The TannerRitchie Blog

A very rich Lotterie generall without any Blankes

2012-01-12T13:20:00.000-08:00

11 Jan 1569 went down in history as date of the 1st lottery in England. In fact the lottery took several years to run, starting in 1566, and in 1567 MEMSO shows that the queen was concerned that the lottery was failing since 'the lottery erected by her commands in London had not been so well supported as was anticipated'.

Prizes from the first lottery

Everybody who bought a ticket to an early lottery won a prize, and the total prizes given equalled the total cost of tickets sold. As a result, the lottery benefited the government only in so far as it was an interest free loan for the period between the ticket being sold and the prize being awarded.

The lottery system gave rise to the stockbroker profession. Because lottery tickets were very expensive, the brokers sold 'shares' of tickets to individuals instead. This system ran until 1826.

Time is running out on TannerRitchie's biggest and most popular sale.

2012-01-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

It's the last week to stock up on our downloads at $10 or less.

To take advantage of the sale before time runs out at midnight Friday 13th January, visit http://www.tannerritchie.com/

All downloads are $10 or less.
CD-ROMs 50% off.
Discounts on Short-Term Access to MEMSO!

Alternatively, take advantage of our sale on Short-Term Access to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO), and access our entire collection of books and manuscripts, subscribed to by the world's leading universities, in our powerful online database.

Research has never been so easy with MEMSO's powerful search engine. Conduct limitless searches and work with as many books and manuscripts as you want .... at the same time. You even get ebooks to keep So go on. Try MEMSO for an hour, a couple of days, or longer.

Best Tweets of 2011: strange rules and regulations

2011-12-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here are some more of our favourite tweets of 2011 as found in MEMSO. Remember, access to MEMSO is available (discounted during the Holiday season) at http://www.tannerritchie.com/.

Today's theme: strange rules & regulations.

1611: Act abolishing rude & barbarous customs in Ireland, such as crying or howling at funerals; blowing milch cattle to make them give milk.

The West End of Canterbury Cathedral.
Once England's finest gothic urinal?

1536: Henry VIII orders all inhabitants of Galway to shave their 'over lips called crompeaulis' & grow their hair 'til it covers their ears'

1634: Despite a ban, urination @ west end of Canterbury Cathedral & defiling of churchyard 'with more filthy excrements' is still a problem.

Report from London 1618: Tobacco use widespread but banned from court as James I abhors it. Also a great selection of European wines but very expensive. As a result, hiccups held in high regard. Not rude to discharge them in your neighbour's face provided they be redolent of wine or choice of tobacco.

Best Tweets of 2011: Sports and recreation (sort of)

2011-12-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

[Remember, all the information we post is from stories we find while using Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) and our ebooks available from $7.50 each right now at http://www.tannerritchie.com/]

In 1559 the total value of tennis balls imported into port of London was £1,699. A (rough) calculation of that at today's prices is $423,889.75, or $423,889, 15 shillings, or somewhere in the neighbourhood of 403,704 guineas. Prices in marks, merks and Harry Nobles available on request. Whichever way you calculate it, that seems like enough money to buy a huge number of tennis balls for a population in England and Wales of about 2.5 million.

King James V of Scotland in 1524, perhaps lacking a steady supply of Slazenger tennis balls, instead took part in the popular game of chucking eggs at Stirling castle in mock warfare. Hen-houses raided to supply ammunition.

Quote of the day from Lord Godolphin, 15/9/1704: 'A discreet clergyman is almost as rare as a black swan'. Australia discovered by Dutch in 1606, but apparently news of the large populations of black swans (and complete lack of discreet clergymen) in the antipodes had yet to reach Godolphin. The black swan was first described scientifically by English naturalist John Latham in 1790.

Best Tweets of 2011: Ailments

2011-12-22T10:18:00.000-08:00

After yesterday's grizzly deaths, today we recap some of the more unusual ailments we've seen in MEMSO this year.

1677: Archbishop of Canterbury has stranguary (painful and frequent spasms of urination, wrenching out only small drops) PLUS hiccups. Baaaaad combo.

1688: Duchess of Monmouth is 'in great trouble of the shortness of her lame leg ... likely to get shorter & shorter'. Hurt doing dancing tricks.

June 1669: Queen Catherine miscarries after 'being affrighted by an unfortunate accident with one of the King's [Charles II] tame foxes'. The fox followed Charles II into bedchamber at night undetected. In early hours of a.m., fox ran over sleeping Queen's face and into the bed.

29/9/16[42]: Oliver Cromwell's carriage overturns. His belly and thigh so bruised he can't move. The details kept secret due to dishonour of it. [He was driving!]

8/4/1528: Bishop of Lincoln can't perform his duty to Henry VIII this Easter as his limbs are too unwieldy. Shaky hands not ideal Communion

Best Tweets of 2011: Deaths

2011-12-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

We're celebrating the Christmas season by re-tweeting some of our best tweets from the last year (and we'll post them here too). To kick it off, here are the most gruesome and bizarre deaths we found in MEMSO this year.

1595: Sultan Murad III dies from epilepsy. On his death bed he ate solid meats, thick soups and other aphrodisiacs 'for he lay immersed in lust'.

18/8/1503: Controversial Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) dies. Ugliest and most monstrous corpse anyone had ever seen. No human form or likeness. His mouth foamed like a boiling kettle. Swollen body was as long as it was wide. His corpse was stuffed into coffin and jumped on in order to close the lid. Borgia's stomach was swollen and liquidized, and his face turned the colour of wine, mulberries and dirty rags, and began to peel off...

1/8/1714: Q Anne dies at 7pm. Suffered stroke on 30th of July, but death due to gout and ultimately erysipelas (skin infection). Her body was so swollen the coffin was extra large and entirely square.

Get all our Twitter updates during 2012 at http://twitter.com/tannerritchie/

When Royal Grandparents Go Bad: George I

2011-12-14T12:52:00.000-08:00

Caroline of Ansbach,
princess of Wales, in 1716

On 14 December 1717, George, prince of Wales and future George II, and his wife Caroline, the future queen, were turned out onto the streets of London without money, guards or coaches. They had been imprisoned for 4 days in St James's palace following an argument with George I at the christening of the prince and princess of Wales' new baby, which almost ended in a duel.

The king had chosen the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Newcastle, as one of the godparents, apparently according to the custom that the chamberlain took this role. The Prince of Wales, who disliked Newcastle, then shook his fist at the duke, and said '"You are a rascal, but I shall find you out!" The duke misheard, and thought that the prince had said "I shall fight you", in other words, challenged him to a duel.

The king and the baby's parents disagreed about the name the baby should take, as well as about who should be godparents. The king got his way, of course, with the baby being named 'George William' rather than 'Louis'. Moreover, he took possession of the new baby. The prince and princess were banished from court, Caroline fell sick with worry, and was forced into secret visits to her child.

By January, George I had begun to allow Caroline unrestricted access to her son, but in February the baby fell ill and died. Although a post-mortem showed a congenital heart defect as the cause of death, the prince and princess continued to believe that the forced separation was to blame.

The fallout from the dispute went far beyond just the royal family itself. Royal servants' families, who often had members serving both the king and the prince or princess, had to choose sides and leave their jobs, because it was impossible to have a family member in both households.

[Source: Calendar of the Stuart Papers, volume 5, pp. 277-278 http://tannerritchie.com/books/135/]

TannerRitchie's Holiday and New Year Sale 2011!

2011-12-01T13:15:00.000-08:00

All downloads are $10 or less.
CD-ROMs 50% off.
Discounts on Short-Term Access to MEMSO!

It's that time of year again for TannerRitchie's biggest and most popular sale.


Nothing says Christmas like a collection of monastic charters (mead sold separately)

Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday, at TannerRitchie we give you more than a day to take advantage of the huge savings on every book in our catalogue. Downloads are $10 CAD or less, and CD-ROMs are half price.

Alternatively, take advantage of our sale on Short-Term Subscriptions to MEMSO, and access our entire collection of books and manuscripts in our powerful online database.

Research has never been so easy with MEMSO's powerful search engine. Conduct limitless searches and work with as many books and manuscripts as you want .... at the same time. You even get ebooks to keep* So go on. Try MEMSO for an hour, a couple of days, or longer.

Highlights of 2011

We've added hundreds of new titles and will be adding more during the sale - so be sure to visit tannerritchie.com regularly.

During 2011 we've added books to our most popular series, and also published fantastic collections of under-appreciated and underused sources.

Scottish and Genealogy

Scottish and genealogical titles are a perennial favourite at TannerRitchie. This year we added some important new series, such as Hew Scott's Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae (the biographies of the ministers of the Scottish Church since the Reformation in 1560 to 1900, in English), and built on existing ones, such as William Fraser's Scottish family histories which cover the medieval period to the 19th century, and include those of Colquhoun, Grant, Elphinstone and Wemyss amongst others.

A wide variety of interesting documents and family papers were also published by the Abbotsford and Bannatyne Clubs. So if you are interested in these, or Mary Queen of Scots, James VI and the Jacobites, be sure to take a look in our History Club Section. Many of these titles are hidden gems, such as Catalogues of Jewels, Dresses, Furniture, Books and Paintings of Mary Queen of Scots (Bannatyne). As always with TannerRitchie, there was a great deal of new and illuminating content for anybody interested in the reign of Mary Queen of Scots or the Jacobites.

Letters and Correspondence

If you're looking for colourful correspondence, few collections are better than Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Bath (Historical Manuscripts Commission). They are a mainstay for our tweets on Twitter, most notably because they include a high proportion of gossipy and personal correspondence for the period 1515-1795, including noteable writers of England's literary Golden Age such as Swift and Pope. The Original Letters of Prominent Literary Men from the Camden Society, provides great reading for the same reason.

Letters and papers from royals (Elizabeth, James VI and I and Charles I) and prominent political men and families also featured prominently this year.

Savile, Plumpton, Trevelyan, Melros, Egerton, Dudley, and Verney are but a few collections we've added.

Medieval Britain and the Church

The Toronto Maple Leafs workout, circa 1500.
Shortly after they won the Stanley Cup.

The twin subjects of medieval Britain and the pre- and post-Reformation church have always been specialisms of TannerRitchie Publishing. This year we continued to build on core series such as the Exchequer Rolls, Calendar of Close Rolls and Calendar of the Patent Rolls, and published new collections from the Pipe Rolls and Rotuli Hundredorum. For the church, both Abbotsford and Bannatyne provide collections of ecclesiastical records.

Early Modern Britain

As well as many of the titles already mentioned relating to early modern Britain, we've continued to publish new titles to many of our most popular collections. Make sure you take a new look at Calendar of State Papers, Venice, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic and the Acts of the Privy Council of England, if you haven't checked out our titles for a while. We're excited to announce that we are also beginning to publish the Journals of the House of Commons and the Journals of the House of Lords, with titles to appear over the next few weeks. Needless to say, these will be a valuable addition to MEMSO, and a natural compliment to our already extensive collection of governmental works such as the House of Lords (HMC), Statutes of the Realm, Foedera, and Register of the Privy Council of Scotland.

There's so much more to say, but we'll leave the rest for you to explore.

So in closing, from all of us here at TannerRitchie Publishing we would like to wish all our clients, supporters and followers a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

* excludes 1 hour MEMSO access

THE STUFF FAIRY TALES ARE MADE OF

2011-10-24T12:14:00.000-07:00


James VI in 1595

On 23 October 1589, the Scottish Privy Council assembled in Edinburgh (From Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, volume 4) and heard several documents read by the Clerk Register from their king, James VI. The first was a Will for the future government of the kingdom, and the second, a Declaration explaining the reasons why such a Will was necessary. James was leaving to embark on a rather uncharacteristic andostensibly romantic quest. Although James knew that this was not the most prudent thing to do in light of the factional politics and disorder that had undermined the strength and stability of his realm, he needed to go. He needed to rescue his bride, Anne, and bring her to her new home.

The marriage treaty between James VI and Anne, daughter of the late Frederick II of Denmark, was formally concluded in July 1589. For her part, the 15 year old Anne was quite smitten with her future husband – no doubt sheltered from the persistent rumours of James’ sexual orientation(s). The marriage took place by proxy on 29 August at Kronburg Castle, with the EarlMarischal standing in for James VI – even so far as sitting on the marriage bed to consummate the marriage symbolically. Ten days later, Anne embarked for Scotland, where dates had been set, and elaborate arrangements made, for her arrival at the port of Leith, entry into Edinburgh, and formal marriage ceremony with James himself.


Anne of Denmark in 1605

Anne’s voyage from Denmark to Scotland, however, was not clear sailing. Stormy weather and contrary
winds had separated her fleet and drove the Princess’ ship to the Norwegian coast. Although some of her fleet had arrived in Scotland, there was still no sight of Anne. With the day of the appointed marriage come and gone, James’ impatience turned to worry, and on 2October, he sent out a search party. Colonel Stewart’s delayed return led to a further period of ‘fear of disaster; omens; public fast and prayer’. Finally, messengers arrived from Denmark, informing James that Anne’s fleet had been driven back twice, hership the Gideon had sprung perilous leaks before and afterrepairs, and had finally taken refuge on the coast of Norway as itwas deemed too dangerous to try again for a third time. The questionwas now whether Princess Anne should return to Denmark and winterthere, attempting the voyage to Scotland again in the spring, or tryagain now. Indeed, this had become a matter of great contentionbetween the Scots and the Danes. James, however, had other ideas.

And so it was on 23 October, the Privy Council of Scotland learnt of the news that James VI was leaving on a quest, to fetch his bride personally.

Quhairupoun, eftir lang treaty and deliberatioun, contract being endit, the marriage be our ambassador in our name solmpnizat, and the Quene, oure espoused wyffe, accumpanyed with the navy of oure darrest bruthir the King of Denmark and certane of his cheiff officiaris and counsaill appointed to convoy hir towardis us, being on the seyis halding their course hither, have bene divers tymes be stormes and contrarious wyndis sett in Norroway, - quahir deliberatioun being had anent hir returning in Denmark or tarrying still in Norroway upoun mair favourable wind and weddir and sum further provisioun towardis hir transporting, hir awne chois and lykeing best aggreing with the last conditioun, - We, to quhome hir bipast panes and dangeir hes bene no les grievous nor giff we had sufferit thame in our awne persone, finding that nothing can be mair hurtfull to us and oure estate nor giff the consummatioun of oure marriage and the transporting of the Quene oure bedfellow in oure realme salbe differed, and that hir affectioun towardis us, having sa effectuallie kytheit, meritis to be rememberit and acquite with na les goodwill on oure pairt; quhairthrow, thinking to mak the process schoirtair, and to obviate the difficulties objected concerning hir transporting befoir the nixt spring, eftir we had resolvit to send in Norroway a noumer of oure counsaill and officiaris that voluntarlie offerrit to bestow thameselffis and their geir in furtherance of this eirand, we fand yit na contentment of mynd quhill we concludit to interprise the voyage in proper persone [ie himself], thinking, be Godis grace, to performe the same and fra in [ie within] tuenty dayis, wind and wethir serving.

James was going himself, and set out in explicit detail provisions for the future government of the realm in his absence. But what is, perhaps, of greater interest is what followed next – a Declaration, written by James VI himself, explaining the personal reasons behind his decision to fetch his ‘bedfellow’ and consummate his marriage.

In respect I knaw that the motioun of my voyage at this tyme wilbe diverslie skansit upoun, the misinterpreting quhairof may ten alsweill to my grite dishonour as to the wrangous blame of innocentis, I have thairupoun bene moved to sett doun this present Declaratioun with my awne hand, heirby to resolve all gude subjectis first of the causes breiflie that moved me to tak this purpois in heid, and nixt in quhat fassioun I resolved myself thairof.

As to the causes, I doubt nocht it is manifestlie knawne to all how far I wes generallie found fault with be all men for the delaying sa lang of my marriage. The ressonis wer that I wes allane, without fader or moder, bruthir or suster, king of this realme and air apperand of England. This my naikatnes maid me to be waik [weak] and my inemyis stark; ane man wes as na man, and the want of hoip of successioun bread disdayne; yea, my lang delay bred in the breistis of mony a grite jealosie of my inhabilitie, and gif I wer a barrane stok.

