Encomium of Richard III / ‘Hen. W.’ / Henry Neville

Topic: Encomium of Richard III, “Hen. W.,” and Henry Neville

Round 8 attribution table — 8 August 2026

The evidence now supports three distinct attributions. The presentation copy is addressed to Sir Henry Neville. Its dedicatory voice signs Hen: W: and calls the treatise my privat Laboures. The core Encomium belongs to the recension tradition attributed by Kincaid to William Cornwallis. These statements are not mutually exclusive: a dedicator could copy, adapt, present, or claim labor on a text whose core originated elsewhere.

The complete dedication strengthens the fact of personal presentation but does not choose between Henry Wotton, Henry Wriothesley, or another Hen. W.. The formula searches are properly corroborative only: Wotton uses related service language, but the exact formulas are not exclusive and no Wotton-to-Neville letter was found in Smith's 511-letter edition.

Corrected position

British Library Add MS 29307 contains a later scribal copy of a recension of the Encomium of Richard III. Its dedication addresses Sir Henry Neville and ends Hen: W:. The hand and spelling are therefore evidence about the copyist, not directly about the person represented by the subscription.

The core Encomium is attributed to Sir William Cornwallis the younger in A. N. Kincaid’s modern edition. The Neville dedication is separate attribution evidence: it may identify the writer or adaptor who presented this recension, but it does not transfer authorship of the core essay to either Henry Wotton or Henry Wriothesley. The Folger catalogue gives the full bibliographic identity of Kincaid’s edition; the Skenè witness overview summarizes the recension history and Kincaid’s case for Cornwallis.

Quoted source passage: verified dedication transcription

The complete dedication was checked against the manuscript image and the Kincaid–Ramsden appendix transcription. It reads:

To the Honorable Sir Henry Neuill knighte.

I am bold to adventure to your honours viewe this small porcion of

my privat Laboures, as an earnest peny of my loue, beinge a meere

Paradoxe in prayse of a mostt blame worthie, and Condemned prince

kinge Richard yᵉ third; who albeit I shold guilde with farr better

termes of eloquence then I haue don, and sweate myself to deathe

in pursuite of his Commendacions, yet his disgrace beinge soe

publicke, and the worlde soe opinionate of his misdoinges as I shold

not be able soe farr to iustifie him, \ as they to condemne him /

yet that they may see what may be saide and to shewe how farr

they haue mispraysed his vertues, this followinge Treatise shall

make manyfest. Your Honour may pervse and censure yt at your

best leisure, and though yt be not trickt vp with elegancye of phrase

yet may it satisfie a right curious Iudgmente, yf the reasons be

Considered as they oughte: But howsoever yf you please to accepte

it I shall think my Laboures well bestowed; who bothe in this and

what elles I may devote myself to Your Honour, and rest

Your Honoures most affectionat Servante,

Hen: W:

The slashes around as they to condemne him represent the phrase’s marked treatment in the witness. The transcription does not silently resolve it.

Henry Wotton assessment

Wotton is a credible candidate, but not an identification. The strongest evidence is the complete closing pattern. In letters to Sir Thomas Edmondes dated 1605 and 1605/6, Wotton uses:

• I rest / Your Lordship’s very assured and / affectionate friend to serve you
• I rest, / Your Lordship’s to do you most affectionate service

His earlier letters to Lord Zouche repeatedly use Your Honour’s servant and related service formulas. These examples are available in Logan Pearsall Smith’s *Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton*, volume 1.

The correspondence therefore supplies a real Wotton parallel to the dedication’s chain:

and rest → Your Honoures → most affectionat → Servante

That is moderate positive evidence. It is stronger than a match on the initials alone, but it is not exclusive. Most affectionate servant and labour well bestowed occur broadly in early modern writing. The apparently distinctive earnest penny of my love already occurs in Robert Greene’s The Scottish History of James the Fourth (1598), visible as EarlyPrint work A02168. No second, body-level phrase in the dedication was recovered from Wotton’s edited letters.

A search of the 511 numbered letters in Smith’s two-volume edition recovered no letter from Wotton to Neville. Smith does record that Wotton and Neville were later rivals for the secretaryship. This does not exclude earlier acquaintance, but it means the textual parallel is not yet supported by direct correspondence between them. Public copies: volume 1 and volume 2.

Assessment: Henry Wotton is plausible, with moderate formulaic support; the identity of Hen: W: remains unresolved.

Southampton and the Tower claim

The older project claim that Southampton wrote the dedication in the Tower between 1601 and 1603 is unsupported. Southampton and Neville’s shared imprisonment makes a Tower context possible, and the initials Hen: W: can fit Henry Wriothesley. Neither fact proves authorship or date.

The subscription also presents a social difficulty for Southampton: an earl signs without title as a knight’s most affectionat Servante. Dedicatory humility makes that possible, but it is marked enough that it must be demonstrated rather than assumed. The later copy cannot settle whether the wording was composed during the imprisonment, after release, or at some other point in the recension’s circulation.

Secure witness distinctions

The 1616 print is bibliographically Sir William Cornwallis, Essayes of Certaine Paradoxes (London: George Purslowe for Thomas Thorpe, 1616), ESTC S105004, TCP A19354. It must not be described as “Southampton’s Encomium” or as a printed book dedicated to Neville.

Why the topic still matters

The secure Neville evidence is substantial even without identifying Hen: W:. Someone circulating a politically charged defense of Richard III selected Neville as the reader whose “curious Iudgmente” should assess its reasons. The 1616 printed essay attacks reliance on chroniclers and “witty Play-makers,” making the recension relevant to Neville’s political-historical culture and to theatrical constructions of Richard III. Whether that presentation came from Wotton, Southampton, or another adaptor remains a separate question.

Notes on access and limits

The primary manuscript was inspected through a full-resolution image of the dedication leaf. The independent reading was taken from an identifiable published edition. No claim depends on an AI-generated transcription, and no handwriting attribution is attempted because the witness is a later copy.

Public sources

• Sir William Cornwallis, The Encomium of Richard III, ed. A. N. Kincaid, introduction by J. A. Ramsden and A. N. Kincaid (London: Turner & Devereux, 1977), Folger catalogue record.
• Logan Pearsall Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), public text of volume 1.
• W. Gordon Zeeveld, “A Tudor Defense of Richard III,” PMLA 55.4 (1940): 946–957, Cambridge Core record.
• “The Praise of King Richard the Third,” Skenè manuscript and edition overview.