Whose handwriting appears in the letters?

Most of Herle's letters are written in his distinctive hand [for example, TNA SP 12/181/70]. The hand is a non-compact Secretary, and the distortion of some letter forms suggest that he often wrote with haste. The hand also has some Italic features and he writes his dates, signatures and Latin phrases in Italic. A few of his letters are in different hands, probably that of separate scribes, but which might be an extremely neat version of his hand [for example, TNA SP 70/127/36]. Herle also often used his brother-in-law as a scribe, whose hand is more of a set Secretary than Herle's, the letter forms being more open and less compact. Where this substitution of hands occurs, Herle often edits the letter in his own hand, inserting additions and annotations in the margin. Herle repeatedly claimed that he was indisposed due to illness, which may explain the sporadic employment of different scribes throughout the archive. Herle's recipients occasionally mark his letters for their own reference, adding marginal annotations and underlining significant words or sentences, for example Lord Burghely annotates a letter sent by Herle to Elizabeth TNA SP 83/22/53 and SP 70/28/[ ] is annotated by an unknown marginalist.