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Posted:
07 Feb 2018

(old shelfmarks **A.73, Dc 276)
Language:English
Origin:England
Date:16th c., 1599
Material:Paper. Watermark: crowned shield with Lamb of God
Physical Description:ii modern paper flyleaves + 75 folios (fols. i – iii, pp. 1 – 149, fol. iv) + ii modern paper flyleaves, 314 x 203 (ca. 255 – 270 x 185) mm, ca. 22 – 27 long lines, ruled (left margin only) in hard point and plummet
Rubric:The names of the five conquerours of this Iland with theire funerall armes, viz.
Incipit:Brutus the sonne of Silvius Posthumus coming out of Italie with the Troians founde out this Iland
2o folio:(p. 3) The names of
Explicit:(p. 147) Catherine ma[rried] to John Atherton of Atherton in Lancasherie
Contents:pp. 1 – 2, Arms and brief accounts of the lives of Brutus, Julius Caesar, Hengist, Swain, king of Denmark and William the Bastard; pp. 3 – 4, Arms and brief accounts of the lives and issue of the first Saxons to settle in England; pp. 5 – 10, Arms and brief accounts of the lives and issue of the chief nobles in temp. Edward the Confessor "from that time unto this year 1599"; pp. 11 – 147, Arms and brief accounts of the lives and issue of the sovereigns and leading nobles of England, William I – Henry VII
Script:Documentary cursive
Decoration:453 pen drawings of the arms of English royalty and nobility, (usually 4 on a page, with the sovereign’s arms on a separate page) accompanied by descriptions of the blazons
Provenance:Christopher Townley (1604 – 1674)? (Pencil note, fol. i recto, ‘From the Townley collection’, possibly written by Thomas Godfrey; see Notes); ‘Luke B[ai]ll His Book’, 17th c. (fol. iii verso, almost erased); W. Paul, ?18th c. (name p. 1); John Francis Haswell (1864 – post 1933) of Penrith (note fol. i recto by Haswell that he created an index); Thomas Godfrey, bookseller, of Stonegate, York (Larman note); bought by George Edward Larman (1895 – 1961) in 1952 (note, fol. i recto, stating that he had acquired it from Thomas Godfrey); his bequest, 1961
Binding:20th c., ca. 1952, half brown leather and marbled paper over paste boards, gold-stamped heraldic devices on spine red and gold endbands
Notes:Note about some complex arms, 16th / 17th c. (fol. iii recto). Rough pencil sketches of the arms of ‘Bambrigg’ and impaled arms of Palvett and Kenn, ?18th / 19th c. (p. 149). Larman had the MS rebound, but could find no trace of the index compiled by Haswell (note, fol. i recto). There is no internal evidence that this MS was part of Townley’s collection. Larman was a student at Trinity Hall 1914 – 1918; he received a large collection Haswell’s notes, which now comprise Trinity Hall MSS 79.1 – 79.4.
Bibliography: 
© Trinity Hall, Cambridge