(Elizabeth I)

Providing an overview of English royal expenditure, beginning with a valuation of the livings of all bishoprics and deaneries and other information concerning the church, then giving lists of officers and their salaries in the central administration, comprising courts of revenue (including the exchequer, customs, and others), the law courts, royal court (including the armoury, mint, Queen's Works, as well as the royal household), the Admiralty and the Ordnance, then with a list of ships in the Royal Navy (including tonnage and crew), and finally lists of provincial officials, with salaries, employed in royal fortresses, houses and parks, arranged by county, in a single attractive secretary hand with engrossing initials and red ruled margins, 95 pages, folio (310 x 220 mm), 1590s. Contemporary limp gilt panelled parchment covers with floral cornerpieces and centerpiece, ties, spine colored, housed in a red morocco backed folding-box; worn and stained, some loss at top of spine.

Bonham's, 17 December 2002, lot 746. acquisition: Purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch

A fascinating and detailed summary of the Elizabethan State. This Establishment Book provides details ranging from the size of the Royal Navy — and the complement of men it required in harbor and at sea — to the salaries of the master of the Queen's Otter Hounds and the keeper of Hyde Park. A small number of senior officials are named, including Burghley as Master of the Wards, Sir Walter Raleigh as holding rights in the Duchy of Cornwall, and Sir Thomas Heneage as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and this dates the text to the first half of the 1590s. It provides a particularly good snapshot of the royal court, including an astronomer, artisans from clockmaker to a "Graver of Stones," and the well-appointed royal music, which included players on sackbut (6), viol (8), flute (2), virginals (3), "4 bretheren Venetians" and eight "Players of Enterludes."