There's a lot of excitement on Twitter. David McInnis posted an inscription from the First Folio at the State Library of New South Wales. The entire First Folio is digitized here and here. At the end of Hamlet is inscribed "Elizabeth Windebank Her Book" and at the end of Antony and Cleopatra is inscribed "The vnworthest of your seruants Tho: Hurst". Here are the full images:
Thomas Windebank was a close friend of Henry Neville and lived very close to Billingbear. There are many extant letters from Neville to Windebank, and two from his wife Anne Neville while her husband was imprisoned in the Tower.
Thomas Windebank's son Francis Windebank had many literary associates, including John Florio and John Suckling. Suckling's portrait actually shows him holding a First Folio:
Francis's son Thomas (1612–1669) had a son Francis (1656–1719). And Francis was married to a woman named Elizabeth Parkhurst (1666–1730). Here is the marriage license:
Was Elizabeth Parkhurst the "Elizabeth Windebank" of the First Folio? Here is a copy of Francis (1656–1719) will mentioning his wife Elizabeth Windebank:
Here is Elizabeth's will transcribed.
Could the book originally have belonged to her husband's grandfather, Francis Windebank?
The First Folio also has some writing in secretary hand adding in Troilus and Cressida to the list of plays. Might be possible to try to match this:
This could possibly be the Thomas Hurst (Dissertation by Professor Jennine Hurl-Eamon):
Here is another possible Thomas Hurst who was murdered in 1695:
John Moare Esq ; of the Parish of St. Martins in the Fields , was Indicted for murdering one Thomas Hurst Gent. on the 21st of July last, with a Sword value 5s. and giving him one mortal Wound of the breadth of one Inch, and of the depth of Six Inches in his Breast near to his Right Pap, of which he instantly died . The Prisoner and the deceased were drinking together at the Blue Posts in the Haymarket, till about Two a Clock in the morning, and words were heard to arise between them, and the Prisoner bid him pay his Reckoning, and go his Ways.
(There is another interesting outside possibility. John Parkhurst was another close friend of Henry Neville's. Parkhurst accompanied Neville to France as his chaplain and Neville installed him at Shellingford. So the First Folio could have descended from the Parkhurst family to Elizabeth -- but Parkhurst was a pretty common name.)
Much more to come on this, I will update this post with more details.
