Manuscript letter from the Privy council ordering the execution of Mary Queen of Scots

Item date: 1587
Grant Value: 10,000
Item cost: 109,592
Item date acquired: 1996
Item institution: Lambeth Palace Library
Town/City: London

This letter was bought together with an account of the trial and execution of Mary Queen of Scots and a letter to Elizabeth I from the Earl of Kent, who had been heavily involved in Mary's prosecution, labouring under the Queens displeasure as she sought to wash her hands of responsibility. Also acquired were three letters to Archbishop John Whitgift, including one from the Privy Council in November 1589 asking him to join in forming a committee for the censorship of stage plays in and about the city of London. Illustrated as frontispiece of AR

Item Provenance
Papers of Henry Grey, 6th Earl of Kent, passed to John Selden and thence to Sir Matthew Hale. Rediscovered by James Fairhurst in the 1930s, sold Sothebys December 1996