| Description | Manuscript [1590s] containing 'The intelligencer...wrytten unto a secretarye of my Lord Treasurer of England' (William Cecil, Lord Burghley), concerning seminary priests. Incomplete, and wanting the inner upper section of the last two sheets. With the title, 'The Intelligencer', on the recto of the first leaf. |
| AdminHistory | William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (or Burleigh): born at Bourne, Lincolnshire, 1520; as a child served as a page of the robes at court, where his father was a groom of the wardrobe; entered St John's College Cambridge, 1535; studied classics under the humanist John Cheke and came under Protestant influence; for defending royal policy, rewarded by Henry VIII with a place in the Court of Common Pleas, 1542; first entered Parliament, 1543; joined an influential Protestant circle at court; on Edward VI's accession to the throne, joined the protector Somerset's household and became his secretary, 1548; briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London, 1549; regained favour and became a councillor and one of the two secretaries to the King, 1550; knighted, 1551; principal adviser to Elizabeth I through most of her reign; a talented diplomat, politician and administrator; raised to the peerage, 1571; died in London, 1598. |
| CustodialHistory | Part of the library of Charles Kay Ogden (1889-1957), linguistic psychologist, founder of the Orthological Institute and originator of the language system Basic English, whose interests in language systems are reflected in the subject matter of his collection, which comprised individual manuscripts and manuscript collections dating from the 14th to the 20th century. |