Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/106

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98 THE AUTHORSHIP OF TOWNSHEND'S January Six of the eight journals in the Historical Collections are, then, largely abridgements from D'Ewes ; largely, but not entirely. The author had other sources by him to which he referred, a refer- ence so occasional, however, as to be capricious. Thus in 1592/3 it is evident that from 19 February to 5 March the commons' journal is derived directly from the anonymous member's journal, of which D'Ewes, too, had made use ; 1 but on 6 March and thereafter, for no apparent reason, the text becomes again an epitome of D'Ewes. So also in the lords' journal of 1588/9, on 8 February D'Ewes' text was arbitrarily abandoned, supplying only six words as it seems, 2 the rest of the day's entries being drawn most probably from a manuscript abridgement of the official lords' journals made by Robert Bowyer. 3 Hence where D'Ewes groups the two bills read on this day, naming one only, both are entered separately in the Historical Collections. We may now turn to the two journals which have so far been excepted from our analysis, the lords' journal of 1597/8, and the commons' journal of 1601. In both the parliaments of which Townshend was a member, he kept a diary of the commons' proceedings. The later diary is of considerable value, and is that which serves as the commons' journal of 1601 in the Historical Collections* It is printed in full there, with only a few omissions and those perhaps unintentional, and so is justified of its special subheading to which I have already referred. Townshend's diary of the 1597/8 parliament is less elaborate than his later one, 5 and appears in the Historical Collections only through the medium of D'Ewes' Journals where inadequate use was made of it. Strangely enough the manuscript copies of the diary appear to be usually conjoined with a composite lords' journal, 6 abridged probably from Bowyer's abridgement, with the addition of the lord keeper's opening speech, taken from a separate manuscript report. It is this lords' journal which constitutes the second of the exceptional journals in the Historical Collections. And so we may proceed to enumerate the sources of that compilation. 1. D'Ewes' Journals (the manuscript, and not the published version) ? 1 Cf. D'Ewes' Journals, p. 468 a. 2 ' to which the Parliament was continued '. Cf. D'Ewes' Journals, p. 422 a ; Historical Collections, p. 5; Inner Temple, Petyt MS., no. 536, vol. vi, p. 252 (Bowyer's abridgement). 3 Concerning this abridgement, see Miss Jeffries Davies, ante, xxviii. 531. 4 There are a number of manuscript copies of the diary in the British Museum. Possibly the best text is Stowe MS. 362. D'Ewes made liberal use of the diary, but as this was not his sole source, his 1601 commons' journal differs from that in Historical Collections. 5 The British Museum copies are, Cotton Titus F. ii, Stowe 362, Hargrave 278. 6 This is also true in the case of a manuscript belonging to the earl of Winchilsea, which he kindly allowed me to examine. 7 An important distinction, for there are deficiencies in the published journals.