While it is true that the primary duty of any sovereign, male or female, is to produce heirs to the throne to secure the line of succession and, consequently, the stability of the realm, James loved the life of a bachelor, the company of men and other such manly pursuits. So, to blame the fact that he took so long to marry on his family (or lack thereof) was a little disingenuous. But, it is reassuring that the pressure to marry and produce heirs wasn’t only a problem associated with queenship. Moreover, it is tempting to read into first, James’s choice of language and second, his reaction to the gossiping and contempt regarding his failure to marry, as sensitivity to rumours of his homosexuality (or as it would have been termed at the time, his preference for male company and apparent disinterest in women). He repeatedly refers to Anne as his ‘bedfellow’, a term that might be interpreted as deliberately emphasizing the heterosexual nature of the relationship. Thus, while one of James’s earliest biographers, Arthur Wilson, saw James’s journey as ‘the one romantic episode of his life’, here he seems to be objecting that he has been pushed into marriage sooner than he had hoped by malicious gossip, and can find no peace until the marriage has been consummated.

Thir ressonis, and innumerable otheris hourly objected, moved me to hasten the treaty of my marriage; for as to my awne nature, God is my witness, I could have abstenit langair nor the weill of my patrie could have permitted. I am knowne, God be prased, not to be very intermperately rashe nor concety [flighty] in my wechtiest effearis [weightiest affairs], nather use I to be sa caryed away with passioun as I refuse to heir ressoun.

In an attempt to convince his Council that he was not influenced by any one, or any particular faction to undertake such an uncharacteristic mission, James took pains to assure his counsellors that he came to this decision alone – ‘not ane of the hail Counsale being present ... And, as I tuke this resolutioun onlie of myself, as I am a trew Prince, sa advised with myself onlie quhat way to follow furth of the same.’

Hence the reason this voyage was kept so secret:

Fra the tyme of the making of this offer, have evir kepit my intentioun of my going asl clois as possiblie I could frome all men, because I thocht ay it we aneuch [enough] for me to putt my fute n the ship quehn all thingis wer redy without spearing of further [ie any further debate or enquiry]. As I kepit it generallie clois fra all men, sa I say, upoun my honour, I kepit is sa from the Chancellair.’ Because if he had informed him, he would be ‘blameit of putting it [in] my heid’.

James sailed from Leith and arrived in Oslo on 19 November, where they were married in a formal ceremony four days later. The newlyweds wintered in Norway and Denmark, before setting sail for Scotland in the spring. They arrived at Leith on 1 May 1590, and Anne made her entry into Edinburgh on 5 May – in a coach of silver brought over from Denmark. Scotland’s new Queen was crowned on 17 May at Holyrood, which was of particular significance because it was Scotland’s first ever Protestant coronation. The ceremony was also controversial, particularly with the kirk ministers. James insisted that rituals dating, he claimed, to the Old Testament be incorporated in the ceremony – namely, the opening of the Queen’s gown so that her breasts and arm could be anointed with oil.

George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, was James VI & I's final favourite. James described him as 'sweet child and wife' and a secret passageway was built between Villiers' bedroom and James' at Apethorpe Hall, which was only discovered in 2004/8. Nevertheless, there is no unambiguous evidence that James' relationships with his favourites was other than platonic.

Unfortunately, James and Anne’s marriage was not characterised by ‘smooth sailing’ any more than the first months of their marriage. Their marriage was fractious and, although they had four children, they spent most of their lives apart, especially after James inherited the throne of England. Moreover, even the ‘romantic’ journey to Norway and apparently genuine initial infatuation of James VI for Anne after her arrival in Scotland did not permanently dispel the gossip regarding James’ preference for male company, especially when it took three years for Anne to become pregnant. The eventual birth of seven live children helped quieten the rumour-mongers again, but the king’s intimate relationships with male favourites, and perhaps the 21st century need to assign people from earlier periods to categories that would have been meaningless at the time, mean that the question of James’s sexuality remains today.

Camden Society Volumes: Colourful diaries, accounts, letters and papers from 'eminent' people

2011-07-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

TannerRitchie has today published 6 new volumes from the Camden Society, incorporating an even more than usually colourful collection of letters, diaries, papers and accounts.

Today's publications include:

The Private Diary of Dr John Dee: Renaissance mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist, and subject of Damon Albarn's opera which premiered on July 1st, 2011. A true renaissance man, Dee's seriousness as a mathemetician should not be overshadowed (well, maybe just a bit) by the fact that he spent the last thirty years of his life trying to commune with angels.

Plumpton Correspondence. A series of letters written in the reigns of Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VII & Henry VIII: An edition of the correspondence of a medieval aristocratic family from Northumberland - one of the few collections of letters from that period, covering everything from high politics and war with Scotland, to the weather.

Letters of the Earl of Perth to his Sister: A collection of letters between the earl and his sister that begins with a gripping and detailed account of the earl and his wife's attempt to flee Scotland in disguise, and through deep snow, after the deposition of James VII and II (the last Stuart king) in 1688. The earl's ship was caught in the Firth of Forth, and he was imprisoned until 1693. The letters continue until after the earl was eventually freed on condition that he went into exile, whereupon he joined the Jacobite court at St Germain. The sympathy towards the earl's predicament is somewhat mitigated by the fact that he introduced the thumbscrew to Scotland.

Egerton Papers: Letters from the reigns of Henry VII to James I.

Accounts and Papers Relating to Mary Queen of Scots: Primarily containing the accounts of the expense incurred by the queen's imprisonment in England, the expenses on her funeral, and Queen Elizabeth's 'Justification' for her treatment of Queen Mary.

Letters of Eminent Literary Men (1542-1799): A typical collection of colourful letters, but this time all written by men with some connection to literature or the arts. Two such letters were written by John Stubbs, a pampleteer and political commentator, sent from the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth for sedition. The letters were written with his left hand, because he had been sentenced to have his right hand cut off with a butcher's knife and mallet. According to Wikipedia: 'Immediately before the public dismemberment, Stubbs delivered a shocking pun: "Pray for me now, my calamity is at hand." His right hand having been cut off, he removed his hat with his left, and cried "God Save the Queen!" before fainting.'

The Bairns' Ploy: How children helped Mary Queen of Scots' escape from Loch Leven Castle

2011-05-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

I came across this entry detailing the escape of Mary Queen of Scots from Loch Leven Castle in May 1568. Maybe I was a bad historian, but I never knew how it was actually achieved! Nothing like the Venetians for providing a lot of detail ... best calendar series for gossip and unabridged detail!

A romantic and anachronistic depiction of Mary's escape by Sheriff

The account is noteable, among other things, for the reliance on the bravery and discretion of a numbe rof young boys and girls, mostly under the age of ten, who were employed as pages and maids at the castle, to sneak the queen out of the gate, and then lock her erstwhile captors in while they fled by boat across the loch.

The Escape of Mary Queen of Scots from Loch Leven Castle as written by Giovanni Correr, Venetian Ambassador in France, 26 May 1568 (CSP Venice, volume 7 (1558-1580), no. 425, pp. 414-417).

A gentleman came from Scotland with confirmation of the Queen’s flight, which took place thus.

The Queen of Scotland was advised by Lord Seton, her most confidential Catholic friend, and a very brave gentleman, by means of a lad in the house who never returned, that he on an appointed day would be with about fifty horsemen at the lake of Lochleven, where the Queen was held prisoner. Seton remained with forty horsemen in the mountains at a short distance, so as not to be discovered by the occupants of the castle in the lake, and the other ten, approaching nearer, entered a village, pretending to be travellers; and one of these men went to the edge of the lake itself, and prostrating himself on the ground, so as not to be seen waited, according to the order given, until the Queen should come forth, as arranged.

Guard was continually kept at the castle gate day and night, except during supper, and the key was always placed on the table where the Governor took his meals, and before him. The Governor is the uterine brother of the Earl of Murray, Regent of Scotland, the Queen’s illegitimate brother and her mortal enemy. The Queen, having attempted to descend from a window unsuccessfully, contrived that a page of the Governor’s, whom she had persuaded to this effect, when carrying a dish, in the evening of the 2^nd of May, to the table of his master with a napkin before him, should place the napkin on the key, and in removing the napkin take up the key with it, and carry it away unperceived by anyone.

Having done so, the page then went directly to the Queen, and told her all was ready; and she, having in the meanwhile been attired by the elder of the two maids who waited upon her, took with her by the hand the younger maid, a girl ten years old, and with the page went quietly to the door, and he having opened it, the Queen went out with him and the younger girl, and locked the gate outside with the same key, without which it could not be opened from within.

They then got into a little boat which was kept for the service of the castle, and displaying a white veil of the Queen’s with a red tassel, she made the concerted signal to those who awaited her, that she was approaching. On seeing this, the person stretched on the ground on the bank of the lake arose, and by another signal summoned the horseman from the village, amongst whom a principal person was he [John Beaton] who is now come to give account of these facts to these Majesties [in France], and who is the brother of the Scottish Ambassador here [James Beaton, Bishop of Glasgow]. The horsemen from the mountains being also informed came immediately to the lake, and received the Queen with infinite joy, and having placed her on horseback with the page and the girl, they conveyed her to the sea coast, at a distance of five miles from thence, because to proceed by land to the place which had been designated appeared manifestly too dangerous.

Looking across to Loch Leven Castle, with the Ochil Hills behind

... With regard to her flight, it is judged here, by those who know the site, and how strictly she was guarded, that her escape was most miraculous, most especially having been contrived by two lads, under ten years of age, who could not be presupposed to have the requisite judgment and secrecy. To the greater satisfaction with the result may be added, that the inmates of Lochleven Castle perceived the flight; but being shut up within it, and thus made prisoners, they had to take patience, and to witness the Queen’s escape, while they remained at the windows of the castle.

All having embarked, the Queen was conducted to Niddry, a place belonging to Lord Seton, and from thence to Hamilton, a castle of the Duke of Chatelherault , where his brother, the Archbishop of St Andrews, with other principal personages of those parts, acknowledged her as Queen.

... All Scotland is in motion, some declaring for the Queen, and some against her for the Earl of Murray.

And so the Marian Civil Wars officially began.

[Public domain images from Wikipedia.]

The best books and the best research tools - now from $10

2011-05-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in the medieval or early modern past, the most important research tool for your research is now easier and cheaper than ever to access.

Working with multiple sources.

Not only are we currently providing personal access to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) at our cheapest rates during the Spring Sale, but you can now also access MEMSO for just $10, with unlimited searches, the ability to view and print the books contained in MEMSO, and the ability to download from our large collection of images from the British State Papers.

Why do I need access to MEMSO?

MEMSO contains a constantly growing collection of key sources for medieval and early modern history, specializing in the history of Britain and it relations with Europe, Colonial North America and Asia. MEMSO is also widely used across the humanities, and a key resource for English literature, religion and legal history.

But MEMSO is much than a simple collection of sources. MEMSO provides advanced tools to exploit the sources in ways impossible with the original books, or through any other web interface:-

Advanced, instantaneous full text searches of the entire resource, or just the sub-sets of sources you use.

Detailed bookmark navigation for each and every source in the database to find the material you need quickly - a unique and important difference between MEMSO and other online publications.

Consult multiple books and manuscripts, side by side. Researchers rarely have one book open at a time - you need to be able to open and compare many books at once. MEMSO implements an advanced desktop/window interface that lets you consult the sources in a way that dramatically increases the power and accessibility of this research tool.

Download full ebooks* and high definition scans of manuscripts to keep forever, print in full or use offline.

It's not just the books - it's how you can use them.

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2011-05-05T14:58:00.000-07:00

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Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae published

2011-03-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

This week we have begun the process of republishing Hew Scott's monumental Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, one of the most valuable reference works for historians of early modern and modern Scotland. Despite appearances, Fasti is not in Latin, and contains biographies of the Scottish presbyterian clergy between the Reformation in 1560 and 1900.

"Your faithful &
obedient servant, Hew Scott",
editor of Fasti

As always, TannerRitchie Publishing's editions don't just contain a simple digital scan of the work, but add a detailed navigation and search system that enormously increases the value of the works for researchers. Using the bookmarks, you can quickly get where you want in the books, which the full text search adds another dimension unavailable in the original volumes. Priced at $20, the volumes in Fasti are incredible value for valuable research tools.

Meanwhile, as part of MEMSO, Fasti can be used side-by-side with the primary sources, or saved to your personal bookshelf for for frequent reference.

Check out the first volumes of Fasti, available now, and keep on checking back as we complete the series in the weeks ahead.

New titles: 18 February 2011

2011-02-18T09:08:00.000-08:00

This week's crop of new titles include charters from the Register of Brechin Cathedral - a collection of rare documents and charters from medieval Scotland until the Reformation - and the continuation of our publication of the Historical Manuscripts Commission Manuscripts of the House of Lords Series.

The Valentine who stole more than a heart - Early Modern Valentine's Day celebrations in England and Scotland

2011-02-14T03:00:00.000-08:00

Many of us think that, today, holidays have become too commercialized; the focus being on the material rather than the true meaning of the day. Valentine’s Day, it would seem, is no exception. No sooner is Christmas over than the aisles of shops become awash with pink and red plastic crap.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve been using MEMSO (www.tannerritchie.com/memso.php) to find interesting tweets for Twitter (where, incidentally, you can follow us @tannerritchie). Needless to say, given the extent of our catalogue, we’ve come up with some real gems – quite literally in the case for references to Valentine’s Day.

There are over 2600 hits to the word ‘Valentine’ in MEMSO. Most references, however, are Christian or surnames (Valentine Minge and Valentine Boyles are the ones that stick in one’s mind), names of ships, or references to the feast day itself, used to date letters, events, or payment terms etc. But hidden in and amongst these are some other references about how Valentine’s Day was celebrated in the Early Modern Period. And they seem to have set the bar pretty high in terms of the ‘bling’!!

In 1522, at the court of Henry VIII, the Spanish Ambassador reports the following to Charles V:

The young Mary Tudor, shown wearing her Valentine's badge, reading 'The Emperour' (public domain image)

"After dinner, at the tournament, we were presented by the cardinal [Wolsey] to the queen [Catherine of Aragon] and the princess Mary ... Catherine asked affectionately after you majesty’s health and the prosperity of your affairs, and said that nothing in the world so rejoiced her as to hear of your health and happiness. Then, after we had saluted the princess, she continued to question me not less sweetly than prudently, about your majesty, and there was much pleasant conversation, especially about the charms of the little princess, who, it should be noticed, wore on her bosom a golden brooch ornamented with jewels forming your majesty’s name, which name she had taken on St. Valentine’s Day for her valentine, which seems a happy augury."

Princess Mary was just shy of her sixth birthday at the time.

Anne Dacre, countess of Arundel, failing to look like anyone's idea of a fun Valentine. (Public domain image)

Giving jewelry seems to be one of the longstanding traditions of celebrating Valentine’s Day at the English Royal Court – and one which is still prevalent today, although in the Early Modern Period gifts of jewelry were given to both women and men. In 1558, for example, following the death of Queen Mary, Philip II compiled an inventory ‘of the jewels that lie in a coffer at Whitehall’. One entry refers to a ‘small necklace with thirteen roses, a garter and thirteen knots, as well as a small St. George, in a black velvet case’. Philip’s elaborated that ‘This was sent to me by the Countess of Arundel as a valentine.’

Another tradition at Court was the act of picking the name of one’s Valentine.

In 1618, the Venetian Ambassador wrote at length about how Valentine’s Day was celebrated by the upper echelons of English society, including at Court.

‘Any woman soever, however noble, even if she be married, fails not to have her valentine, and the men also have their valentines. They revel changes annually thus. On St. Valentine’s eve they place in two ballot boxes sundry tickets whereon are inscribed the names of the men and women of the company, each of whom draws a ticket in turn. Those thus coupled by chance unite together much more closely than if their love were loyal; they banquet together and exchange presents, each preserving the ticket which for some days the man wears in his hat and the woman in her bosom. They even have their names engraved in gold, the invariable rule being that the Valentine do kiss his lady whenever he meets her. Nor may this appear strange to your lordships, for the like style prevails at the court also without excepting the king [James I], the prince [Charles] and the queen [Anne of Denmark], whose hand alone is generally kissed.’

