This is a collection of thirteen courtly love poems written by Patrick Cary,
the younger son of Elizabeth Cary, herself an estimable poet, and Sir Henry
Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland. The manuscript (Brotherton Collection MS Lt 68),
“composed, and transcribed” by Cary himself, is dedicated to his
sister, the Lady Victoria Uvedale. Born in about 1624, Cary had inherited
his mother’s Catholic faith and spent much of his early life in continental
Europe, for some time training for the uncongenial role of Catholic priest,
then wandering aimlessly. He came back to England in 1650, renounced Catholicism
and trained in the law, only to die in Ireland in 1657.
The manuscript dates from 1652-1653, after Cary’s return home and was written, in the author’s self-deprecating phrase, “when Hee had little else to doe”. His literary work was largely unknown until Sir Walter Scott published his poetry, both secular and religious, from another manuscript in 1820. Though Scott’s manuscript includes nearly three times as many poems, religious as well as secular, it has none of the illustrations which are such an appealing and revealing feature of the Cary manuscript at Leeds.
