> the same slapdash hand as the quire marks (which I guess is John Dee's).
Why do you think they are in Dee's hand? So far it has only been
suggested that foliation was in his hand (and I am still quite
convonced I disrupted that hypothesis).
AFAICR, Dee's practice was to number quires rather than folios: and Dee's
hand (in the books and articles on him that I've read) gets described using
words like "haphazard", "impatient" and "unpredictable". This suggestion
(that the two are connected in the VMS) has been made several times on-list
already, so I don't claim to have originated it. :-)
On the other hand :-), the foliation (IMO) does bear a strong resemblance
to Kelly's, as evidenced in the British Library (as indeed you
suggested)... but this is still only a suggestion, not a proof. :-)