The ambassador concludes by writing, ‘Were it lawful for me to consign to paper certain other peculiarities which are usual among the middle and lower classes, I should astound you’. Ah, come on!!!!

Finally, there were several references to the giving of Valentines in the Register of the Privy Council for Scotland ... but these, however, were decidedly less romantic than their English counterparts. In 1561, for example, heads of the prominent families on the Scottish Border were summoned and appeared before Mary Queen of Scots and her Council. There, they ‘ressavit their valentinis of the names culpable of thift and utheris crymes, and wer chargit to apprehend and tak the samyn personis contenit in the saidis valentinis...’ Later in the 1570s, valentines, as letters containing names of persons to be apprehended, continued to be used in this way.

Well, whatever rocks your boat. Cheaper than jewelry.

So, whether it is the giving of expensive pieces of jewelry or the apprehension of criminals, the people of Early Modern England and Scotland certainly are a hard act to follow. The pink and red plastic crap doesn’t look so bad now.

Suggested reading:
Register of the Privy Council, Scotland, 3 series
Calendar of State Papers, Spain
Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy

Henry VIII's Ecclesiastical Valuation (presented in HD)

2011-02-11T11:01:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks, one of TannerRitchie's most popular series has been our recently published edition of the Valor Ecclesiasticus (Ecclesiastical Valuation) of Henry VIII, the huge 'Domesday of the Church' ordered by Henry VIII after his decisive break with Rome in 1534. Put together in six months by untrained commissioners, the Valor has been shown to be a surprisingly accurate summary of the wealth of the church at the Reformation, and an essential source for any historian of the Tudor age.

A Capital 'V' from the Valor Ecclesiasticus, showing Henry VIII and his council.
See full size high definition images at the National Archives website

Coincidentally, today is the 480th anniversary of Henry VIII first demanding that he be recognised as the supreme head of the Church in England. Although the Act of Supremacy, which formally instituted the English Reformation in law did not follow until November 1534, in February 1531 Henry had forced the concession from the Convocation of Canterbury that he was

"their singular protector, only and supreme lord, and, as far as the law of Christ allows, even Supreme Head".(J.R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents (CUP) p. 17)

This was the opening salvo of the Reformation, whereby Henry used an act of Richard II, the Statute of Praemunire, which denied the jurisdiction of any foreign power in England, explicitly to attack the ability of the church of England the exercise any power independently of royal authority.

While the first motivation for the break with Rome was Henry's wish to annul the 'blighted' marriage to Catherine of Aragon, this early episode also displayed two other elements that were strong motivations: power and money. Across Europe, secular princes had increasingly been demanding unchallenged 'imperial' authority in their lands for many years, while during the fifteenth century the vast accumulation of independent wealth in the hands of the clergy proved an increasingly tempting target for both royalty and nobility, especially in the long period of lower population and lower rents brought about by the Black Death.

The Valor Ecclesiasticus, then, was quite simply a way for Henry VIII to work out how much tax he could gain from his new acquisition - and the answer was 'a lot'. All the taxes that had previously gone to the papacy now came to the crown, along with a new 10% tax. Finally, the Valor Ecclesiasticus was part of the process that ended with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which would see a simply gargantuan transfer of property and wealth to the crown away from the church. It is still the greatest enforced land transfer to take place in England since the Norman Conquest.

Given the bureaucratic importance of the Valor, it therefore seems slightly quaint that the surviving manuscripts also happen to provide some of the richest illuminated manuscripts of the reign. Why make a financial statement look pretty? The answer is that a special simplified, illustrated version was made for the king's own use, suitably visually enriched for the purposes of the king. While the king may not have wanted the entire minutiae of the Valor, he was certainly keen personally to understand the full extent of what he had taken into his hands.

Further Reading

TannerRitchie Publishing: Helping you discover the sources you need

2011-02-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

Searching the entire database for keywords and phrases

TannerRitchie Publishing prides itself on the service it provides to its clients around the world. Today, we are proud to introduce a new feature on our website that is designed to help researchers find the sources they need, and to discover new ones that they didn’t know they needed!

Our new integrated Search Box brings the power of MEMSO’s search engine to our homepage (http://www.tannerritchie.com/). Available for all to use, free of charge, the Search Box enables visitors to search for specific book titles and for keywords and phrases in the full text of our entire catalogue. This is a truly amazing and powerful research tool that will provide users with a comprehensive list of books that contain their keywords, and the frequency with which they appear in each book. Users can then opt to purchase individual books as downloads, or on CD-ROMs.

Short Term MEMSO access - the most economical way to access our entire catalogue

But we guarantee that you will be surprised at the speed and extent of the results! This is why we would also like to feature Short-Term MEMSO – the most economical way to access our entire catalogue through MEMSO in the comfort of your own home. A Short-Term subscription to MEMSO is designed for those who don’t have access to an institutional subscription, or would like to use MEMSO for a very short period of time. You can have access for 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months .... and get ebooks to keep forever. Alternatively, you can choose a personal subscription for one year, with unlimited access and unlimited ebooks for you to keep.

An Ebook App For Historians and Researchers

MEMSO is an advanced web application. The search engine is extremely powerful and fast. But perhaps the most useful feature for researchers is our unique window system. MEMSO users have the ability to conduct simultaneous searches, and more importantly, the ability simultaneously to open and to view as many pages of books as you would like, while storing your favourites on your customized bookshelf. MEMSO literally resembles your physical desktop (but without the coffee and phone). Because we are historians and researchers ourselves, we know how people research and cross reference ... and the ability to access and view, easily and quickly, more than one book at a time is critical!

So try out our new Search Box, play around with it and have fun! And if you are feeling research guilt about all the books you should be consulting, don’t be overwhelmed, check out our Short-Term personal subscription options for MEMSO.

And, as always, if you have any questions or book suggestions, please feel free to contact us (www.tannerritchie.com/contactus.php)

MEMSO: Constantly Growing, Constantly Developed

3 Days Remaining in TannerRitchie Publishing's Winter Sale

2011-01-12T12:02:00.000-08:00

Don't miss out! Our winter sale, where all our titles are available for just $10 each, comes to an end on Saturday 15th January, 2011. Downloads usually cost $20 to $35 each, so this is a great chance to stock up on the hundreds of rare historical titles available on our website.
All our titles are searchable and have a detailed navigation system to help you quickly navigate find the information you need.
Our titles expand in scope and quantity all the time. Below are listed just some of the series that have recently been published for the first time or expanded with new volumes. If there are particular titles you are interested in that we have not published yet, reply to this email and let us know. More titles will be published before the sale ends on Saturday.

Watch this space in 2011 ...

Keep an eye out for new features and announcements coming very soon, including tools to help you identify exactly which books we publish will help your research the most.
There are many ways to keep up to date with the latest from TannerRitchie Publishing:

Christmas Sale 2010: It's here!

2010-12-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

All downloads $10 each!

Back by popular demand, TannerRitchie's 3rd Annual Holiday Sale is now on. From now until 15 January, all our ebook downloads are just $10 CAD each. Visit www.tannerritchie.com and start ordering!

With our ever-expanding catalogue, and with new books published every week, you'll be sure to find something that fits your historical research needs.

New series have been added, and old series have been expanded - so be sure to check in with TannerRitchie regularly, subscribe to our RSS feed, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter (if only for our witty, informative and pithy historical tidbits taken daily from MEMSO). And don't forget our blog, which will keep you up to date with our news, and also includes longer articles about unusual material we come across in MEMSO.

What's more, we've just made browsing our catalogue and shopping for ebooks even easier.

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From all of us here at TannerRitchie Publishing, may we wish all our clients a very Merry Christmas and Holiday Season, and a Happy and Healthy 2011.

Remember, remember the 5th of November

2010-11-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

Palace of Westminster in 1605 with House of Lords marked in red. The cellar below stored the barrels of gunpowder. (Detail, John Rocque's map of London, Public Domain image)

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him? Burn him!

Origins and Tradition

On 5 November 1605, during the reign of King James VI of Scotland and I of England, an intricate plot to blow up the Royal family and Houses of Parliament, and everyone in it, was discovered and averted. “Remember, remember the 5th of November...” has not been forgotten to this day. Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot have been the subject of annual remembrance throughout the centuries. Sermons of deliverance, bonfires & fireworks, ‘Penny for the Guy’, and the modern film V for Vendetta reflect the ex

tent to which this treasonous plot shook the foundations of British society (figuratively, although not - as was intended - literally).

Modern 'Bonfire Night' or 'Guy Fawkes Night' began immediately after the discovery of the plot, with the passing of the 5th of November Act 1605, ordering that 5th of November be kept free for a day of thanksgiving for the failure of the plot.

In Great Britain, Guy Fawkes Night has traditionally centred around an effigy (or "guy") representing Fawkes being ritually burnt on the bonfire. In the weeks before bonfire night, children display a "guy" and request a "penny for the guy" in order to raise funds with which to buy fireworks. Only in Lewes, Sussex, are the older anti-Catholic roots of Guy Fawkes night still on prominent display, where Pope Paul V is still among the several effigies set alight as part of celebrations that also commemorate the Marian persecutions of protestants. In more recent years Guy Fawkes Night has struggled to keep pace with the increasing popularity of Hallowe'en, which was an almost unknown festival (with the exception of Scotland) until the 1970s.

An image of the House of Lords in 1807 (centre building), surrounded by timber and rubble, suggests security measures had hardly improved since 1605.

Although mostly a British custom, Guy Fawkes Night celebrations are found in various places around the world (accompanying the British colonists). For example, students at the University of Toronto in Canada burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, while the entire festival was banned in Australia in the 1970s because of the danger from fireworks.

An account of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, written 16 November 1605

Below is an account from the Venetian State Papers of how the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. One of the most interesting aspects for the modern reader is the realisation of just how lax early modern concepts of security were. The cellars under the houses of parliament had been leased, and there was no security preventing people coming and going around the parliament houses.

Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 10 (1603-1607), pp 288-292
http://sources.tannerritchie.com/browser.php?ipid=135122. Report of the Venetian Ambassador, Nicolo Molin, to the Doge and Senate.

‘The King came to London on Thursday evening, the 10th of this month, and made all preparations for opening Parliament on Tuesday, the 15th. This would have taken place had not a most grave and important event upset the arrangement. About six months ago a gentleman, names Thomas Percy, relation of the Earl of Northumberland and pensioner of the King, hired, by means of a trusty servant, some wine cellars under the place where Parliament meets, and stored in them some barrels of beer, the usual drink of this country, as well as wood and coal. He said he meant to open a tavern for the use of servants who attended their masters to Parliament. But among this beer, wood, and coals, he introduced thirty-three barrels of gunpowder, besides four tuns, the size of Cretan hogsheads, intending to make use of it at the right moment. About two months ago Lord Salisbury received anonymous letters from France, warning him to be on his guard, for a great conspiracy was being hatched by priests and Jesuits; but, as similar information had been sent about a year ago by the English lieger in France, no great attention was paid to these letters, and they were attributed to the empty-headed vanity of persons who wished to seem more conversant with affairs than became them. Finally, on Monday last, a letter was brought by an unknown person, for it was dark, about two o’clock of the night, to a servant of Lord Monteagle, who was standing at the door. The unknown said, “Please give this to your master; and tell him to reply at once, as I will come back in half an hour for the answer to carry to my master.” The servant took the letter, and went upstairs and gave it to his master, who opened it and found it was anonymous, nor did he recognise the hand. The substance of the letter was this, that the writer, in return for the favours received at various times from Lord Monteagle, had resolved to warn him by letter that he should on no account attend Parliament the following morning, as he valued his life, for the good party in England had resolved to execute the will of God, which was to punish the King ... and the Ministers for their bitter persecution employed against the poor [Catholics] ... Lord Monteagle read the letter, and great astonishment took it to the Earl of Salisbury, who at once carried to the King, and under various pretexts ordered a search of all the neighbouring houses to see if arms of anything of that sort, which might furnish a clue, were hidden there. Meantime the King read the letter, and in terrified amaze he said, “I remember that my father died by gunpowder [Lord Darnley’s murder at Kirk O’Field]. I see the letter says the blow is to be struck on a sudden. Search the basements of the meeting place.” The Chamberlain, with three or four attendants, went straightway to carry out this order. First he enquired who had hired the basements; then he caused the door to be opened and went in. He saw nothing but beer barrels, faggots and coal. Meantime those who had searched the neighbouring houses came back and reported that they had found nothing of any importance, and when the Chamberlain returned and reported that he, too, had seen nothing but the barrels, faggots and coal this increased the alarm and suspicions of the King, who said, “I don’t like these faggots and coal. Go back and shift all the wood and all the coal and see what is underneath, and use all diligence to come to certainty in the matter.” The Chamberlain went back, and after shifting the wood, he found underneath some barrels of powder, and after shifting the coal he found more barrels. In confusion he returned to the King and told him; and orders were at once given to a certain knight to take a company with him and to set sentinels in various posts to watch who approached the door of the cellars. About two in the morning they saw a man approaching with a dark lantern, but no so well closed as to hide the light completely. The guards cunningly drew back and left him free passage to the cellars, the door of which had not been securely fastened as it was at first. The man went in, laid a train of powder and fitted a slow match, the powder and tinder reached the powder barrels. His intention was to fire the train in the morning. When he had finished his business, as he was coming out, he was surprised by the guard, who asked what [he was doing] at that hour at that place. [He replied] that he had come there, as he had a fancy to see his property. They saw a bag in his hand, and found in it little bits of slow match, and when they turned on the light they saw the train of powder. Thereupon they bound him and took him to the Palace, where some of the Council were awake, waiting the issue of this affair. The man was brought into their presence, and at once confessed that he was servant to Thomas Percy, who had left the evening before, he knew not where for, and was quite ignorant of these facts. He further confessed that it was his firm resolve to have set fire to the mine that morning while the King, Queen, Princes, Clergy, Nobility, and Judges were met in Parliament, and thus to purge the kingdom of perfidious heresies. His only regret was that the discovery of the plot had frustrated its due execution, though it was certain that God would not for long endure such injustice and iniquity.

After the Lords of the Council had briefly examined the prisoner, they informed the Lord Mayor, ... so that he might place the whole City under arms, and keep a sharp lookout. This was done, and not only that night, but all next day, which was Tuesday, the citizens were kept under arms. The other Lords of the Council, who had gone home, were summoned, and two hours before dawn they all met at the Palace. The prisoner was then introduced under strict guard. When questioned he replied, “My Lords, I cannot and will not say more than I have already said, namely that I was resolved to obey the will of God, who wishes to punish severely in every way the King and the Ministers for the persecutions they employed and still employ against the poor afflicted Catholics. I am deeply pained that I have failed to carry out so pious and holy a work.” Asked if there were many who were aware of this design, he replied that there were very many, but that he would never name them. The he knew quite well that he would suffer a martyrdom of most cruel torments, which he was resolved and ready to endure, but from his lips nothing should ever issue that might hurt or injure another. That he was guilty he confessed, but no further confession need be looked for from him. ... His Majesty was amazed that so vast and so audacious a scheme should have been hatched in the mind of a man of such low and abject estate. “Let us go,” he said, “not to Parliament, but to Church to thank God, who has saved me, my family, all you nobles and the whole kingdom from a great and terrible disaster. For, beyond a doubt, had the plot succeeded the kingdom would have been in such confusion that God only knows when it would have recovered. The city would have fallen a prey to these wild people, and all strangers, who are hated, would have been put to the sword. In short, had it been successful, it would have been the most stupendous and amazing event that ever was heard of”.

The prisoner was taken to the Tower, ‘and for two successive days he underwent the most excruciating torture without saying anything, except that the conspirators were twelve in number, whose names he would not mention’.

Where's Guido?

The unnamed man in the Venetian account was none other than Guy Fawkes. (Fawkes called himself Guido, after fighting with the Spanish in the 80 Years war, but was christened as Guy). Fawkes was defiant when caught and promised never to give up the names of his accomplices, but after two days of torture he broke and revealed the full list of conspirators. Sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, Fawkes avoided the worst aspects of the execution by throwing himself from the scaffold and breaking his neck. His body was nevertheless mutilated and divided, with parts sent and displayed around the kingdom as a warning to others.

