The Audley End Tacitus and Henry Neville

The copy of Tacitus at Audley End has literally hundreds of annotations by Henry Neville and his tutor Henry Savile. It's very fun to explore this book and see all the interesting connections.

In this letter to Robert Cecil from 1599, Henry Neville quotes Tacitus (beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum videntur exolvi posse: ubi multum antevenere pro gratia odium redditur, Annals, Book IV, Chapter 18):

The exact same passage is underlined and bracketed in the Audley End Tacitus:

When Henry Neville signed his name, he used a looped underline under it. The exact same type of looped underline appears in the Audley End Tacitus:

Here is the signature:

Compare them directly:

The word "Julius" appears in two annotations. Henry Neville wrote the same word in italic in addressing letters to Sir Julius Caesar. The handwriting it absolutely identical:

Henry Neville varied his handwriting a great deal. Here you can see four capital R examples from the Tacitus annotations: two type A, one type B,  and one type C. The exact same variation occurs in Henry Neville's handwriting:

Most of Henry Neville's lower case Ds and the ones in the Tacitus are fully formed. But both the Tacitus and Henry Neville's handwriting sometimes have these that look like a reverse 6. Here is Tacitus:

Here's Henry Neville:

In the image below, the top three examples are Henry Neville's handwriting; the rest are from the Audley End Tacitus.

Here we have the same word in Henry Neville's handwriting (top) and the Audley End Tacitus (bottom). Clearly the same person's handwriting:

Here in the Audley End Tacitus the word "maiestatis" is abbreviated. Henry Neville used the exact same form of abbreviation for "majestie" in his letters in English (and one in French):

Compare the double-S on the left from the Tacitus with the right, Henry Neville; perfect match:

Top is Henry Neville, bottom two are Tacitus:

Annotations at Merton College, Oxford

Henry Neville donated a book on Ptolemaic astronomy to Merton College Library, Oxford. Written in Greek, it has annotations very similar in handwriting and style to the ones found in the books at Audley End. This is likely Henry Neville's handwriting, though more research would be necessary to determine that definitively.

I have permission from the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford to share these images of the title page and some annotations. There are more annotated pages, but I do not have access to the entire book.

Here is the library catalog entry for the book.

Henry Neville studied under Henry Savile, one of the foremost experts on both Greek language and astronomy in England at the time. So, it is no surprise that Henry Neville would have been annotating a book in Greek on Ptolemaic astronomy.

As you can see here, Henry Neville's portrait included an astronomical symbol and his family motto written in Greek referencing Ptolemaic astronomy.

Here is the inscription from the title page saying it was donated by Henry Neville, esquire, of Billingbear. Neville was knighted in 1599, so this implies the book might have been donated before then:

Here are some close-ups of the handwriting:

Here are all of the pages for which I have images:

Examples of Henry Neville's Italic Handwriting

There has been some confusion lately about what Henry Neville's italic handwriting looked like. Neville mostly wrote using secretary hand. However, he signed his name in italic, wrote Latin in italic, and sometimes wrote placenames and people's names in italic. 

In doing handwriting comparison it is essential to find actual examples of the person's handwriting. Here are some examples that are absolutely and undeniably Henry Neville's handwriting.

Note that Neville varied his italic handwriting depending on the formality of the document. Some of the below examples are from very formal letters. Some are from personal notes to himself. The handwriting varies. Neville also varied his secretary hand depending on the formality of the document.

Note that the examples we have range from roughly 1591-1612. Some of the annotations of the books at Audley End were probably made from 1578-1582 when Neville was a teenager travelling with Savile in Europe -- or even at Oxford before they left. Some of the annotations are later for sure (the books were published later or there is other evidence). 

This letter to Thomas Windebank from February 1599 is written in Neville's informal secretary hand and has a list of names written in italic. This is a very clear example of Henry Neville's italic handwriting:

Here is a close-up of that section:

This letter from 1600 is addressed to Robert Cecil in French. It is another example of Henry Neville's italic handwriting:

Here is the full letter:

And a close-up of the date/location:

This document from 1591 has Henry Neville's scribbles on it in italic:

Here is the close-up:

This letter from 1600, written in Neville's formal secretary hand, has the location and date written in italic.

Here is the close-up:

Here is a letter Neville wrote addressed to Julius Caesar (the English judge). You can see he wrote out the name in italic:

Here is another example of a letter addressed to Julius Caesar with his name written in italic:

Here are some more examples from letters Neville wrote. These are a bit more in cursive italic:

Here is an excellent and clear example of his Latin ("dedimus potestatem") from a letter he wrote to Robert Cecil in July 1602 from the Tower of London:

Here are more examples from a 1605 letter to Thomas Windebank:

And more examples from letters to Robert Cecil:

These examples are notes that Henry Neville wrote on the back of documents while he was ambassador to France as well as some italic words he wrote in draft letters. At first glance, they might look like they were written by different people, since the handwriting varies so much. But if you look carefully, you will see that they are all actually written by the same person. Neville varied his handwriting greatly depending on circumstances.

This list of dates also includes many numbers that can be used for comparison:

Here are more examples from a postscript to a letter to Robert Cecil from 1599:

These three examples from a single letter show how handwriting can vary even within a single document. Here is the full letter:

And the three examples:

Here is a letter with many italic examples:

I've compiled them into a single image:

From a letter from 1600:

From a letter to Robert Cecil ca. 1600:

From a letter from 1606:

This is from Neville's confession in 1601:

Here are some additional examples from a draft document July 1612:

Here's another example from 1608:

More examples:

A letter from March 1601 to Winwood:

From a 1606 letter to Dudley Carleton:

As anyone can see, these documents were written by the same person -- despite the variation. 

This handwriting matches perfectly the books annotated at Audley End. There are many posts on this blog about this topic. Start here with Part 1.

I believe this is an entire draft letter written in French by Henry Neville. Neville appears to have varied his handwriting depending on the language he was writing and its formality. This cursive italic was suitable for this draft letter. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the final letter.