Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Side 95
87
tically accepting Neilson’s position, has tried to establish a terminus
ante quem c. 1505 for the Selden manuscript on the basis of specula-
tions concerning Graye’s biography.91
Graye’s active part in the production of Adv. 34.7.3 is, however, a
more difficult question than these scholars realized. The manuscript is
a compilation of historical lore, notarial formulae and some vernacu-
lar poetry, written on a mixture of vellum and paper in what may be a
variety of hånds; the writing is in places quite minute. N. R. Ker has
compared a passage near the beginning of Adv. 34.7.3 with the Haye
manuscript and finds no significant resemblance;92 I have compared
the copy of Henryson’s Annunciation with the Selden, Haye and
Dalhousie hånds, and cannot endorse Norton-Smith’s equation. A
dated specimen of Graye’s writing in a document from the early 1490s
is of no help here, as it is done in the set, notarial style.93 In the light of
these observations it would seem wisest to abandon the proposed
connexion of the Selden manuscript with Graye.94
If the genesis of the Selden manuscript must remain uncertain, its
early ownership is on the other hånd not in doubt. At the end of the
copy of Chaucer’s Troilus appears the blazon of Henry Lord Sinclair of
Dysart, grandson of the last earl of the Orkneys; this is the nobleman
whose patronage of Gavin Douglas was mentioned at the beginning of
the present paper. On f. 230v is the inscription “liber Henricj dominj
Sinclar” (not, however, showing any likeness to the obliterated
inscription on the Dalhousie Fasciculus in which David Laing propos-
ed to read the same name); and among other Sinclair family names is
that of Elizabeth Sinclair inscribed at f. 231r - very possibly the Eli-
zabeth who married William, son and heir of Henry Lord Sinclair.95
The manuscript thus seems to have been written for the senior branch
of the Sinclair family. But these were not the only Sinclairs to have
been acquainted with the work of the first Selden scribe, for the Roslin
91 McDiarmid, The Kingis Quair, pp. 3-4.
92 Cf. reference in n. 82 above.
93 St Andrews University Muniments, SL 110/PW 61, dated 23.6.1492 (a copy was
kindly placed at my disposal by Roderick J. Lyall).
94 Scepticism as to the identification of Graye’s hånd in the copy of Henryson’s
Annunciation and in Arch. Selden B. 24 is also expressed in Denton Fox (ed.), The
Poems of Robert Henryson (Oxford, 1981), p. 427.
95 So Millar (as n. 89).