Although bonfires were adopted from 1605 to celebrate the failure of the plot, the burning of effigies only became common from 1673 - and at that time the effigy was usually the pope, not Fawkes. The burning of the pope was provoked with heir to the throne James, Duke of York's open adoption of Catholicism, and underlined the essentially anti-Catholic nature of the event through most of its history. Only in the 19th century was Fawkes marginally rehabilitated, both with the religious motivations of his actions being played down, and popular antipathy to parliament and politicians tending to encourage a jokey sympathy with Fawkes, described as "the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions". Astonishingly, he came in at number 30 in a BBC vote of the 100 greatest Britains.

Further details about the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes can be found on Wikipedia.

Summer Sale 2010: All ebooks reduced to $10, or 10% off a short-term MEMSO subscription

2010-08-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

During the dog days of summer, when all good historians have to decide whether to head to a library or answer the call of the tantalising sunshine outdoors, what could be better than an ebook sale of historical souces? Stock up on rare books, and research that article on the beach instead!

The TannerRitchie Summer Sale offers big savings on every book in our catalogue.

Download any ebook for $10
Enjoy a 10% discount off our short-term subscriptions to MEMSO. Short-term access to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) provides access to our huge database of historical sources, subscribed to by universities around the world. Includes full access to the database, our entire catalogue of ebooks and manuscripts, use of MEMSO's powerful search engine, and a selection of ebooks to download and keep. Ideal for personal use.

This sale only lasts until 15 August!

Visit www.tannerritchie.com to take advantage of the discounts!

A Grand Day Out (Warning: this blog contains scenes with bad language, ugliness, death and attempted murder. Reader discretion is advised.)

2010-07-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

Coronations have always been occasions for great displays of wealth and status. The coronation of George IV, previously the notoriously extravagant Prince Regent, on 19 July 1821, was certainly no exception. The cost has been calculated to be approximately £19,000,000 at today's prices, 13 times more than the coronation of George III. Despite the cost, the day's events were punctuated with a degree of chaos and discomfort that would not be tolerated at any modern event, but was viewed with stoic good-humour by the attendees in 1821.

William Fraser’s Annandale Family Book of the Johnstones, Earls and Marquises of Annandale, contains an absolutely fascinating letter written by Mary Hope to her father, the naval hero and British politician, Sir William Johnstone Hope. Mary's letter provides a vivid account of every detail of the coronation itself and, more interestingly perhaps, of her own experiences behind the scenes. The result is an often witty commentary of the gaffes, the drama and the glamour – let alone the sheer physical endurance of attending such an event.

The longest day

Mary’s day started early on the Coronation Day. She was roused at midnight by ‘bells ringing, guns firing, carriages rolling, and every outrageous noise that could indicate London gone mad’. She dressed and breakfasted on mutton chops at 2:30am, before setting off down the Strand to Somerset House. And while the morning was beautiful and ‘our silver shone most brightly under the rising sun’, upon arrival Mary’s party had to navigate through ‘hundreds of lounging, half-sleeping soldiers, who, not being yet on active duty, looked like the dead and dying after some great conflict, having been there from 11 the night before’. But then the first of many calamities struck. Amongst the throngs of people, Mary got separated from her party. ‘There was no time for faints or fits, so I made for the first opening. I found myself on the steps of the throne’! Mary thought herself lucky that she had been in the throne room before and could extricate herself quickly so that ‘his Majesty might not think I intended to personify the queen’. But given the King’s low regard for his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, it is highly doubtful that he would have minded in the least. But more on that later ....

By 5am Mary had made it into Westminster Abbey – but had to wait another 5 hours before the procession actually began. Finally, at 11 the trumpets announced the entrance of the procession, with the peers accompanied by various 'very ugly' ladies, and the king (who was by this stage in his life very obese) dressed from head to toe in gold, with a train so heavy that it had to be carried on the shoulders of pages. The king was met, however, with a rapturous reception of such enthusiasm that it threatened to overwhelm the proceedings.

The first casualties

Indeed, so rapturous was the entrance of ‘the king and the burst of the Hallelujah Chorus, with the vast magnificence and sublimity of the whole scene’, that ‘one gentleman dropped down in palsy, and another in a fit, of which he actually died before he could be carried out. His screams and that of his wife were dreadfull indeed.’

When the lords went up to give their homages to the king, Mary Hope was able to record the most stunning of the costumes on display.

“You really cannot fancy a fairy scene of such splendour, with a bright sun shining on it, and to look up the hall at that moment when the Royal Band played God Save the King, coronets, plumes, hats, handkerchiefs, all flying in the air and a loud echoed blessing from every mouth on the king's head.”

The Queen's English

The greatest scandal of the day, however, came when Queen Caroline, the king's estranged wife, tried to enter Westminster Abbey in an effort to assert her place as the king's consort. Caroline was no longer living in England, and the king would have preferred to have divorced her, but for the threat of scandal that might arise because of his own mistresses. The queen actually managed to get as far as a few steps inside the Abbey, before she was forcefully asked to leave. The queen's fury was clear, and 'her language and swearing were so dreadfull [the men present] could not repeat it'. Meanwhile, the queen was roundly heckled by the crowd, who chanted 'go to Como, go to Como', while 200 of her 'friends' managed to cause enough of a scene that a soldier was stabbed in the thigh during the scuffling. This unpopularity was a reversal for just few years before, when the queen's esteem with the public had vastly outstretched that of her husband. It is hard not to see some connection between the rough treatment the queen received at the Abbey and her falling ill that night, which began a rapid decline that lead to her death a few weeks later on 7 August.

For Mary Hope, meanwhile, more patience and extreme fortitude was required while the king took a two hour rest after the coronation before embarking on the great celebration banquet in Westminster Hall. It was not until 7pm when the author finally managed to grab a glass of champagne 'to keep soul and body together' - the first thing she had tasted since 2am, 17 hours before.

The Coronation Dinner

If the Queen's outrageous display at the doors of Westminster Abbey had not been enough, further unplanned excitement happened at regular points during the monumental feast. Certainly, today's royal occasions tend to be planned and executed with a military precision that seldom sees even the smallest errors made. By contrast, the coronation dinner was something of a comedy of errors. To commence the banquet, Lords Wellington, Anglesea and Howard rode their horses into the hall to announce dinner, with about 30 pensioners following behind bearing the golden dishes of meat. The Lords were then supposed to retreat their horses backwards and exit the hall – which was a disaster just waiting to happen. And so it was. Lord Howard, 'in a great fright' and 'swearing like a trooper', pulled his horse back in such a way that 'its ample tail nearly swept some of the gentleman pensioners off the land of the living'. Having avoided the threat of finding a horse on their plate, the diners finally readied themselves to eat – only to find that Lord Anglesea, thinking that his duties finished when dinner was on the table, had clocked off for the night. ‘So a herald was sent to say his Majesty could not dine till he came and took the [plate] covers off. ‘ And since he couldn’t walk with his riding gear on, Anglesea had to be greatly supported by others when he re-entered the hall to complete his duties – to the great of amusement of the guests. Until, that is, in amongst all the drama, it was discovered that nobody had remembered to provide any spoons. Since the king wished only to eat soup, his displeasure at finding himself without eating implements was not without notice.

At 9:30pm, nineteen and a half hours after her coronation day began, Mary finally began her journey home. She had traveled to Westminster by boat, and now she and her aristocratic company had to clamber over the hundreds of sleeping soldiers who filled the streets, exhausted after 30 hours on duty. Once home, Mary still had the energy to go out again to watch some fireworks, before finally going to bed, whereupon she slept for 15 hours. But Mary's journey home was easy compared to many of the wealthiest nobles of Great Britain. Mary estimated 2000 ladies and gentlemen were forced to use the benches of the House of Lords as a temporary bunkhouse, while 500 carriages and their horses were stuck in a traffic jam to Hyde Park Corner. Frederic Hope and a Miss Kinnaird had to sleep in the open air, using Frederic's robe to cover themselves, and his cocked hat as a pillow.

Hardly any assassination attempts

And with that scene of nobles sleeping rough on the streets of London, Mary Hope brings her account to an end ... but then remembers another small, insignificant detail that she adds almost as a postscript.

“I forgot an incident that caused much commotion at the banquet. Glengarry, in full Highland garb, [got] into the peeresses box and [exclaimed] 'he was defrauded of his rights in the refusal of some title', drew from his belt a pistol and pointed it at the king! The horror it caused you cannot imagine”.

Glengarry was immediately 'pinioned' by constables and his gun was found to be unloaded, but one cannot imagine such a scene being viewed as an afterthought at any modern coronation. But Sir Walter Scott was ‘enchanted with the whole scene, and is the only one who can describe it’ [Scott in fact used Glengarry as the basis of Fergus Mac-Ivor, a wild clan chieftan, in Waverley]. More surprising still, Glengarry (or Colonel Alasdair Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry, to give him his full title) was viewed with 'mild amusement' by the king in later years, despite the fact that the clan chief made a habit of scandalous, flamboyant and unauthorized appearances at royal events, particularly during the king's famous visit to Scotland in 1822.

Is media and the scrutiny of the public eye to blame for society’s expectation of perfection on occasions such as this? It is a shame if it is – because I for one would far rather witness an event such as George IV’s coronation than a carefully scripted and sanitized event devoid of any humanity, human error and all the hilarity that that brings. Today's press would undoubtedly view George IV's coronation as a public relations disaster by any measure. By contrast, in 1821 is was seen as a complete success – disasters, foul-ups and appalling security lapses notwithstanding.

[Public domain images of George IV's coronation and George IV in 1821 via Wikipedia.]

But why would 'A Man for All Seasons' hate Tennis?: The private face of Sir Thomas More

2010-06-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

The featured document for this month’s blog is taken from the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, and is an abstract of a letter written by Desiderius Erasmus to Ulrich van Hutten in July 1519.

It is a very rare occurrence in the academic world for historians, especially of the medieval and early modern periods, to feel that they ‘know’, with any degree of certainty, the personal side of public historical figures. Because of the fragmented and piecemeal nature of the source material, the private lives and personae of public figures is quite often a mystery. As a result, educated guesses can only be made as to their personalities, mannerisms, tastes, traits and characteristics – if they can be made at all - unless, of course, one comes across a letter which is in-depth character profile of a noted public figure. In 1519, Erasmus had written such a letter at the behest of Ulrich von Hutten – the outspoken German critic of the Catholic Church, who had just come out in support of Martin Luther. The subject of Hutten’s enquiry was Thomas More.

At the time of writing, Thomas More was just 41 years old and had only recently begun his political career by entering the service of Henry VIII as privy councillor. It had been two years since the publication Utopia, and 18 years since he and Erasmus first met at the University of Oxford. According to Erasmus, More was initially ‘disinclined to a court life through hatred of tyranny and love for equality, and could not be induced to take service at court except after great solicitation from Henry VIII.’ Erasmus’ letter catches Thomas More in the early years of his ascendency – he had still yet to rise and fall. A knighthood, the chancellorship, and his tragic end stemming from his criticism of Henry VIII’s break from Rome, divorce from Catharine of Aragon and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn still awaited him.

So, here is the man Thomas More as seen through the eyes of Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Physical Description

‘More is somewhat below the middle height, but perfectly symmetrical in all his limbs; of a fair complexion; face inclined rather to fairness than pallor, with very little red, except a slight bloom; hair inclining to black or dark brown; thin beard; gray eyes covered with specks, which, as a mark of genius, is much admired in England, and indicates a generous nature. His inside corresponds to his out. He has a pleasant smiling look; and, to tell you the truth, is more inclined to pleasantry than gravity; though he is entirely free from buffoonery. His right shoulder is a little higher than his left, especially when he walks – not a natural defect, but an acquired ill habit. As compared with the rest of his person his hands are a little clumsy. He has always been careless of his dress.’

‘His voice is penetrating and clear, but not musical, although he is fond of music; his speech plain and distinct. He wears no silk, purple, or gold chains, except when he cannot avoid it; and dislikes all ceremony.’

Dietary Preferences

More ‘is indifferent in the choice of his food; generally drinks water, and sometimes, to please others, beer, little better than water, out of a tin cup. As it is the fashion to drink healths in England, More has learnt to pledge his guests summo ore [at the top of his voice]. His favourite diet is beef, salt meats and coarse brown bread well fermented; he prefers milk and vegetable diet, and is fond of eggs.’

Hobbies

More’s ‘chief pleasure is in watching animals; he has a variety of them; for instance, an ape, a fox, a ferret, etc. Any rarity or exotic he purchases readily, and his house is well furnished with curiosities. He has always been fond of female society and female friendships.’

‘He likes liberty and ease, but no one is more active or more patient than he when occasion requires it. He is friendly, accessible and fond of conversation; hating tennis, dice and similar games. He is very much given to jesting; wrote and acted little comedies when a lad, and loves a jest even when made at his own expense ... He is equally at home with the wise and the foolish; and in female society is full of his jokes. No one is less led by the judgment of the vulgar, and yet no man has more common sense.’

Family Life

`[More] married a very young girl, of good family [Jane Colt], quite uneducated , as she had been brought up entirely in the country; had her instructed; made her an accomplished musician; when he unfortunately lost her [d. 1511], after she had given birth to three daughters, Margaret, Louisa and Cicely, and a son named John, and some other children. Unable to live alone, he married a widow [Alice Middleton] some months after, neither young nor handsome (nec bella, nec puella [neither a beauty, nor a girl], as he himself is fond of saying), but a good housekeeper, to look after his family; with whom, however, he lives on very amicable terms. Nothing can show his influence over her more completely than that, though she is advanced in life and is very attentive to housekeeping, More prevailed upon her to learn various musical instruments. He manages his whole household in the same admirable way: there is no noise or contention; no vice, no bad repute; and, perhaps, no family can be found where father and stepmother and son live together on such excellent terms. Moreover, his father [Sir John More] has just married a third wife, and More swears he has never seen a better one’. Earlier in his letter, Erasmus predicts More will live long because he has robust health and ‘his father is a very hale old man’.

Academic Pursuits

‘As a young man he devoted himself to Greek, for which he was nearly disinherited by his father, who wished to bring him up to the law – a profession which above all others in England leads to honour and emolument, but requires many years of hard study. He lectured on St. Augustine De Civitate Dei, and was fitting himself by a course of study and seclusion for the priesthood; but as he could not give up his wish for a married life, he abandoned this design.’

Legal Career

‘When he [More] lived entirely by his profession, he gave every man true and faithful advice, urging them to make up their differences, though it was contrary to his own interest. When that was not possible, as some persons take pleasure in litigation, he showed them how to proceed at the smallest cost. He was for some time a judge for civil suits in London, - an easy and an honourable post, as he sits only on Thursday till dinner time.’ Erasmus original manuscript letter elaborates more fully on Thomas More’s career as a judge, until being sent on various embassies by Henry VIII, who takes great pleasure in his company and conversation. ‘Will all this favour he is neither proud nor boastful, nor forgetful of his friends, but always obliging and charitable.’

Thomas More ‘is a good ex tempore speaker; has a ready wit and a well stored memory, so that he speaks without hesitation. [John] Colet was accustomed to say of him, that ‘he was the only genius England.’ In his devotions he prays ex tempore, and he talks with his friends on a future life with perfect sincerity and assured hope.’

Just 16 years later, this funny, optimistic, friendly 'genius' would die on the scaffold for refusing to swear allegiance to the Act of Succession, thus becoming perhaps the most famous casualty of the English Reformation. It is small consolation, perhaps, that More took his sense of humour to the scaffold, where he joked with the lord lieutenant, "I pray you, Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down, I can shift for myself", while he also protested that, since his beard had committed no crime, it should be spared the axe, and carefully arranged it out of harm's way.

[Image: Study for portrait of the More family, by Hans Holbein the Younger, from public domain image at Wikipedia]

Mummer mia! Thespians and thieves on New Year's Day

2010-01-01T09:11:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve and Day are still celebrated more extensively, and vigorously, in Scotland than anywhere else in the world, necessitating a two-day public holiday to rest and recuperate afterwards.

Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, records that as early as 1506, people were taking advantage of the holiday traditions for personal profit. That year several people were hanged as punishment for theft 'by way of mumming under silence of night'.

