On the eve of this weekend’s 400th anniversary commemorations of the death of William Shakespeare, the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth has announced the purchase of a manuscript associated with the dedicatee of the First Folio of 1623.
Last December, the library purchased at auction in London a manuscript work by George Owen (c. 1598-1665) of Pembrokeshire, written around 1624 and containing an account of successive Earls Pembroke from the Norman Conquest to the first quarter of the 17th century.
Owen dedicated his manuscript to William Herbert (1580-1630), third Earl of Pembroke, a powerful courtier and patron of the arts in the Jacobean court and recipient of a joint-dedication by editors John Heminge and Henry Condell to the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays.
Herbert seems to have been a magnet for those who searched for advancement and favour at the Royal court and Owen’s dedication of a manuscript to him displays a clear intention of impressing a possible benefactor, a nobleman who was also his distant cousin.
The compact manuscript now acquired by the library, embellished with finely painted genealogical tables and a fine armorial, was intended to catch the nobleman’s eye and seems to have achieved its purpose.
Owen was an illegitimate son of the antiquary of the same name who became Wales’ first county historian. George Owen senior, author of The Description of Penbrockshire (1603) died in 1613, and his son wrote this new account of the earldom of Pembroke ‘to finish this work by him begotten ... for the benefitt of his younger children’, and to complete the task which his father ‘allwaies intended’.
Whatever the actual motivation for the work, the resulting patronage of Herbert seems to have propelled Owen junior from his home in Pembrokeshire to the heart of London courtly life. His nomination to the heraldic office of Rouge Croix pursuivant in February 1625 led to his further advancement as York Herald in December 1633, positions of influence in which he could indulge his passions for history and genealogy.
Although he turned his back on King Charles by supporting Parliament during the Civil Wars, he returned to royal favour in 1660 before retiring to Pembrokeshire the following year after a moderately successful life at court.
The library’s director of collections and public programmes, Pedr ap Llwyd, expressed his delight “in the acquisition of this unique text, the first work by George Owen junior to be represented in the Library’s holdings”.
He added: “The timing of the purchase is significant as it brings us ever closer to the personnel and culture of the Jacobean court frequented by Shakespeare and his associates.”
Whilst a copy of the Second Folio (1632) of Shakespeare’s plays is currently displayed in the library’s ‘Words of War’ exhibition, no copy of the First Folio is believed to be in Wales.
However, the library holds an unique contemporary manuscript poem addressed to John Heminge and Henry Condell, close associates of Shakespeare, in which they are praised for having presented the public with treasure greater than the gold of Mexico in the Bard’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies of 1623.
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, from Horatio Walpole’s
A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, vol. II (London, 1806).
Picture captions:
Top: George Owen’s ‘Catalogue of all the Earles of Penbroke’ (NLW MS 24076B), the newly acquired manuscript.
Ends
Poem addressed to Heminge and Condell in the Salusbury of Lleweni Manuscript
(the poem is on p. 141).
Further Information: Elin-Hâf Tel: 01970 632471, email: post@llgc.org.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment