Historical and Literary Tracts

Joseph Diggins (or Diggons, or Diggny) matriculated in 1607 from Clare Hall, Cambridge. His later career is unknown, but in his will, proved in 1658, he made Clare Hall his prinicipal beneficiary, leaving properties at Liss in Hampshire, where he lived, and at Stepney and Braintree.

MS copies of Thomas Legge's Latin verse tragedy Solymitana Clades (The Destruction of Jerusalem) of circa 1580; George Ruggles's Cambridge play Ignoramus (1615); William Roper, The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, written in 1535; George Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, completed 1557; Sir Philip Sidney's letter to his brother Robert on foreign travel, written circa 1578-1579; and other tracts, the latest being an exchange of letters between James I and the University of Cambridge, dated 1616. The MS was compiled originally at Cambridge in the early seventeeth century, and has the ownership inscription 'Josephus Diggins me possidet' on a back endleaf.

Purchased 1974.

Please cite as Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Historical and Literary Tracts, MS Add.7958