ABSTRACT
Printed as it was at a time when George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham was at the height of his influence, the topicality of the manuscript to the political situation is not to be questioned. William A. Jackson in his 1950 article on Cotton’s A Short View observed that ‘all of the surviving manuscripts’ ‘which are dated bear the date 29 April 1614,’ while Kevin Sharpe noted that a Cambridge University Library manuscript of the work tells us that it was ‘written by Sir Robert Cotton Knight Baronett in anno 1614 and by him presented to his Majestie the same year.’ Kevin Sharpe, Linda Levy Peck, and Harold Love have in their various ways established the political contexts for Cotton’s historical and antiquarian researches, and his predilection for scribal publication. The fruition of Henry’s ‘licentious libertie’ according to Cotton’s history, was a disastrous parliament, summoned to resolve the religio-political wranglings of ‘factious Bishops’ and to ‘supplie the Kings Extremities.’.