Mumming was, and still is in some places, a central feature of New Year's celebrations, and also other holidays throughout the year (more details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummer). People would dress up in fancy dress and masks to go about accompanied by music. In this disguise they were allowed freely to enter people's houses to perform their 'mummings' - dancing, singing and music. In the 18th century mumming became more closely associated with mummers' plays, rather than the more general entertainment that predominated before. A synonym for mumming is 'guising', which remains a popular practice in Scotland, although now associated almost exclusively with the costumes worn at Halloween.

Mumming also provided the perfect opportunity for theft, which if discovered resulted in the ultimate punishment. As Pitcairn's editor noted, another peculiar tradition - in this case embedded in common law - saw people executed for 'dishonourable' crimes such as theft or 'stoutreif', but allowed to make amends by paying compensation to the victim's family for acts such as murder and slaughter, especially if done in 'hot blood'.

Mumming survives in a number of places around the world. Most famously, Philidelphia's Mummer's Parade on New Year's Day, which has combined the British tradition with many other European customs to create a unique event.

Biff, bang merrily on high: 700 years of Christmas in MEMSO

2009-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

Searching 'Christmas Day' on MEMSO brings up so many interesting stories that picking just one seems somewhat remiss. Just like our experiences today, Christmas was a time of joy and celebration, but it was also a time of tragedy, boozy bust-ups, travel delays, and Scrooge-esque behaviour in the medieval and early modern period. Some of these are events to which we may not be able to relate, while others are reassuringly familiar.

Then, as now, music was an extremely important aspect of the Christmas celebration.

In 1204, King John payed 25 s. to the clerks who chanted Christus Vincut for the royal court on Christmas Day at Argentan.

In 1513, Henry VIII paid 40s. for Gloria in Excelsis to be sung next Christmas Day, while in 1522 Henry rewarded John Senton and other clerks of the college of Windsor for singing before the Princess 'divers ballets etc' on Christmas Day.

But Christmas music was also a dangerous pastime - in 1287, a case of caroling led to a punch-up and the murder of a drunken and libidinous chaplain (in an act of desperate self-defense!).

'On Christmas day ... after sunset there were some men singing outside a tavern. And Hugh [de Weston, chaplain] came by the door immensely drunk, and quarrelled with the singers. Now John [de Quertubus of Scottes Acton] was standing by, singing, and Hugh hated him a little because he sang well, and desired the love of certain women who were standing by in a field and whom Hugh much affected. So Hugh took a naked sword in his hand and ran at John, striking him once, twice, thrice, on the head, and nearly cutting off two fingers of his left hand. And John went on his knees, and raised his hands asking God's peace and the king's, and then ran into a corner near the street under a stone wall. And Hugh ran after him and tried to kill him, so he drew his knife and wounded Hugh in the chest, killing him instantly'

Christmas was also a time of tragedy and war. Sadly, there are too many instances in MEMSO that describe battles being fought, and invasions being led on Christmas Day. Two other tragedies do stand out. In 1763, fire ravished Leslie House, and reduced the house to ruin. From a historical point of view, the loss of the Rothes correspondence is equally devastating - but small mercies can be found in the survival of the Rothes charter muniments, which were thankfully kept with the family's lawyers in Edinburgh. On Christmas Day 1672, a devastating earthquake shook Montserrat, claiming many lives and causing widespread destruction. Both of the region's churches were leveled to the ground, 'and had the people been in the afternoon at church they had been knocked in the head.' Many people were killed, while others miraculously escaped.

For those families, maybe they wished that Christmas Day would simply disappear like it did for the Belgians in 1582. On 22 December 1582 it was suddenly proclaimed in Bruges that it was 'New Year's Day and to be the first of January; so they have lost Christmas Day here for this year'.

Happily, though, there are many references in MEMSO to Christmas being celebrated, with descriptive entries about to the Christmas Mass being celebrated in lavish and public ceremonies and processions in the British Isles and on the Continent. In Protestant England and Colonial North America, however, and despite repeated legislation prohibiting the celebration and observance of Christmas Day, which was considered to be popish and idolotrous and, therefore, "frowned upon by Government as nourishing old supersitions", fines were frewuently imposed on people who decided to observe the day as a holiday. In 1650, for example, 'there was very wilful and strict observation of the day commonly called Christmas day throughout the cities of London and Westminster, by a general keeping shops shut up, and that there were contemptuous speeches used by some in favour thereof'.

Religious divisions in Scotland affected the celebration of Christmas (and New Year) for Mary Queen of Scots in 1562. The Reformation Rebellion of 1559-1560 had not long passed and, although there was a precarious religious settlement, tensions in matters of religion still threatened to erupt into civil war. Mary Queen of Scots observance of Christmas Day in 1562, for example, was a major point of contention. Even though Scotland was now a Protestant kingdom, its queen was still a practising Catholic (albeit in private). The queen's household was a microcosm of this tension. Thomas Randolph reported that while ordinary (ie Protestant) sermons were delivered three times a week, the Queen celebrated mass privately. As a result,

'two so mortall ennemies cane not be nerer yoynede with owte some deadlye blowe gynven ether upon thone syde or thother! One of the Quenes prestes gotte a couffe in a darke nyght, that made some what a doe. Her musitions bothe Scottes and Frence, refused to playe and synge at her masse and even songe upon Chrystemas daye.' ['..two so mortal enemies cannot be nearer joined without some deadly blow given either upon the one side or the other. One of the Queen's priests got a cuff in a dark night that made somewhat ado. Her musicians both Scotch and French, refused to play and sing at her Mass and evensong on Christmas day.' ]

We hope you enjoyed this glimpse into Christmas past!

From all of us here at TannerRitchie Publishing, may we wish all those who celebrate Christmas in particular, and those who celebrate the Holiday Season in general, a very joyous day. And may we wish everyone, a happy, healthy and peaceful 2010.

Detail from Adoration of the Three Wise Men in the snow by
Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Creative Commons Licence

Deck the Dutch with boughs of holly?

2009-12-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

The religious divisions of 17th-century Europe could lead to a potential for conflict at the doors of the embassies of Europe. Since embassies were then, as now, tiny islands of a foreign realm within another country, religious practices that were not tolerated outside the embassy - indeed might be violently repressed - could happen behind the embassy doors.

Such an occurrence happened in 1623, when the pope complained to the Venetian ambassador to Rome that, while he did not object to the inhabitants of the Dutch embassy practicing their (protestant) worship in the embassy, he did object to them doing so while their doors were open, so that the ringing of their bells could be heard by the (Catholic) faithful in the street.

The pope went on to describe an event that had happened when he was a nuncio in France. There, the English had objected to the French citizens wanting to decorate their embassy for the feast of Corpus Christi, probably also for religious reasons. After the personal intervention of the English king, the king of France had accepted that the French did not have the right to decorate the English embassy.

But that was not the end of it. The French king instead decided to arrange a deliberately insulting display of the very best Corpus Christi decorations that could be found, carefully placed in front of the English embassy, but not touching it, and thereby he 'received the blessing and applause of his people'.

Christmas Sale - 50% off all downloads

2009-12-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! Help us celebrate the end of 2009 with another of our phenomenal annual sales. We kept our prices low after the overwhelming success of last year's sale, and now we're offering an additional 50% off all our downloads. Be sure to fill your stocking with historical goodies - sale ends 10 January 2010.

From all of us at TannerRitchie may we wish all our clients a very merry Holiday Season, and a happy New Year.

The curious case of the King of Spain's blue coat

2009-11-23T09:42:00.001-08:00

On 21 November 1553 Francisco de Eraso wrote to Prince Philip, future king of Spain, mentioning that a portrait by Titian had been sent secretly to Mary, queen of England, so that she could see his likeness before deciding whether to marry him. Eraso's letter is very specific about the picture that has been sent, describing 'the one with the blue coat with white wolf-skin, which is very good and like you'.

There appear to be two portraits by Titian of Philip II, all dating from around the right time in the 1550s to be the painting referred to in several letters written in November 1553. The picture sent was said to be 'already old', although it was painted only 'three years ago', and belonged to queen Mary of Hungary. The portrait had suffered already by the passing of time and transportation, but was considered good enough to get a sense of Philip's appearance 'if she will put it in a proper light and look at it from a distance, as all Titian's paintings have to be looked at'. Perhaps unusually, the queen dowager made it very clear that the portrait was only on loan to Mary of England, and was to be returned after the marriage 'since it is only a dead thing, when she has the living model in her presence'.

Clearly the description does not tally with the portraits (shown left and right) in existence at this time. The solution, identified by Charles Hope in an article entitled 'Titian, Philip II and Mary Tudor', is found in a reading of the original manuscript of Eraso's letter, where the portrait is described as 'vestido con un sayo afforando con lobos blancos' ('dressed in a furred sayo with white wolfskin'.) There is, in fact, no mention that the coat was blue. A sayo is a distinctive Spanish coat described by a modern dictionary as 'a large wide coat without buttons, any loose coat or dress'. The picture, above right, therefore fits the description well, although Charles Hope suggests that the surviving painting is a studio copy of another version of the same picture that was sent to Mary. In short, Titian probably painted multiple versions of the same image, and one - now lost - version of the 'furred' portrait was sent to England.

How Scottish Flu makes you swell like a bagpipe

2009-11-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

"My eyes swelled beyond my temples, and my mouth beyond my nose, and my ears met at the top of my head; my cheeks - but no power of language can describe them [...] Thus, swollen like a bagpipe, I lay groaning and screaming for many days."

Thus spoke Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, a noted Scottish antiquarian, in 1816, when writing to the earl of Leven and explaining his slowness in responding to a letter because of influenza. Much as Sharpe had clearly suffered from his infection, his letter seemed primarily intended to demonstrate his self-deprecating and somewhat crude brand of humour to the earl.

Throughout the long letter Sharpe writes amusingly about his experience, which he blames on overly hot party, and the fact that someone had stolen his coat.

"Lady Campbell of Arkinlass, who has apartments in Holyroodhouse, had the goodness to send me a card for a party ... I went, and after dancing a great deal on a carpet, and in a room hot enough to have baked all the mutton pies in the Cannongate, when I came to make my departure, I found that somebody had made free with my great coat .... I had to walk a good part of the way home in a shower of rain, the consequence of which was such a concatenation of aches in the way of rheumatism as I never before sustained in my life."

The end result was, claims Sharpe, that although "I will make no use of vulgar similitude respecting haggisses or those parts of little children which the wholeseome birch is sometimes wont to visit", his head now resembled that of the Greek goddess Fame (or Pheme), who according to legend had multiple tongues, eyes, ears and feathers.

Despite his lighthearted letter, Sharpe was in fact one of the most learned men of his generation, an editor of volumes for the Bannatyne Club, as well as an artist and connoisseur with a collection that surpassed Walter Scott's in terms of quality: including such famous pieces as Holbein's portrait long thought to be of Margaret Tudor, and eleven of the surviving Lewis Chessmen.

Account of a Paris Tournament

2009-09-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

(Click on the image to see full size).

On 28 September 1514, a joust was held in Paris to honour the coming Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII, who was about to marry Louis XII of France.

The tournament saw a huge archway erected with 5 large pillars, from which were hung coloured shields. By touching the shields, competitors qualified for different types of competition, including running the course with a lance (presumably on horseback), "coups d'espée sans nombre" (endless blows of the sword), fighting on foot with a two-handed sword, and throwing the lance while holding a target (in other words, while others were thowing lances at the competitor). The shields were protected by defendants whose job it was to keep the competitors away at all costs. Meanwhile, all the competitors' own shields, numbering over 150, were hung from the inside of the archway as decoration.

There was considerable danger involved in medieval jousts of this sort, and deaths sometime occurred. The duke of Albany, brother of James III of Scotland, was killed in 1485 during a similar tournament in Paris, when a splinter of wood entered his eye.

(Source, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, 2nd Edition, vol. 1.2 p. 1392)

The disgraceful case of the Vicar of Dronfield, 1633

2009-09-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

In daily Twitter updates with extracts from MEMSO, we sometimes come across and entry that's too good to be true. Today's example is the case of Richard Revell, vicar of Dronfield in Derbyshire. The record is really self explanatory, and, apart from being quite funny, is a rather impressive record of disgraceful behaviour for one vicar to build up.

Click on the image to see a larger version

TannerRitchie Newsletter: August 2009

2009-08-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

The new academic year is just around the corner, which means it's now officially 'nag your librarian for MEMSO' season! In the meantime, why not try out our Short-Term Personal Subscriptions to MEMSO to get you over the hump? Convenient, affordable and a cheaper way to buy eBooks.

If you haven't taken a look at TannerRitchie Publishing's products for a while, now is a great time to see what we can offer for your teaching and research needs, whether for insitutional purchases, or low-cost individual subscriptions.

In this issue

MEMSO: Short Term Personal Subscriptions: our best deal ever for individuals.
MEMSO: Instutional Subscriptions.
Historical database and web application design and consultancy.
Follow us on Facebook/Twitter: get you daily dose of obscure historical trivia.
Complete list of new ebooks since March 2009.

1. MEMSO: Short Term Personal Subscriptions: our best deal ever for individuals.

Buying a short term subscription to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) doesn't just give you access to our entire database, including all our ebooks and almost 90,000 high definition images from the manuscripts held in The UK National Archives, but it also provides the cheapest way for you to buy ebooks permanently - cheaper even than buying single ebooks to download.

If you don't know about MEMSO, now is the time to find out. MEMSO provides a powerful means of accessing a unparalleled collection of sources for the history of medieval and early modern Britain and its place in Europe and the wider world. Find out more at our online brochure and then why not try a short term subscription from just $75 Canadian.

2. MEMSO: Institutional subscriptions and NetLibrary

Does your institution have a subscription to MEMSO? If not, now may be a good time to suggest to your library that they take a free trial to evaluate the resource. Even for libraries that have some our titles in their collections, MEMSO revolutionises the way you use historical sources for research, and the extent to which they can be integrated into teaching. If your library is part if a consortium, libraries can often save money by working together to negotiate reduced fees.

Institutions can also purchase small numbers of titles via NetLibrary at low cost.

Here's what researchers and teachers say about MEMSO:

‘Can I say what you are doing is FANTASTIC!’

‘The searching power of the resource you have created is quite remarkable and the work I have done is considerably better for using it. ’

‘This is an invaluable resource with regard to staff research as well as Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching. It will make it much easier for Undergraduate to develop dissertation topics and will provide Graduates with an essential database.’

‘I do want to tell you that I think you are doing an incredibly wonderful thing here.’

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‘I really do value and enjoy the site, and intend to shove ever more of my students onto it. I've noticed that the interface keeps getting better.’

‘An excellent resource for students and researchers.’

3. Historical database & web application development and consultancy

As well as our own publications, TannerRitchie Publishing has worked on developing, programming and shaping a range of other historical database resources since 2000. We have extensive experience of the requirements of digital academic publishing, and best-practice standards for good web application development. We offer a full range of database and web application development, and consultancy to historians and researchers interested in creating new historical resources. Contact us at office@tannerritchie.com to find out more.

4. Follow us on Facebook/Twitter: : get you daily dose of obscure historical trivia

Historians are leading the way with the use of Facebook and Twitter to create innovative ways to interact with each other. TannerRitchie Publishing provides interesting daily extracts from MEMSO, which aim to illustrate some little-known event that tend to range between the surprising and the bizarre. Since the spring we've seen saltpetre diggers running amok, James VI's invention of the air conditioner, Elizabeth I's emoticons, and early-modern waterboarding.

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5. Complete list of new ebooks since March 2009.

