'My good Lady Shyrley pray for Me that gevythe you thys booke, And hertely pray you (Margaret) Modyr to the kynge.'
Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, was the only daughter and heir of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and was not only distinguished for her piety and charity, but was a great patron of Caxton, whose successor, Wynkyn de Worde, styled himself 'Her printer.' This beautiful manuscript was probably written and illuminated by her command in the reign of her son, Henry VII. It realized £350.
[Illustration: _Queen Elizabeth's Golden Manual of Prayers._
For all practical purposes, Queen Elizabeth may be regarded as the first distinguished _femme bibliophile_. Of this truculent and strong-minded personage much has been written, and it is scarcely likely that there is much unpublished material respecting her library. It is not necessary nor desirable to enter exhaustively into even so fascinating a topic. A few generalizations will not, however, be unwelcome. The books which she possessed before she ascended the throne are excessively rare, and even those owned by her after that event are by no means common. Elizabeth herself embroidered several books with her own hands, the most beautiful example of her work being a copy of the Epistles of St. Paul, now at the Bodleian. The black silk binding is covered with devices embroidered by the Princess during her sequestration at Woodstock, representing the Judgment of Solomon and the Brazen Serpent, and these have been reproduced by Dibdin in 'Bibliomania.' From an inventory published in _Archæologia_ we learn that, in the sixteenth year of her reign, the Queen possessed a book of the Evangelists, of which the covers were decorated with a crucifix and with her arms in silver, weighing, with the wood corners, 112 ounces. Among the books which the notorious Libri 'conveyed' were two which appear to have belonged to Elizabeth, first a volume containing Fenestella's 'De Magistratibus Sacerdotusque Romanorum' (1549), and another tract, which realized £5; and Jones's 'Arte and Science of Preserving Bodie and Soul in Healthe, Wisdome, and Catholicke Religion' (1579), beautifully bound 'à petit fers,' which realized close on £20.