Blair Worden - A Book of Friendship

BLAIR WORDEN - A BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP

The speech occupies 71 pages of the King’s Inn manuscript. 28 It contains a small number of corrections – words changed because the clerk was inattentive or changed his mind about what was in the original, some words added as interlineation when they had been missed. Otherwise, it is a very clean, careful version. Spelling and punctuation are significantly different from the Spittlehouse version, and paragraphing very different. In addition to these, there are 135 variant readings – different words or phrases in the King’s Inn and Spittlehouse texts. In all, just over 96 per cent of the words are shared by the two versions. The King’s Inn version does, however, contain (accurately transcribed) all the preceding matter from the Commons Journal, 29 with an important modification. In the Journal the words ‘the Lord General declared unto them the Grounds and End in calling them; and delivered unto them the Instrument in Writing under his hand and seal; and afterwards left them’ are followed by the following rather bizarre intruded words: ‘Lord General Cromwell made A speech to both Houses of Parliament As followeth’. 30 At the very least this suggests the scribe was not around in 1653! What can we say about the 135 variant readings between the Spittlehouse version and the King’s Inn version, the first published in 1654 and the second prepared, probably in the 1690s. Are they two versions taken from a common original or two separate originals? Just twice, towards the very end, the King’s Inn version omits whole phrases that are in the Spittlehouse version. 31 Otherwise, the variant readings can be put into two groups: those which appear to be simple verbal differences which would tend to suggest either two listeners hearing words differently, or one being a more careful transcriber than the other. For reasons of time, I will simply give five representative examples: [page numbers are to S=Spittlehouse (pages as in the pamphlet, cited in n.20), K = King’s Inn MS]

28 The current class number is King’s Inn, N3/2/3/1 pp.1-71. 29 This consists of a notice about the circumstances of the summoning of the Assembly, a copy of the writ of summons and the statement that ‘This day was A great appearance oof these persons. To whom the letters were directed, in the Councell Chamber at Whitehall, where the Lord Generall Made speech’. 30 KI, N3/2/3/1, p.3. 31 At no point do we find more than one or two words that are in the King’s Inn MS but not in Spittlehouse.

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