[RALEGH, Sir Walter (1554-1618)]. Two 17th-century transcripts of works by Ralegh, the first, in two 17th-century hands, including 'Sir Walter Raughleyes leter to the king after his condemnation' and 'Sir Walter Raughleyes Appollogy', with 22 speeches, letters and pleas by other public figures, 1620-1630, together 228 pages, 140 x 88 mm, on leaves numbered 1-144; pages 1-2, 10-99 and 142-144 in a small neat cursive hand, the remaining pages in a less controlled hand; table of contents in a later hand; blanks; original covers inlaid on inner covers, early twentieth-century green morocco gilt, the upper cover with a red morocco lettering-piece, gilt fillet borders, the spine in six compartments, lettered in one, gilt-ruled turn-ins. Provenance. Thomas Rundall (signature); Walter Oakeshott (ownership inscription, dated 1937, and annotations in pencil and in ink on front free endpaper and 2nd blank); the second, a copy of Ralegh's 'The Prerogative of Parliaments in England', entitled 'A Dialogue between a Councellor of State and a Justice of Peace etc', and preceded by a letter addressed to James I, written in a neat 17th-century scribal hand, within horizontals and verticals ruled in red, 125½ pages, 4to (numbered 2-128), a few ink blots, small stains in margins on 7 leaves; bound together with notes in a later hand, printed items, and a cut autograph signature, 'W Ralegh' (faded), 19th-century red straight-grained morocco. Provenance. A. Potts (ownership inscription, 1866); Earl Jermyn (bookplate, partly covered by bookplate of W.A. Foyle). Sir Walter Oakeshott's annotation records that the first manuscript includes [in the 'Appollogy', pages 105-109] a passage lost from the manuscript in the British Library, which was damaged in the fire at the Cottonian Library in 1731. The latest edition of Ralegh's Letters (ed. A. Latham and J. Youings, 1999), records that over 20 transcripts have been identified. The present one includes minor variants of the transcript in the Bodleian Library used for this edition. The document, although entitled in the present manuscript an 'Appollogy', is in fact largely a summary of the longer text which became known as Ralegh's Apology to King James for the disastrous second expedition to Guyana. It was probably intended as a letter for Lord Carew, one of Ralegh's last remaining friends, so that he might pass Ralegh's arguments on to the Privy Council (Youings, p. 367 n.1). None of the known copies is dated, but the original must have been written shortly before or after Ralegh composed his Apology at Salisbury, while being escorted from Plymouth to London in late July 1618. It was published in 1650. In addition to Ralegh's letter and apology, the first manuscript includes James I's speech to Parliament on 30 January 1620 and Bacon's reply; speeches during the proceedings against Sir Henry Yelverton, Attorney General; proceedings against Sir John Benet; speeches and submissions in Parliament and, at the end, notes of the Sessions at Newgate. The Prerogative, like Ralegh's History of the World, includes much conventional adulation of James I in order to obscure its real aim, and its retailing of contitutional history is sharpened by contemporary references. It was published posthumously, in 1628. (2)