Editorial Procedures

xxx yyy zzz¬ interlinear text

[.....] text cancelled and illegible

[xxxxx] text cancelled but legible

<.....> text illegible or missing

<xxxxx> text illegible or missing, conjecturally restored

[+xxx] text supplied by editor

[-xxx] text not deleted in original but which must be deleted for sense

[=yyyyyy] editorial clarification

[?yyyyyy] or [=yyyyyy?] editorial clarification of doubtful validity

[?] word transcribed literally, but uncertain or otherwise of doubtful validity

[sic] word orthographically odd, but of probable validity

I print expansions of abbreviations in italic.

I disregard otiose line over n's and m's.

In 5.1 I transcribe ct as tt

In _______ I transcribe sc as s

A single bar indicates a page break, thus: ... a | formall ...

A double bar indicates a page break preceded by a catch-word, so that what would otherwise be ... a formall | formall ... becomes ... a || formall ...

LL = Lordships

Punctuation: Where possible I interpret "/" as either "," or "."; I do not distinguish between "," and "." but transcribe according to grammatical function. I supply no punctuation, nor do I capitalize proper nouns or the beginning of "sentences", but I add extra space where I think a break is necessary for sense. (The reader is free to close up such extra spaces in his mind.)

I follow pencil foliation in Hatton letter book (BL Add. 15891); machine-stamped foliation where used in PRO documents.

D. C. Peck, Leicester's Commonwealth, p. 21, identifies the principal hand in the dossier as that of Charles Arundel; I believe, however, that the hand was that of Walsingham's amanuensis, who made copies of material both intercepted and perhaps found among Arundel's papers.

In footnotes, following a cross-reference, @ means "at note".