perfectly Straight margin, for, though no line is drawn, the beginning of each line of writing is exa¢tly beneath another. “This margin is practically identical in width through the book. Her lines of writing, too, run precisely straight across the page though no ruler, apparently, was used. Occasionally there is a comment in the margin, but usually this is occupied only by the dates of her entries. “I’hese dates have in many places been corrected, though sometimes an inaccuracy has gone unnoticed. Frequently a word or words are written in above the line, not always over an omission mark. When occasion arises for the division of a word, it is often done very quaintly, e.g. brea on one line, 4fast on another.

FOREWORD xi

The first and last two pages of the diary are badly torn as will be seen by the text. Otherwise the little volume is almost perfect.

Lady Hoby’s spelling was far from consistent and the marks of punctuation she used were few. The period is found, occasionally in conjunétion with the virgula, a comma here and there, and a colon before and after most of the numerals. Often the 7’s and z’s go uncrossed and undotted. This insufficiency of punctuation has perforce been remedied, with as little violence to the text as possible, in order to make the perusal of the diary more pleasant. An attempt has been made to keep to the colon, comma, and period, for with these Lady Hoby was familiar. ‘The entries of the diary rarely conclude with any sort of pun¢tuation mark, except towards the end of the book, when the virgula has been generally adopted. Lady Hoby’s abbreviations have, where possible, been extended ; words written in above the line have been put into their right place in the text; in all other respects the original diary has been faithfully transcribed. It is, in itself, a remarkably interesting indication of the customary attainments of the women of the period ; hence as much of the original as possible has been kept in this modern reproduétion, for it is throughout in the handwriting of one person.

The distri in Yorkshire with which Lady Hoby was familiar, and the London in which for a time she stayed, have been illustrated by maps. Her journeys to London and York are shown by means of road-rolls, a form of diagram used in England for the first time in the road-books of her period.

A bibliography of the sources used for the notes upon the text is given at the end of the book.

I am deeply indebted to Dr. Eileen Power for her unfailing help, advice, and encouragement, and to Miss Warren for the very careful drawings of the road-rolls. Holbein’s portrait of Lady Russell is at Windsor Castle. By gracious permission of His Majesty the King it is reproduced in this book.