According to the relevant entry in the Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700, the main scribe may have been Edwarde Hull, whose name appears on leaf 155.

The name 'Edwarde Hull' is found on the reverse of the leaf labelled 155, "possibly the main scribe of the MS";[2] other names appearing as additions include those of Thomas Sturgies "the right Oner of this booke", Edward Sturgis, Thomas Manton, Richard Manton, Richard Halford and William Halford.

According to the current British Library catalogue entry, the contents were copied directly from black-letter broadsides from the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I; although most of their titles are known from earlier portions of the Stationers' Register, the original printings of more than half have never been located.

[3] According to the work itself, the collection was at one time in the ownership of Thomas Sturgies or Sturgis, and later passed into the collection of the Earls of Macclesfield who kept it as a component of their extensive library at Shirburn Castle (shelf-mark, Shirburn North Library 119 D 44), where it was catalogued by Edward Edwards in 1860, apparently when it was re-bound, and was located there some time prior to 1907 (possibly in 1893 per this note)[4] such that it could be examined and transcribed by the historian and editor the Reverend Dr Andrew Clark.

The volume was still in the possession of the Macclesfield family (in the person of the 9th Earl) when he departed the Castle in 2004, from whom it was purchased by private treaty by the British Library in 2007.