David Graham Writing from Paris: Savile and Neville Intend to Return to England, July 1582
David Graham's Paris letter, July 1582
Controlled finding
The 2019 critical edition prints a letter from David Graham of Fintry to Andreas Dudith, dated at Paris on 29 July 1582. Graham names Signor Saviello and Signor Noviello. The editors identify them in the notes as Henry Savile and Henry Neville. Graham reports that the two intend to go to England within a few days and describes both as devoted to Dudith.
The edition identifies the surviving witness as a sixteenth-century copy in Dresden SLUB, MS G 185, no. 47, ff. 74v-75v; the original is unknown. That manuscript image has not been inspected in this research pass. The names and travel statement may therefore be cited through the critical edition, but they must not be described as a new visual reading of the Dresden copy.
Text in the critical edition
Il quale et il Signor Noviello pretendono d'andar fra puochi giorni in
Inghilterra.
Working translation: Savile and Signor Noviello intend to go to England within a few days.
The wording supplies Graham's Paris dateline and Savile and Neville's intended return. It does not say where Savile and Neville were when Graham wrote. It therefore does not place either man in Paris, and it does not give their lodging, route, departure date, Channel crossing, or proof that the journey occurred exactly as planned.
Itinerary implication
- 15 May 1582: Savile is documented at Nuremberg in separate correspondence.
- 29 July 1582: Graham, writing from Paris, says that Savile and the man
- The intermediate route and crossing remain unresolved. Savile's first currently
identified by the editors as Neville plan to go to England shortly; their location is unstated.
controlled English-side record is John Dee's diary entry of 3 February 1583; no equally secure early English record has yet been found for Neville.
Sources
- David Graham of Fintry to Andreas Dudith, Paris, 29 July 1582, no. 1129, in
- Dresden SLUB, MS G 185, no. 47, ff. 74v-75v, sixteenth-century copy, as
Andreas Dudithius, Epistulae, Pars VII: 1581-1589 (Budapest, 2019), pp. 251-53, open-access critical edition.
described by the edition.
Quoted Source Passages
Il quale et il Signor Noviello pretendono d'andar fra puochi giorni in Inghilterra.
The critical edition identifies Signor Noviello as Henry Neville and Signor Saviello as Henry Savile.
Notes on Access
The open critical edition is the present quotation witness. Dresden SLUB G 185, no. 47, ff. 74v–75v, should be inspected before describing manuscript spelling, lineation, corrections, or hand.
2026-08-08 Joined Itinerary Correction
Graham's 29 July 1582 letter is an independent companionship and travel-intention anchor immediately before the Pigafetta notices. Its Signor Saviello and Signor Noviello, identified by the critical editors as Henry Savile and Henry Neville, intended to go to England within a few days. The place printed in the heading is Graham's place of writing, Paris. The letter does not say that Savile or Neville was in Paris.
Cobham's Paris correspondence of 21 August and September reports Filippo Pigafetta and young Mr Nevill in a return-to-England setting. The calendar does not print the young man's forename. Graham independently shows Henry Neville paired with Savile and intending to go to England only weeks earlier, but Paris cannot be counted as a point of convergence, because Graham does not locate the pair. Henry Neville remains a strong contextual candidate for Cobham's young Mr Nevill on chronology, age, association, and direction of travel; an explicit passport, crossing record, full-name dispatch, or other source is still needed to prove the identification.
2026-08-11 Return and calendar control
The two Cobham notices concern Pigafetta, not two Neville letters. On 21 August Cobham says Filippo Pigafetta desires to visit England and is acquainted with young Mr Nevill; on 17 September he refers back to the earlier notice and says Pigafetta is then departing with Signor Aragon, now strongly identified as Anton Maria Ragona. Ragona's printed itinerary places Pigafetta and Ragona at the English ambassador's Paris residence, then on the Dieppe-Rye-London route during September. It does not place Neville with them.
Savile's return can now be bounded independently. John Dee's diary records Mr. Savile among visiting travaylors on 3 February 1583, before Dee delivered his calendar-reform book to Burghley on 26 February. Burghley subsequently consulted Savile, Thomas Digges, and John Chamber on the proposal. See John Dee's calendar-reform proposal. This proves Savile was back by 3 February 1583; it neither supplies his crossing date nor proves Henry Neville returned with him.