As always, we constantly adding important new series and a range of new titles to our existing series. But if there are series you would like to see that we don't have yet, please drop us a line and let us know at office@tannerritchie.com

Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (Treasurer's Accounts), volume 9 (1546-1551), 672pp	$20	Buy online
Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (Treasurer's Accounts), volume 10 (1551-1559), 660pp	$20	Buy online
Acts of the Privy Council of England, volume 23 (1592-1592), 484pp	$20	Buy online
Acts of the Privy Council of England, volume 24 (1592-1593), 581pp	$20	Buy online
Acts of the Privy Council of England, volume 25 (1595-1596), 620pp	$20	Buy online
Acts of the Privy Council of England, volume 26 (1596-1597), 655pp	$20	Buy online
Acts of the Privy Council of England, volume 27 (1597-1597), 456pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, volume 3 (1291-1309), 324pp	$15	Buy online
Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, volume 6 (1337-1352), 326pp	$15	Buy online
Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, volume 7 (1352-1374), 428pp	$15	Buy online
Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, volume 8 (1375-1399), 593pp	$15	Buy online
Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, volume 9 (1400-1422), 402pp	$15	Buy online
Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, volume 10 (1422-1461), 519pp	$15	Buy online
Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, volume 11 (1467-1497), 417pp	$15	Buy online
Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland, volume (1600-1601), 642pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, volume 1650 (1650-1650), 764pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 27 (1643-1647), 438pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 29 (1653-1654), 445pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 30 (1655-1656), 468pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 2 (1257-1300), 754pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 3 (1300-1326), 777pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 4 (1327-1341), 749pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 5 (1341-1417), 724pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 6 (1427-1516), 462pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Close Rolls, volume (1330-1333), 785pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Close Rolls, volume 1333 (1333-1337), 908pp	$40	Buy online
Calendar of the Close Rolls, volume 1337 (1337-1339), 795pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Close Rolls, volume 1339 (1339-1341), 820pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Close Rolls, volume 1341 (1341-1343), 842pp	$20	Buy online
Calendar of the Stuart Papers Preserved at Windsor Castle (HMC), volume 6 (1718-1718), 934pp	$20	Buy online
Cartularium Comitatus de Levenax , volume 1 (1200-1398), 154pp	$20	Buy online
Collection of the Decisions of the Lords of Council and Session, volume 1 (1661-1686), 315pp	$30	Buy online
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, volume 1 (1264-1359), 908pp	$40	Buy online
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, volume 2 (1359-1379), 826pp	$40	Buy online
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, volume 3 (1379-1406), 888pp	$40	Buy online
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, volume 4 (1406-1436), 1003pp	$40	Buy online
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, volume 5 (1437-1454), 904pp	$40	Buy online
Manuscripts of the Duke of Hamilton (HMC), volume 1 (1315-1717), 269pp	$20	Buy online
Manuscripts of the Duke of Hamilton (HMC), volume 2 (1563-1794), 271pp	$20	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 5 (1676-1678), 845pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 6 (1676-1678), 848pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 7 (1681-1682), 1001pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 8 (1683-1684), 913pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 9 (1684-1684), 1018pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 10 (1684-1685), 810pp	$30	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 11 (1685-1686), 831pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 12 (1686-1686), 707pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 13 (1686-1689), 813pp	$40	Buy online
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 14 (1689-1689), 944pp	$40	Buy online
Registrum Monasterii de Passelet , volume 1 (1163-1529), 546pp	$30	Buy online
Rotuli Chartarum in Turri Londinensi Asservati, edited by Thomas Duffus Hardy, volume 1.1 (1119-1216), 347pp	$20	Buy online
Statutes and Ordinances and Acts of Parliament of Ireland (Early Statutes of Ireland), volume 1 (1204-1421), 673pp	$30	Buy online
Statutes and Ordinances and Acts of Parliament of Ireland (Early Statutes of Ireland), volume 2 (1427-1460), 867pp	$30	Buy online

New! Buy a short term MEMSO subscription

2009-08-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

Subscribe now for as little as $75 (Canadian)

With a short term subscription to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO), you can buy access to our entire content from just $75 Canadian. Moreover, you receive free ebooks, worth more than the price of the subscription, which are yours to keep forever.

You receive full access to the millions of words contained in books and manuscripts concerning the medieval and early modern world, plus a vast collection of manuscripts from the English state papers.

A short term subscription is the cheapest way to get access to our entire catalogue AND get complete ebooks to keep.

Learn about the power of MEMSO

Access period	Price*	Access	Free ebooks (pdfs)†
1 day	$75	Unlimited	4
3 days	$150	Unlimited	10
1 week	$250	Unlimited	20
30 days	$350	Unlimited	25

*All prices Canadian funds. GST and PST will be added where appropriate at checkout to Canadian customers.

†Ebooks are complete searchable facsimiles of books from our catalogue, and are yours to keep at the end of your subscription.

Institutional and annual personal subscriptions are also available. Contact us for details

Recent titles

2009-07-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we've posted here, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been a lot going on. We thought it would be useful to post a list of recent titles published over the last six weeks. If you would like to order any of them, go to: http://www.tannerritchie.com/newtitles.php

Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 2 (1257-1300), 754pp		$20	Add	Remove		$40	Add	Remove
Statutes and Ordinances and Acts of Parliament of Ireland (Early Statutes of Ireland), volume 2 (1427-1460), 867pp		$30	Add	Remove		$50	Add	Remove

Cartularium Comitatus de Levenax [Chartulary of the Earldom of Lennox], volume 1 (1200-1398), 154pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Registrum Monasterii de Passelet [Register of Paisley Abbey], volume 1 (1163-1529), 546pp	$30	Add	Remove	$50	Add	Remove
Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 27 (1643-1647), 438pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 30 (1655-1656), 468pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Statutes and Ordinances and Acts of Parliament of Ireland (Early Statutes of Ireland), volume 1 (1204-1421), 673pp	$30	Add	Remove	$50	Add	Remove
Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland, volume (1600-1601), 642pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 29 (1653-1654), 445pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 3 (1300-1326), 777pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 4 (1327-1341), 749pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 5 (1341-1417), 724pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of the Charter Rolls, volume 6 (1427-1516), 462pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of the Stuart Papers Preserved at Windsor Castle (HMC), volume 6 (1718-1718), 934pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Collection of the Decisions of the Lords of Council and Session, volume 1 (1661-1686), 315pp	$30	Add	Remove	$50	Add	Remove
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 6 (1676-1678), 848pp	$40	Add	Remove	$60	Add	Remove
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 8 (1683-1684), 913pp	$40	Add	Remove	$60	Add	Remove
Register of the Privy Council (Scotland) - Series 3, volume 7 (1681-1682), 1001pp	$40	Add	Remove	$60	Add	Remove
Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (Treasurer's Accounts), volume 9 (1546-1551), 672pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (Treasurer's Accounts), volume 10 (1551-1559), 660pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Calendar of the Close Rolls, volume 1341 (1341-1343), 842pp	$20	Add	Remove	$40	Add	Remove
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, volume 5 (1437-1454), 904pp	$40	Add	Remove	$60	Add	Remove

16 June 1634: Punishment aboard royal ships

2009-06-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

A quick MEMSO extract that records the harshness of punishment aboard ships, but also the rather quaint nature of 17th century insults. 'Huble Buble' hardly seems a deadly offence, even in the 17th century, and seems, according to the OED, to have implied the ship's master was confused and unclear. Click on the image to see full size text.

26 May 1746: Lady Anne Leslie to her brother

2009-05-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

(Click image to see full size letter).

"I have been the most courageous creature in the world for some weeks, and I wear a sword and will make it revenge me upon any body who dare brand my name with ... injustice. As I am but a young soldier I have not tried any fighting yet (duels excepted), but I know I can bragg as well as any man."

Our daily MEMSO extract turned up a fantastic personal letter from Lady Anne Leslie to her brother, David, lord Balgonie, future 6th Earl of Leven. Writing in the days after the final defeat of the Jacobites at Culloden on 16 April, Anne describes how she was taking part as secretary and aide de camp of the Earl of Crawford in the aftermath of the defeat. She claims, probably in jest, to have taken to wearing a sword, and mixes jokes and cheekiness to her brother with descriptions of how she danced with the Prince of Hess at an Edinburgh ball.

TannerRItchie Series 2 for 1 offer

2009-04-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

It's the great way to obtain a large library of historical sources on your computer for a one off fee. For the next month, if you buy one issue of the TannerRitchie Series on DVD-ROM, you can choose any other year free of charge. Simply check out the books listed in each issue, and then contact us to arrange payment.

Each issue of the TannerRitchie Series contains at least 100 complete, searchable ebooks on DVD-ROM, which are yours in perpetuity to store on your computers or to print out.

That's perpetual, offline access to hundreds of our complete searchable ebooks for half the usual price of the TannerRitchie Series, and a small fraction of the cost of buying the ebooks individually.

View the complete contents of each issue of the the TannerRitchie Series

View pricing details.
Contact us to buy

How dirty was a 17th century floor? Evidence from saltpetre diggers.

2009-04-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Today's Twitter extract from MEMSO reminds us of just how strange people's behaviour in the past can seem to us today.

The extract recounts the results of an examination of the behaviour of two saltpetre diggers (saltpetre being a key component of gunpowder). The men clearly had royal commission to seek saltpetre on private property, but were going beyond the bounds of decency in how they exercised their rights (see large copy of the report here). They were digging up the floors of churches, parlours, malting houses, dovecots, and even the private chambers of women 'in "childbed" (ie, in labour).

Why the men sought saltpetre in the (probably dirt) floors of private houses and buildings is not immediately clear, but a solution seems to appear in the facts relating to the historical manufacture of saltpetre.

Urine has also been used in the manufacture of saltpeter for gunpowder. In this process, stale urine placed in a container of straw hay is allowed to sour for many months, after which water is used to wash the resulting chemical salts from the straw. The process is completed by filtering the liquid through wood ashes and air-drying in the sun. (Wikipedia, extracted 30 April 2009)

The soil floors of the population's houses and barns were seemingly a rich source of both urine and straw, which also perhaps were allowed to build up over the months in a way which encouraged the crystalization process required for saltpetre.

A more detailed account of historical saltpetre manufacture can be found in an account of Joseph Leconte for the American military in 1862, which seems to confirm the process by which saltpetre built up naturally in the confined surroundings of the poor.

These conditions are often found in nature, as in the soil of all caves, but particularly those in limestone countries; and still more frequently under a concurrence of circumstances which, though not strictly natural, is at least accidental, so far as the formation of nitre is concerned, as in cellars, stables, manure-heaps, &c. In crowded cities, with narrow, dirty streets and lanes, the decomposing organic matter with which the soil is impregnated becomes gradually nitrified, oozes through, and dries on the walls and floor of the cellars, as a whitish crust, easily detectible as saltpetre by the taste.

If you know more about the history of salpetre, please post a message below.

MEMSO 3.0 launched

2009-04-26T22:52:00.000-07:00

MEMSO 3.0 Launched!

We've launched a new version of MEMSO, with lots of new features. Read more

Click on the screenshot to see MEMSO 3.0 it in all it's glory. The screenshot illustrates how a user can have mutiple open books at once, or view different pages from the same book side by side.

Key new features include:

Ability to open and navigate multiple books and manuscripts side by side
Personal bookshelf: save books and manuscripts to your 'bookshelf' to have them quickly available every time you visit the site.
Taskbar saves search history and allows you to manage many open books.
Change and save the interface colour scheme.
More manuscripts with more metadata.
A host of other improvements to the interface.

April 2009 - TannerRitchie newsletter

2009-04-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

In the April 2009 issue:

Call for suggestions
Latest publications
Latest manuscripts
MEMSO 3.0 - new features
New places to find TannerRitchie: Blog, RSS feed, Facebook & Twitter
Historians who can program: invitation to programmers to try our API.

1. Send us your suggestions for books and manuscripts to publish

TannerRitchie is looking for great new series and collections to publishing during the years 2009-2012, and we need your help!

What series would you like to see added to our collections? What series do you think would be popular with our clients and users? The only requirement for digitising printed books we have is that material is out of copyright, and within a broad definition of British medieval and early modern history. As a rule, books published by HMSO or the government are covered by Crown copyright, which expires 50 years after publication.

Alternatively, let us know of collections of manuscripts in the UK National Archives, or elsewhere in Britain, that would be a useful and popular addition to MEMSO.

Send your suggestions to office at tannerritchie dot c o m.

2. Latest publications

Register of the Privy Council, series 3: remaining volumes are being published this week, completing this huge series on which we began work in 2002!

Calendar of Letter-Books Preserved in the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall: Series completed, and available for only $15 Canadian per volume.

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, volume 1650 (1650-1650)

3. Latest Manuscripts

State Papers, Foreign, for the reign of Elizabeth I (SP 70), completed (over 21,000 images)

State Papers, France (SP 78), 1587-1631 completed (30,000 images)

Already available: State Papers, Foreign, Edward VI (SP 68), State Papers, Foreign, Mary (SP 69), State Papers, Foreign, Spain (SP 94) (total, over 34,000 images).

Collectively, these now form an incredible resource for early modern historians, and one which we intend to develop in new ways to enable increasingly easy access to these manuscripts in the future.

4. MEMSO 3.0

In the next 7 to 10 days we plan to launch version 3.0 of the MEMSO interface, introducing some major usability and speed improvements.

Key new features:

Save books and manuscripts you use frequently to your personal bookshelf.
Open and browse multiple books and manuscripts at once.

If there are features you'd like added to MEMSO, please let us know.

5. New places to find TannerRitchie: our Blog, RSS feed, Facebook and Twitter

TannerRitchie can now be found in a range of new places on the internet apart from our main website.

tannerritchie.blogspot.com: News, new titles and articles about interesting material we find in MEMSO.
RSS feeds. Subscribe to updates from the blog, or get instant notification of new titles via our RSS feed at www.tannerritchie.com/newtitlesrss.php
Become a fan of TannerRitchie at our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/TannerRitchie-Publishing/48000059684.
Follow us on Twitter (we'll follow back) at www.twitter.com/tannerritchie. We publish a daily excerpt from MEMSO that gives an interesting snippet from the past in 140 characters or less.

6. Can you program? MEMSO has an API, would you like to use it?

If you know what an API (Application Programming Interface) is, then chances are that you know a little about programming, and the possibilities that using APIs opens up for reusing data across different websites and applications. We are now working on the first generation of a MEMSO API, which is integral to MEMSO 3.0.

We are interested in speaking to subscribers who would like to be involved in working with MEMSO data. Could you use MEMSO data on your website?

Contact roland at tannerritchie dot c o m to discuss ideas with us.

State Papers, France (TNA SP 78), 1587-1631 completed

2009-04-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

We have completed the addition of the current batch of manuscripts from the State Papers, France, held in the National Archives, covering the years 1587-1631. Login to MEMSO to use them. Additional features coming to MEMSO within days should also assist with using the manuscripts to their fullest effect, while we are also going to integrate quite extensive metadata on the series from the National Archives into the resource.

TNA SP 78, State Papers Foreign, France, now available

2009-04-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

The first batch of manuscripts from the State Papers, Foreign, France, are now available on MEMSO, covering the dates 1587-1597. This is just the first group of manuscripts of comprehensive coverage coming in the next few days.

TNA SP 78/17: 1587 (357 images)
TNA SP 78/18: 1588 (417 images)
TNA SP 78/19: 1589 (316 images)
TNA SP 78/20: 1589 (351 images)
TNA SP 78/21: 1590 (387 images)
TNA SP 78/22: 1590 (301 images)
TNA SP 78/23: 1591 (265 images)
TNA SP 78/24: 1591 (364 images)
TNA SP 78/25: 1591 (353 images)
TNA SP 78/26: 1591 (332 images)
TNA SP 78/27: 1592 (321 images)
TNA SP 78/28: 1592 (350 images)
TNA SP 78/29: 1592 (456 images)
TNA SP 78/30: 1593 (385 images)
TNA SP 78/31: 1593 (351 images)
TNA SP 78/32: 1593 (499 images)
TNA SP 78/33: 1594 (483 images)
TNA SP 78/35: 1595 (256 images)
TNA SP 78/36: 1595 (224 images)
TNA SP 78/37: 1596 (314 images)
TNA SP 78/38: 1596 (333 images)
TNA SP 78/39: 1597 (377 images)

State Papers, Elizabeth, completed

2009-04-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

The final batch of manuscripts from the State Papers, Foreign, for the reign of Elizabeth, were added to MEMSO today, completing our project to make the manuscripts images for the period 1558-1572 available. Subsequent manuscripts are made available in separate collections. More manuscript news coming very soon...

State Papers, France

2009-03-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

We've been quiet on the blog recently while we've been working towards announcements that will be coming over the later spring/summer. Silence on the blog doesn't mean there isn't a lot going on - rather the reverse!

