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A Report and Discourse … of the Affaires and State of Germany and the Emperour Charles his Court, during certaine Yeares while the sayd Roger was there.

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First edition. Ascham’s account of his time in Germany as secretary to Sir Richard Morison, ambassador to the court of Emperor Charles V, takes the form of a letter to the courtier John Astley.

‘In mid-May 1552 Ascham commenced a detailed journal of events with Charles V’s flight from Innsbruck. The journal comments on attitudes to the Council of Trent. It seems that John Astley (and perhaps others) asked Ascham for news of the great events that he was witnessing. Despite Ascham’s declaration that he was ill-fitted to the task, from this small beginning of journal and newsletters came a larger project: a history. On 7 July 1553 Ascham informed Cheke that he was writing a narrative of what occurred day by day in the imperial court … A fragment of the resulting history covering events down to February 1553 has survived in published form’ as A Report and Discourse (Oxford DNB).

STC 830; Pforzheimer 14.

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