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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2024
Abstract: Chapter 1 considers Mary Bassett's translation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History (BL MS Harley 1860) as a manuscript dedicated to Princes Mary Tudor and intended for circulation among a circle of English Catholic readers. The chapter contextualizes Bassett's translation within the More family's educational tradition and legacy of subversive writing and translation. Bassett's lexical choices reveal her articulation of affinity with a religious and political community. I suggest that these, coupled with the terms of the dedicatory letter to Mary, reveal Bassett's translation of this highly politicized patristic text to be a work that deliberately creates a politicized subject for the view of her readers.
Keywords: dedications; Eusebius; Mary Bassett; Mary I; patronage; translation
Mary Bassett (c. 1522–1572) is perhaps best known as the granddaughter of Thomas More and the translator of his De Tristitia Christi, printed in 1557 in More's collected English writings. Her translation of the first five books of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History from Greek into English and Latin is less well known, in part because of its manuscript form, dedicated to the Princess Mary (later Mary I) and now held at the British Library. The Harley catalogue records that the now leather-bound copy of Bassett’s Ecclesiastical History was at one time ‘bound in a Cover of Purple Velvet, Gilt on the Edges, &c. Seemeth to have been the Present-Book to the above mentioned Princess’. Evidence that the manuscript was actually given to Mary is inconclusive, but the elaborate binding and visual presentation of the text itself (with embellished capitals and neatly ruled margins in red) suggests that this was the copy destined for her.
Bassett's gift includes a long and detailed dedicatory letter in which she reflects on her methodology and theoretical stance in making the translation. Bassett's voice emerges clearly and confidently from within the conventions of the dedicatory letter and this chapter explores the ways in which her translation and its circulation as a gift to the princess Mary Tudor offered Bassett an opportunity to declare publicly her religious and political affiliations to this controversial figure.
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