One of several projects currently in the works is SP78, the State Papers for France from the National Archives at Kew. We're hoping to have these available as part of MEMSO very soon, at which point we'll give an update on their content. In the mean time, the TNA catalogue for SP 78 can be viewed here

Usability updates to MEMSO

2009-02-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

We're pleased to announce that we have today launched a range of usability improvements to MEMSO which we hope will augment the speed and ease with which users can access the resource. The key change that users are likely to notice is dragging and dropping images, and more fine-grained zooming and image control. This change should make arranging images in an optimal way for your screen easier and faster. We have also introduced a range of changes 'under the hood', which have also helped us to improve the display of bibliographic data, and clean up various display and interface elements.

This is the first stage in a larger group of new features coming within the next couple of months, which will also see the rolling out of upgrades to a lot of back catalogue titles.

We've also been rolling out a large number of new manuscript images from The National Archives in MEMSO this week, with more being added more or less daily.

Jacobite Papers - the Stuart Papers held at Windsor Castle

2009-02-07T12:41:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we added 5 volumes of the Calendar of Stuart Papers held in Windsor Castle and added them to MEMSO. The papers arise from the life of the titular King James III of England, VIII of Scotland, and were in the possession of both Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) and then his brother Henry, cardinal duke of York. In this way they came to be held in the Vatican before finally making it to England in two batches between 1806 and 1822.

The story of the manuscripts' travels is interesting in itself. They came to England in two parts. In 1804 the Prince Regent began the process of buying the manuscripts from the Procureur General of the English Benedictines in Rome. The process of bringing the first group of manuscripts to England, however, ran aground (almost literally) because of the intervention of the Napoleonic War, and the taking by the French of the Italian port of Civitavecchia.(MEMSOlink) A brig of war sent to pick up the manuscripts was rebuffed in July 1806, while the English Consul in Civitavecchia was thrown into a dungeon and threatened with execution unless he revealed everything he knew of English belongings in the city. They survived only because he had managed to hide them, and kept the secret despite the danger to himself. Eventually they were delivered onto a ship travelling to Tunis, then on one to Malta, finally ending the circuitous journey when they reached England in 1810.

The second collection of papers related to the brothers Charles Edward and the Cardinal Duke of York. These, after the death of the duke in 1807, lay in an 'open garret with unglazed windows exposed to rats and mice' for many years, and were considered to be bills and receipts of no value (MEMSOlink). They were discovered there by one 'Dr' James Watson. Described as a 'revolutionary and adventurer' in the Oxford DNB (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28862?docPos=4), he was a Jacobite, Jacobin, compulsive liar (he falsely claimed to have been a colonel in the American Revolutionary War) and failed businessman who would eventually die in poverty after strangling himself by twisting a poker repeatedly through his cravat. He bought the papers for the cost of scrap paper (170 scudi) in 1816, but, since he didn't actually have that sum on hand, turned to Lord Brougham, a conveniently rich Englishman who happened to be in Rome, and asked for a loan.

Brougham, clearly appreciating Watson's reliability, said he would advance the money only if the manuscripts became his. To close the deal, however, Brougham also sought to persuade Watson that the manuscripts were of no value, that the Prince Regent would destroy the most valuable ones 'viz all those that held up Royal Turpitude to public view' as soon as he got his hands on them, and that he was better to sell them to Brougham so that he could use them to embarrass royalty by publishing them in the Edinburgh Review. Watson balked at this - no doubt having a sense of their true value in England - and instead borrowed the money from James Smith, Watson's friend.

Certainly the papers were far more than bills and receipts, and Watson now began showing them to English notables in Italy, with a view to delivering them to the Prince Regent, no doubt in return for a rich reward. But now the papacy became involved. Realising that an error had been made by letting Watson have the papers, they were placed under guard and the sale declared void. Watson refused a refund of his money, apparently on the understanding that he would assist the cardinal now in possession of the papers with delivering them to the Prince Regent - and thereby still receive his profit. But the cardinal took offence at a letter that Watson has written, and although the prince did eventually send £500 to Italy for Watson's expenses, the cardinal refused to give it to him.

The story did end well for Watson, however, as between 1817 and 1822 he was paid over £3000 to discharge his claims about the papers, a fact that no doubt encouraged his pursuit of other manuscript collections of potential interest in England. Given the extent of Watson's past treasons against England, which included inviting English radicals to rise up in preparation for the Napoleonic invasion, it is perhaps surprising the the Prince Regent was willing to be so generous. Although Watson would die a pauper in London, he appears to have maintained his Jacobin sympathies to the last, and appointed an Italian revolutionary as his executor. (See Oxford DNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28862?docPos=4 for more on Watson's career.

(Image of the Old Pretender from Wikipedia Public Domain image.)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Win an ebook

2009-02-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

If you use Facebook already, or are interested in signing up, why not enter the weekly competition we have just launched on our Facebook page

All you have to do it:

Become a 'fan' of the TannerRitchie Publishing page on Facebook by clicking here and then adding yourself as a 'fan'.
Answer a 'skill-testing' question

and you could win a free ebook valued at up to $40 from TannerRitchie. Winners will be notified weekly.

Material for the life of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde

2009-02-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

TannerRitchie Publishing now has an extensive collection of records arising from and concerning the life of James Butler, 1st duke of Ormonde (public domain image from Wikipedia), an Anglo-Irish statesman, politician and soldier who played a key part in the history of 17th century England and Ireland.

Sources concerning Ormonde published by TannerRitchie Publishing:

From 1633 Ormonde played a leading role in Irish affairs, leading the royalist defence against the Irish Confederates after 1641, and becoming Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1643, eventually handing over Dublin to the English (and Protestant) Parliamentarians, rather than concede to the Irish (and Catholic) Confederates, in 1647. He fled to Paris in 1648, and became the commander of the exiled Royalist forces and, ironically, of the Confederate forces, who now had common cause with Charles II. When the protestant forces under his command eventually joined Cromwell, Ormonde was left commanding a Catholic force which distrusted him, and which ousted him in 1650, after which he returned to exile in France and Cologne.

At the Restoration (1660) Ormonde was immediately promoted to high office, including steward of the king's household and privy councillor, and was made lord lieutenant of Ireland again in 1661, acting in that role until the accession of James II in 1687.

RSS feed provides instant notice of new titles

2009-01-14T19:55:00.000-08:00

Customers who like to keep up to date with our latest titles can now subscribe to our RSS feed, which will automatically notify you when new books are published each week.

http://www.tannerritchie.com/newtitlesrss.php is the address of the feed to use in your RSS reader of choice.

If you have not used RSS before, read more here.

New pricing scheme for 2009 - prices lowered permanently

2009-01-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

Due to the overwhelming success of our year-end sale, we are proud to introduce a new (and lower) regular pricing scheme for 2009. Downloads are now priced between $10 and $30 CAD, while the regular price for CD-ROMs will remain at approximately the year-end sale price.

Visit www.tannerritchie.com to order

From all of us here at TannerRitchie Publishing, we would like to thank all our customers for their support and book recommendations, and to offer everyone our sincere best wishes for 2009.

YEAR END SALE EXTENDED FOR ONE MORE WEEK

2009-01-01T09:34:00.000-08:00

Thanks to incredible demand (and, er, the fact we're too tired to change the prices today) we've decided to extend our amazing year end sale for one more week.

In the mean time, look forward to new announcements in January.

Happy New Year!

AMAZING YEAR END SALE!!

2008-12-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

DOWNLOADS $10
50% off CD-ROMs

Click here to begin buying.

Beat the credit crunch blues with TannerRitchie Publishing! Until December 31st only, all eBook downloads are an incredible $10 each, and all CD-ROMs are half price. Build up your personal library or treat yourself to an entire series of eBooks. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Buy now - this sale will end on 1 January 2009!

More manuscripts from the Calendar of State Papers, Elizabeth

2008-12-09T13:01:00.000-08:00

We have just uploaded the next batch of manuscripts from the reign of Elizabeth (TNA SP 70/7, 8, 9, 41-53, 67-9, 94, 101-3). More are being added all the time, and users will now find increased metadata assists navigation greatly. For more details about these series, see www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.

The total number manuscripts in the MEMSO database currently exceeds 51,000 images. More are on the way ...

Calendar of the Fine Rolls published

2008-10-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

The first 4 of 22 volumes from the Calendar of Fine Rolls has been published today, beginning progress on another of the four major collections of medieval English chancery papers (the others being the Close and Patent Rolls (many of which are already published) and the Charter Rolls).

The Fine Rolls record payments to the crown arising from administrative or judicial business, and therefore contain a great deal of local and financial information, but also political matters, such as the inheritance after an oath of fealty of Robert Bruce to Edward I in 1304, and an account of how Bruce 'seditiously slew John Comyn of Scotland in the church of the Friars Minors of Dumfres', and Edward I's death at Burgh on Sands in 1307 on the way to 'repress with a mighty hand the rebellion of the same Robert'.

State Papers, Elizabeth

2008-10-24T19:58:00.001-07:00

Another batch of manuscripts from the reign of Elizabeth are now available as part of MEMSO (Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online) (TNA SP 70/95 to SP 125). More are being added soon, along with increased metadata and other information to assist with navigation. (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk).

That brings our current total of manuscript images included in MEMSO to over 46,000, many of which have never been published in any form ever before.

25% Discount in the TannerRitchie Fifth Anniversary Sale

2008-10-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

We can't quite believe it, but it is already five years since TannerRitchie Publishing was founded. We've come a long way in a short time, and we think we've established ourselves as both a leader in our field, and a company that is highly responsive to our customers' requests and suggestions.

The most rewarding part of our work over the last five years has been the enormously positive feedback that we receive from our clients and customers, both in terms of enthusiasm for the titles we have published, and appreciation for the way we do business. Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to provide comments and feedback over the years.

To celebrate our anniversary, we've introduced a 25% discount on all our individual ebooks. Everything is discounted, so there has never been a better time to buy, and US customers can take advantage of recent exchange rate changes which have wiped off about another 10% from the price they pay!

Witchcraft, libraries and the Calendar of Treasury Papers

2008-08-24T10:24:00.001-07:00

The Calendar of Treasury Papers, edited by Joseph Redington, published this week by TannerRitchie Publishing, has been requested by customers for some time. The volumes contain a wealth of records relating to this most central of governmental offices between 1556 and 1728. Patronage, crown finance, and every avenue of interest of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury is recorded here. Moreover, the documents are particularly clearly and colourfully written.

In 1842, the Master of the Rolls described them thus: "They are of the highest historical interest and curiosity, throwing light on a variety of civil and political events; the progress of the Revenue, the Crown lands, the Colonies, the public transaction of office, and many of the private affairs of persons of every class".

The very first document in the volumes acts as a good example. On 11 January 1557, John Dee, described as a simple 'gentleman', supplicated Queen Mary, complaining of the 'lamentable displeasures' brought about by the attacks on the monasteries of Henry VIII's reign, but above all on their libraries:

wherein lie the treasures of antiquity and the everlasting seeds of continual excellency; but notwithstanding many precious jewels and ancient monuments had perished (as at Canterbury the work "Cicero de Republica"), yet the remainder, which were scattered, might be saved."

Dee continued to petition the queen to do what she could to recover the lost ancient libraries of England's monasteries, and, further, to allow him to create a new library in the queen's name which would contain new copies of many ancient volumes.

Dee was in fact a mathmetician, astrologer and antiquary (source, Oxford DNB article by R Julian Roberts, 2004), and was being, perhaps, a little disingenuous by this tacit attack on Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Henry VIII had given Dee a pension of 100 crowns over the previous years, and also given him two rectories, while Dee had become tutor to the powerful Dudley family. In the reign of Mary, Dee's powerful Dudley patrons had fallen dramatically from power, and in 1555 Dee was arrested by the Privy Council and accused of witchcraft and 'enchantments to destroy Queen Mary'. Although released in 1556, Dee's interest in the controversial subjects of astronomy and mathematics were perhaps the reason he remained a peripheral figure in the reign of Mary Tudor.

Yet, in 1557 it seems Dee was trying to resurrect his reputation - and he would do so successfully over the following decades, receiving some favour from Elizabeth I and Cecil and buying a large residence for his expanding collection of books. In time he would build one of the largest English libraries, and travel widely across Europe, taking 800 volumes with him on a trip to Poland. It was lucky he took so many, as his house was raided and those he left behind were stolen by rivals and former associates. He would remain financially poor for the rest of his life, dying in poverty in 1609.

Growing pains

2008-08-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

The last month has been a hectic time for the staff at TannerRitchie Publishing, and that's by the standards of a year that has already been our most hectic by far. The swiftly expanding demands on our servers from the complexity and size of Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) required that we take a long term look ahead at the hardware we were using, and make the necessary investment to ensure we are prepared for the future.

As a result, since our last post in July, we've undergone a complete change in the server hardware that runs our websites and MEMSO. We've also moved the location of the hardware from Vancouver to downtown Toronto. In the process we migrated our increasing complex web application (in fact applications), including databases and hundreds of thousands of files, onto a new architecture without creating too many problems for our users.

By and large we are happy that we managed a reasonably smooth transition. However some users certainly noticed some glitches, and a short period when MEMSO was not accessible via the internet at all. The best laid plans of mice, men and web administrators go oft awry,* and unexpected glitches arose even after extensive testing of the new hardware. For those that have been inconvenienced, we apologize, and hope you appreciate that these growing pains are evidence of TannerRitchie Publishing's commitment to the continuous future development, improvement and growth of MEMSO and our other websites.

We welcome questions about the changes. Please contact us and let us know your thoughts.

*Or, to be more historically accurate, "The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley."

Vancouver Harbour Centre Power Outage - 14 July 2008

2008-07-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

For several hours today MEMSO and all TannerRitchie's websites were offline because of a major fire/explosion and power failure in downtown Vancouver, which cut power to our servers in the Vancouver Harbour Centre. The Harbour Centre is one of North America's main internet and telecommunications hubs, but although it has a large backup power system, it was unable to cope with the prolonged outage.

A news story connected to this power outage and the associated disruption can be found at The Vancouver Sun website.

We sincerely apologise for the disruption and inconvenience. Although the Vancouver Harbour Centre is one of the two most highly trusted and respected locations for servers in Canada, we are coincidentally moving our web servers to the Toronto telecommunications hub in August this year, as part of a major expansion of our hardware.

Additional Manuscripts from the State Papers, Foreign, & State Papers, Spain (1553-1780)

2008-07-07T09:44:00.001-07:00

(TNA SP 70/87, f. 642r. MEMSO Permalink )

Users will already have noticed that manuscript images from the The National Archives (UK) are increasingly a key element in Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO). The first wave of a major expansion of our manuscript images was launched on Friday, 4 July, with the availibility of TNA SP 70, The State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth I (1558-1577) (part I of II, with the remaining MSS appearing in August), and SP 94, State Papers, Foreign, Spain (1577-1780).

The manuscripts are arranged for ease of use and access in high definition greyscale images, and we will be adding further metadata and links between printed books and manuscripts over the coming weeks. However, of particular interest to many users will be the fact that most of the new images from the State Papers, Spain, are absent from the printed volumes of Calendars of State Papers, Spain, and Calendars of State Papers, Foreign.

Historical Manuscripts Commission volumes - a major new project

2008-06-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday TannerRitchie published the first volumes in a major new project to digitise the publications and reports of the The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts.

The Commission (more usually referred to as "The Historical Manuscripts Commission" or just "HMC") was founded in 1869 with the intention of making enquiry into all collections and repositories of historical manuscripts and papers in the United Kingdom. Its many reports and "appendices" (in fact complete volumes of primary sources in their own right), published over the period of over a century, contain a treasure-house of material for medieval, early modern and modern historians and genealogists, taken from the family archives, charter chests and private collections of the nobility and citizenry of Britain and Ireland, as well as university colleges, diocesesan and cathedrals archives, and the archives of towns, boroughs and other corporate bodies.

Until now these volumes have been both inaccessible and daunting to use, even for the skilled historian. TannerRitchie is undertaking a major programme not only to digitise, but also to catalogue (through metadata and bookmarks) this series more fully, to enable users to exploit this incredible resource to an extent never possible before.

