1. The McLean MS. 181 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Vellum, quarto, 35 lines to the page. Well and clearly written in a good clerical hand, of the second quarter of the fifteenth century. þ and ȝ are constantly used, and abbreviations whenever possible. The MS. is more accurate in proper names and in general has a more consistent adherence to the text than other MSS. At times, however, clauses are omitted through carelessness.
The MS. contains, in addition to our piece, which takes up the first ten folios, some envoys from The Fall of Princes, and a version of the Governance of Kings and Princes, by Lydgate, and the Regiment of Princes, by Hoccleve (with the prologue). It is described in Dr. James's catalogue of the collection.
The first folio is lacking. I have therefore used the Calthorpe MS. as my text, up to the point where the Fitzwilliam begins.
This MS. was formerly no. 134 of Lord Ashburnham's collection, and is described in the sale catalogue of Ashburnham MSS. III, app. 134. Through Mr. Yates Thompson's hands it passed into Mr. McLean's, who gave it to the present owner. Another MS. of the Ashburnham collection, loc. cit. III, app. 128, contained an eighteenth-century transcript of a print of this work, I believe from the 1590 text. I have not found this transcript.
The Fitzwilliam MS. was evidently written at some cost for a 'wise governour' who wanted 'mirrours' of government. It is not unlike in its contents the MSS. which Stephen Scrope compiled for Sir John Fastolf, and Great Book of Arms which William Ebesham compiled for Sir John Paston about this time. (See the Paston Letters, ii, 335.)