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Letters. Correspondence.

 Subject
Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
Scope Note: Pieces of correspondence that are somewhat more formal than memoranda or notes, usually on paper and delivered.

Found in 3777 Collections and/or Records:

Commonplace book of the Earl of Buchan.

 Item
Identifier: MS.963
Scope and Contents The comonplace book contains drafts of letters to the ‘Bee’, an inventory of the Earl of Buchan’s property, lists of Scottish portraits, an ode, ‘To the Shepherd of the Cot’, and notes and drafts of papers on the Scottish Peerage and other subjects. Included is a manuscript copy of ‘The New Order of Gooding and Manuring all sorts of Field Land with Common Salts’, by Archibald, afterwards 1st Lord Napier (said to have been printed by Robert Waldegrave), referring to the right to issue...
Dates: 1778-1791.

Commonplace book, undated, compiled by James Glasford (died 1845).

 File
Identifier: MS.8493
Scope and Contents

The contents include: extracts from personal letters, biblical commentaries, poems and translations of poems.

Dates: Early 19th century.

Composite manuscript consisting of two volumes (folios 1, 75) of copies, circa 1585, 1607, of papers, 1537-1606, in Italian and Latin concerning attempts to restore Roman Catholicism in England in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.31.4.15
Scope and Contents Each volume has a contents list (folios 1, 77) and the second volume has its own foliation added in an apparently later hand.The first volume (folios 1-74) consists of copies (in the same hand), made apparently in or about 1585, of the following:(i) ‘Discorso del Priore d`Inghilterra a Papa Pio V circa la Riduttione di quel Regno’ (folio 2), being an account by Sir Richard Shelley, Grand Prior of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, written apparently early in 1570,...
Dates: 1537-1606.

Composite volume made up in or about 1819 (the date of the watermark of the binder`s blanks) from five folio notebooks of Lieutenant-General G H Hutton.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.22.1.13
Scope and Contents The contents of the volume are as follows:(i) Extracts, 1797, in the hand of the chief clerk, Robert Lemon, from the `Rotuli Scotiae` kept in the Tower of London (cf. folio 282). The extracts relate to the ecclesiastical antiquities of Scotland. The manuscripts were published, in two volumes, in 1814 and 1819. (Folio 1.)(ii) Copies by Hutton of charters of Newbattle Abbey (folio 32). The source is unidentified: they are in a different order from those of the cartulary...
Dates: ?1789-?1797.

‘Conference betwixt My Lord Belhaven and the Council of Great Britain, 1708', in the form of a letter addressed by Belhaven to the Duke of Hamilton, London.

 Item
Identifier: MS.3021
Scope and Contents

The writer protests against the imprisonment of himself and others on the charge of favouring the attempted French invasion of Scotland and gives a detailed account of his interrogation by the Committee of Council, and particularly the Lord Treasurer (Godolphin), in the course of which he describes feeling in Scotland regarding the Union.

Dates: 19 June 1708.

Contemporary copies and translations of letters, mainly from Italy, reporting on European and Turkish affairs.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.19.1.20
Scope and Contents

Most of the documents are dated 1596. The subjects include Spanish policy in June and July of that year, leading up to the capture of Cadiz by the English (cf. ‘Calendar of State Papers, Domestic series ... 1595-1597’); a rising of janissaries in Constantinople; and events in Italy and eastern Europe. These are followed (folio 33) by miscellaneous papers, mostly concerning the siege of Montauban in 1621.

Dates: 1595-1761.

Contemporary copies of letters apparently written by a high-ranking member of the Army party, taking the form of a weekly newsletter from 12 December 1648 to 29 June 1649.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.7.15
Scope and Contents There is no letter for 22 May, and that for 29 June is in a different hand. The author, who was strongly in favour of the execution of Charles I and of crushing the Royalist party, appears to have held a position of considerable authority. He was responsible for pardoning Laugharne and Powell, and accompanied Cromwell to suppress the mutiny in Whalley`s regiment in April 1649. It is possible that the letters were written by more than one person. They are apparently addressed to a...
Dates: 1648-1649.

Contemporary copy of a letter, 1823, of Henry Brougham of Zachary Macaulay.

 File
Identifier: Acc.8586
Scope and Contents

With associated letter, 1925.

Dates: 1823, 1925.

Contemporary copy of a letter of John Armistead.

 Item
Identifier: Acc.7744
Scope and Contents

Concerning the occupation of Newcastle by the Scottish army.

Dates: 1641.

‘Contents of the Winton Estate’, that is, the Lordship of Seaton and the Baronies of Long Niddry, Tranent and Winton in East Lothian.

 File
Identifier: MS.104
Scope and Contents

In tabular form, showing the names of the tenants, 'the number of acres in each lot and barony, with the total rents and rent of an acre', with a covering letter.

Dates: 1778.

Copies, 17th century, of letters, 1636-1640, of Samuel Rutherfurd chiefly written during the period of his banishment to Aberdeen in 1637.

 File
Identifier: MS.15950
Scope and Contents

The letters are followed (folio 56) by copies of sermons and similar material of Hugh Mackail, David Dickson and others.

The inverted folios contain political and other poems, including 'The black bastel' by James Melvill.

Dates: 1636-1640.

Copies, 19th century, and original papers collected by Sir William Fraser, 16th century-1793.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.23.3.25
Scope and Contents The contents of the manuscript are as follows:(i) Latin legal abbreviations, 16th century. (Folio 1.)(ii) Speech in Latin addressed to `domine doctissime coeterique commilitones mei suavissimi`, in praise of modesty. Late 16th or early 17th century. (Folio 2.)(iii) Transcript, 19th century, of the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 3 February, 1590, concerning the slaughter of David Taillor by William Spottiswood of that Ilk and others. Cf. ‘The...
Dates: 16th century-1793.

Copies, 1707, from manuscripts in the British Museum of state papers and letters concerning Scotch affairs and the interference of the English government in them from about the period of Queen Mary’s arrival in Scotland to the time of her execution.

 Series
Identifier: Adv.MS.35.1.1 (i)-(iii)
Scope and Contents

The description of the manuscript in the folio catalogue (F.R.186) includes the reference: A.3.28-30.

The manuscript is in a neat hand, with a few unimportant notes by the transcriber.

Dates: 2nd half of 16th century.

Copies, 1727 or before, in various hands, of papers concerning Mary Queen of Scots and her reign, apparently collected by James Anderson.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.6.1.19
Scope and Contents Although not published in the work, James Anderson appears to have collected the material comprising this manuscript for his ‘Collections Relating to the History of Mary Queen of Scotland’ (Edinburgh and London, 1727-1728). A draft of articles of co-partnery between Anderson, his son-in-law John Leitch, and his son Patrick, to publish the Collections is at folio 21. Among the papers copied are:the marriage articles of Mary and François II, 1558 (folio 13 verso);...
Dates: 1558-1620.

Copies, apparently by Alexander Ross, of Johannes Ferrerius "Historiae Compendium de Origine et Incremento Gordonias Familiae", 1545, and of his own "Suthirlandiae Comitum Annales", 1625.

 Collection
Identifier: Acc.11085
Scope and Contents

Indluding:

1. "Vera Narratio...Victoriae...quod Auinum Amen [Glenlivet]... Anno Dmi 1594", with ownership inscription of Robert Gordon and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun

2. incomplete charter, undated, of John, Earl of Sutherland

3. letters, 1605, 1623 and undated

4. two fragments of a writing excercise, undated

5. poems, undated, mostly of Robert Southwell, with a photocopy of typescript on the poems.

Dates: 16th century to 17th century.

Copies by Sir James Balfour of royal letters and other documents in the Denmilne Papers.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.7.11
Scope and Contents

A list giving the references of the original manuscripts has been inserted.

Dates: 1586-1626.

Copies by Sir James Balfour of some of his own letters and two addressed to him.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.7.26
Scope and Contents

The letters are not in chronological sequence. Most of them express his friendship for his correspondent, but in one he comments on the reception of the new Service Book at St Giles in 1637 (folio 9 verso), and in another to Lord Elcho he advises on reading matter (folio 12 verso).

Dates: 1628-1643, and undated.

Copies, chiefly typewritten, of letters of Sir Walter Scott, collected by Sir Herbert Grierson when he was preparing the centenary edition of Scott’s letters but rejected from printing.

 Series
Identifier: MSS.1750-1753
Scope and Contents

The copies of those letters in the National Library which are to be found in MS.863 have not been preserved. A list of the numbers of the letters in MS.863 is bound in at the beginning of MS.1750.

Dates: 1800-1832, undated.

Copies, early 18th century, of autobiographies and other works of covenanters.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.34.5.19
Scope and Contents The manuscript is apparently in the hand of John Elphinston: see Adv.MS.32.3.9, folio 78 verso. Several items in Adv.MS.32.3.9 are also in this hand.The contents of the manuscript are as follows:(i) Autobiography of John Livingstone, minister of Ancrum. It has been published from the version in Wod.Qu.XVIII in ‘Select Biographies’, i, pages 129-197. This manuscript has a few variants from the published version. (Folio 1.)(ii) `An Account of what past when...
Dates: 2nd half of 17th century-early 18th century.

Copies, early 18th century, of letters and memoirs of covenanters.

 File
Identifier: Adv.MS.32.4.4
Scope and Contents The contents of the manuscript are as follows:(i) Letters, 1675-1677, of the preacher John Welwood. They are mostly addressed to Elizabeth Collace and her sister Katharine Ross, but there are also a few to the covenanter Richard Cameron. The letters, which are not in strict chronological order, are chiefly religious in nature, but there are occasional mentions of the persecutions in Fife, the Merse and Teviotdale. (Folio 1.)(ii) Memoirs of Katharine Ross. The...
Dates: 1675-early 18th century.