Details of the contents of each volume will appear here in due course. In the mean time, a detailed catalogue of the volumes can be viewed at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/academic/pdf/bibliography.pdf

If you have a particular volume you would like to see available, please let us know, or post a comment on our forum

MEMSO 2.7 - More simple to use, more manuscripts

2008-06-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

Less than two months after launching MEMSO 2.6, last night we launched MEMSO 2.7, which includes the latest incremental updates to the user interface. This time around we have been concentrating on simplifying the user interface in a number of important ways, while maintaining or improving functionality.

We believe new users will find this the simplest version of MEMSO to use so far, enabling them to find the material they are interested in more quickly.

At the same time we have made accessing the manuscript images from the State Papers at the UK National Archives more central to the resource in preparation for major additions to the manuscript content over the next few weeks. Comprehensive coverage of the State Papers, Elizabeth, Spain and France are on the way between the next few days and the end of the summer.

If you would like to take a trial to MEMSO, please contact us and we can usually have a trial in place the same day.

MEMSO is upgraded often, and user interface improvements come along every month to two months. That's because we are constantly learning from user feedback, and because we believe web resources should never be viewed as 'finished'. Subscribers to MEMSO since 2006 have seen it develop from a highly functional but more conventional resource, into one of the most innovative historical databases available. As ever, new features are still in development ...

The Rolls Series - Ten new titles added today

2008-06-03T19:36:00.001-07:00

Ten new volumes from the Rolls Series have been added to TannerRitchie's website today. Here's the list, including great resources for the history of medieval London, and the reign of Henry VII. See all our latest titles here.

Liber de Illustribus Henricis - Book of the Illustrious Henries, John Capgrave, volume 1 (973-1473)
Memorials of King Henry VII, ed. James Gairdner, volume 1 (1485-1509)
Munimenta Gildhallae Londiniensis - Muniments of London Guildhall, volume 2.1 (1250-1320),
Munimenta Gildhallae Londiniensis - Muniments of London Guildhall, volume 2.2 (1250-1320),
Munimenta Gildhallae Londiniensis - Muniments of London Guildhall, volume 3 (1250-1420)
Eulogium (Historiarum sive Temporis): Chronicon .. a Monacho Quadam Malmesbriensi Exaratum (Rolls Series), volume 1 (0-1366)
Eulogium (Historiarum sive Temporis): Chronicon .. a Monacho Quadam Malmesbriensi Exaratum (Rolls Series), volume 2 (0-1366)
Eulogium (Historiarum sive Temporis): Chronicon .. a Monacho Quadam Malmesbriensi Exaratum (Rolls Series), volume 3 (0-1366)
Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis (Rolls Series), volume 1 (597-1418)

Sale ends 10 June.

2008-05-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

Our current offer of 25% off all our titles if you buy 4 or more is coming to an end on 10 June. Take advantage of it while you can at http://www.tannerritchie.com/!

Manuscripts of the State Papers, Elizabeth, and State Papers, Spain, going online

2008-05-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

(Detail from TNA SP70/6 f.4r. To be published in June as part of Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO). Letter from Throckmorton to Elizabeth I, Paris, 1 August 1559, partly in cipher. Printed copy already available to subscribers at http://sources.tannerritchie.com/browser.php?ipid=31164)

In the next two weeks a major addition will be made to the manuscript content of Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO):

Part 1 of 2: TNA SP/70 State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth I

Complete: TNA SP/94 State Papers, Spain (mostly not printed in Calendar of State Papers, Spain)

As the first publisher to take on the large scale publication of manuscripts from the UK National Archives, we are pleased to announce that our next major additions of manuscripts to Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online will be made in the next few weeks, as part of the continuing rollout. At the same time an improved interface will be launched to enable better navigation of the manuscripts, while a large proportion of the images will be in high quality grayscale, rather than the monochrome which was favoured by the archives in the past. They will also be linked to the discussion forum, where we hope users will assist each other collaboratively with getting the most value out of the resource.

What do you want to be published? Tell us now.

2008-05-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

In 2008/9 we will be adding new titles from existing series, but also beginning major new projects. Suggest your additions to our catalogue now (add comment here, or contact us).

Here are some highlights of the coming twelve months:

Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1676-1691 (to finish complete series)
Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1556-1728
The Rolls Series: please tell us if you would like particular volumes. Featured in this years coverage will be Matthew Paris’ Chronica Majora, Roger Howden’s Chronica, the Tripartite Life of St Patrick, and Irish sources such as Historical Municipal Documents, Ireland.
New Project: The Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports and Calendars. A major new project to digitise this enormous and complex collection of material relating to manuscript sources in the UK. We will be publishing large sections of this collection – however we would like to enlist our user’s assistance in suggesting volumes that should be included in the first wave. A complete list of the titles which have been published by HMC since the mid nineteenth century can be found at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/academic/pdf/bibliography.pdf

Nobody Does it Better

2008-05-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

(Image of Henry de Bractons "Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae", by 'Wit', Creative Commons Licence)

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and we are interested to note that there are now some other companies and organisations that have digitised similar content areas to TannerRitchie Publishing in the field of medieval and early modern historical sources. Some have received generous public funding to repeat work done (more economically) by TannerRitchie Publishing. TannerRitchie Publishing does not receive any funding from the public sector.

Our competitors differ from us in three significant ways, however. Firstly – they are not interested in selling small amounts of content to individuals, only libraries. Secondly institutional subscription rates are kept closely guarded. Related content is often not sold as part of the same resource, in order that they can achieve multiple sales from a single institution for similar material.

TannerRitchie has a policy of price openness. Whether you are an individual or a university library, you can find out the cost of any purchases and subscriptions on our website. Anybody can buy titles from as little as $40.

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online is designed to contain a wide range of related content, and not to spin off content in an attempt to increase sales, or only to cover one range of material because of funding constaints. Our intention is that any researcher of British, colonial and European medieval and early modern history will use MEMSO as a first point of call for their research, and not be forced to consult in multiple areas.

MEMSO is constantly developed and improved, and new content areas are researched and included. We believe that this is not just ethically correct, but that treating our clients as we would like to be treated is good business practice.

Complete catalogue being added to NetLibrary

2008-05-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to announce that the complete TannerRitchie catalogue is being added to NetLibrary as we speak. Most North American university libraries will already be familiar with what NetLibrary can do for them in terms of managing access to electronic content. We hope that libraries will consider NetLibrary when examining the many options available for using our content. NetLibrary is particularly suitable for institutions with smaller budgets, libraries that are not primarily academic in nature, or institutions that already make use of NetLibrary for accessing and managing eContent.

NetLibrary users should keep an eye our for our titles becoming available in the next few weeks.

For those unfamiliar with NetLibrary, it describes itself in the following way: "[NetLibrary] is fast growing to become the eContent provider of choice for academic, community college, public and many other libraries. It offers easy-to-use functionality with access to multiple formats and best-selling titles from the world's leading publishers.

"As OCLC's eContent division, NetLibrary represents a unique dual heritage: a trusted partner for librarians and publishers, with a firm commitment to technological innovation on behalf of end-users. NetLibrary combines the time-honored traditions of the library system with the latest in electronic publishing and content delivery."

If you have any questions about NetLibrary, or would like to discuss accessing our titles this way, please contact us.

New titles published today

2008-04-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

These books have been made available on MEMSO or for purchase as downloads/CD-ROMs during the week of 28 April 2008: (see www.tannerritchie.com/newtitles.php for full details)

Calendar of State Papers, Venice

Calendar of State Papers, Ireland

Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III

Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II

Ecclesiastical Memorials,

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII

Coming Soon:

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII,

Rotuli Chartarum

Rotuli Litterarum Patentium,

Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II

Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I

And more from the Rolls Series

Memorials of Henry the Fifth King of England, Memorials of King Henry VII,

Munimenta Gildhallae Londoniensis,

Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis

Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes

Adding the discussion forum

2008-04-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

Not satisfied with a blog, today we've also added a discussion forum!

We're hoping that users of MEMSO, our ebook customers, and any visitors to our sites will find the forum a useful way to interact with other users. As far as we know, there aren't at present any well known sites where historians and other researchers into the past can get together and help each other with matters in which they have shared expertise.

For instance, we are lucky enough to have historians from many of the world's most famous universities among our users - an incredible repository of experience and knowledge all in one place. Wouldn't it be great if users could share that expertise between themselves.

One of the most obvious barriers to understanding for historians of medieval and early modern Europe is the issue of language - Latin, Anglo-Normal French, early modern French and all the diplomatic texts in the State Papers - and handwriting/palaeography. We'd love to see users share their problematic texts here - images from MEMSO included - where other users can provide suggestions.

For a kick-off, TannerRitchie's own staff includes a fairly astounding 36 'person-years' of experience in historical research, editing, transcribing and translating, including Latin, some Anglo-Norman and French. Post a query and we'll do our level best to help you out.

There's a picture above of what we would like to happen. What do you think?

MEMSO 2.6 launched

2008-04-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Last week we launched the latest version of Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online, or version 2.6.

Some new features:
'Live search' - This is a great feature for searching alternate spellings of words - especially place names and personal names, and also provides a way around the inevitable scanning errors that digital searching creates. Typing just the first few letters of a word will now bring up a list of suggestions that you might like to select, which changes dynamically as you type. See the example to the left, where a list of places in Scotland that begin with 'Auchter' are listed. Note how the list includes eight alternate spellings of the Scottish town Auchterarder in Perthshire.

Toolkit: We've integrated search boxes into MEMSO that will take you to the UK version of Google Maps, The Oxford English Dictionary(OED), dictionary.com and the Dictionary of the Scottish Language (DSL). Google maps provides a good starting point for locating placenames within MEMSO, although we'd rather be using the Ordnance Survey which is much better for historical research. At present, unfortunately, their website does not work well enough for us to integrate it even though they make all their maps available for online searching. The specialist language used in our historical sources is always going to make having a good dictionary at hand useful, and subscribers to OED have a fantastic version available. DSL is a similarly brilliant use of the web for a reference work, bringing together the research from the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue and the Scottish National Dictionary. It's well worth a look even if your research is not primarily in the realm of Scottish history, especially as their is overlap between Scots and the dialects of northern England.

We'll be adding new and more advanced tools for users in time, which we hope will integrate (or mashup) other sites' data with MEMSO's. Keep an eye out for tools for language experts, such as concordances and word frequency tools.

The first part of a user preferences system was launched. At present it only controls our tooltips, which help new users to get the most from the site. Over the next month or so we'll be adding a lot of new features here, enabling users to save 'favourite' books, and bookmark their place within a book.

Permalinks. We've added permalinks to every page now, so you can use the URL directly for citation purposes, or to save you place in your browser.

New login system. For users that use usernames and passwords to login, you'll notice that things just got prettier.

We've also made the placing of the main search more logical, in a drop down box, and likewise adjusted the 'search within this book' option.

There's always room for improvement, so all comments are very welcome.

Why the version numbers?

For those that wonder why we use version numbers, it's to highlight the fact that MEMSO is now in all senses a 'web application' rather than a 'web page', with incremental changes happening every month or two, as well as the weekly additions of new books. In other words, it helps to think of MEMSO more like a program such as Microsoft Word or Excel, where the program provides many advanced features for working with a particular type of data.

That creates some challenges for both us and the user. The danger we run is of overloading users with a complicated interface, and hiding the most heavily used features behind a deluge of useful but less popular material. We therefore always encourage as much feedback as possible about MEMSO, so we can make it work as well as possible. You can send feedback through out website at www.tannerritchie.com/contactus.php, or post a message here.

Why we've launched a blog

2008-04-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

Why does TannerRitchie Publishing need a blog? Well partly we like playing with web toys, but mainly because there isn't always enough room to explain on our various websites about new features, products and things that are in the pipeline. We hope we'll be able to give some more information here about what is going on behind the scenes with the developers, and also elicit some feedback about our websites, new features and books, and more ...

The TannerRitchie Blog

A very rich Lotterie generall without any Blankes

Time is running out on TannerRitchie's biggest and most popular sale.

It's the last week to stock up on our downloads at $10 or less.

Best Tweets of 2011: strange rules and regulations

Best Tweets of 2011: Sports and recreation (sort of)

Best Tweets of 2011: Ailments

Best Tweets of 2011: Deaths

When Royal Grandparents Go Bad: George I

TannerRitchie's Holiday and New Year Sale 2011!

Highlights of 2011

THE STUFF FAIRY TALES ARE MADE OF

Camden Society Volumes: Colourful diaries, accounts, letters and papers from 'eminent' people

The Bairns' Ploy: How children helped Mary Queen of Scots' escape from Loch Leven Castle

The best books and the best research tools - now from $10

SPRING SALE! Save on Short-Term Personal Access to MEMSO

Experience the power of MEMSO for yourself:

It’s not just about the books, but how you can use them.

Buy access now!

Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae published

New titles: 18 February 2011

The Valentine who stole more than a heart - Early Modern Valentine's Day celebrations in England and Scotland

Henry VIII's Ecclesiastical Valuation (presented in HD)

TannerRitchie Publishing: Helping you discover the sources you need

3 Days Remaining in TannerRitchie Publishing's Winter Sale

Watch this space in 2011 ...

Christmas Sale 2010: It's here!

All downloads $10 each!

Remember, remember the 5th of November

Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 10 (1603-1607), pp 288-292http://sources.tannerritchie.com/browser.php?ipid=135122. Report of the Venetian Ambassador, Nicolo Molin, to the Doge and Senate.

Summer Sale 2010: All ebooks reduced to $10, or 10% off a short-term MEMSO subscription

A Grand Day Out (Warning: this blog contains scenes with bad language, ugliness, death and attempted murder. Reader discretion is advised.)

But why would 'A Man for All Seasons' hate Tennis?: The private face of Sir Thomas More

Mummer mia! Thespians and thieves on New Year's Day

Biff, bang merrily on high: 700 years of Christmas in MEMSO

Deck the Dutch with boughs of holly?

Christmas Sale - 50% off all downloads

The curious case of the King of Spain's blue coat

How Scottish Flu makes you swell like a bagpipe

Account of a Paris Tournament

The disgraceful case of the Vicar of Dronfield, 1633

TannerRitchie Newsletter: August 2009

The new academic year is just around the corner, which means it's now officially 'nag your librarian for MEMSO' season! In the meantime, why not try out our Short-Term Personal Subscriptions to MEMSO to get you over the hump? Convenient, affordable and a cheaper way to buy eBooks.

In this issue

1. MEMSO: Short Term Personal Subscriptions: our best deal ever for individuals.

2. MEMSO: Institutional subscriptions and NetLibrary

Here's what researchers and teachers say about MEMSO:

3. Historical database & web application development and consultancy

4. Follow us on Facebook/Twitter: : get you daily dose of obscure historical trivia

5. Complete list of new ebooks since March 2009.

New! Buy a short term MEMSO subscription

Subscribe now for as little as $75 (Canadian)

Recent titles

16 June 1634: Punishment aboard royal ships

26 May 1746: Lady Anne Leslie to her brother

TannerRItchie Series 2 for 1 offer

How dirty was a 17th century floor? Evidence from saltpetre diggers.

MEMSO 3.0 launched

MEMSO 3.0 Launched!

April 2009 - TannerRitchie newsletter

State Papers, France (TNA SP 78), 1587-1631 completed

TNA SP 78, State Papers Foreign, France, now available

State Papers, Elizabeth, completed

State Papers, France

Usability updates to MEMSO

Jacobite Papers - the Stuart Papers held at Windsor Castle

Win an ebook

Material for the life of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde

RSS feed provides instant notice of new titles

New pricing scheme for 2009 - prices lowered permanently

YEAR END SALE EXTENDED FOR ONE MORE WEEK

AMAZING YEAR END SALE!!

DOWNLOADS $10 50% off CD-ROMs

More manuscripts from the Calendar of State Papers, Elizabeth

Calendar of the Fine Rolls published

State Papers, Elizabeth

25% Discount in the TannerRitchie Fifth Anniversary Sale

Witchcraft, libraries and the Calendar of Treasury Papers

Growing pains

Vancouver Harbour Centre Power Outage - 14 July 2008

Calendar of State Papers, Venice and Northern Italy, volume 10 (1603-1607), pp 288-292
http://sources.tannerritchie.com/browser.php?ipid=135122. Report of the Venetian Ambassador, Nicolo Molin, to the Doge and Senate.

DOWNLOADS $10
50% off CD-ROMs