Egerton MS 3713

WILLEMENT'S ROLL

ROLL OF ARMS containing painted shields of the twenty-six founders of the Order of the Garter, and of the nobility temp. Richard II, copied from a roll made between 1392 and 1397; late 15th-early 16th cent. Imperfect at the beginning. The roll was published in blazon by Thomas Willement, F.S.A., the antiquary and stained-glass artist from whom it derives its present name, as A Roll of Arms of the Reign of Richard II, 1834. A description from this publication (while the whereabouts of the roll itself was unknown) was made by A. R. Wagner, Aspilogia I; A Catalogue of English Mediaeval Rolls of Arms, 1950, pp. 71-72, and was corrected after the rediscovery of the roll (1954), in Aspilogia II; Rolls of Arms. Henry III, 1967, p. 270. See also Brit. Mus. Quart., xix, 1954, p. 49, pl. 17, and H. S. London in The Coat of Arms, iv, 1956-1957, pp. 153-154 (for inaccuracies and omissions in Willement's edition). A typewritten transcript by H. S. London of the text accompanying the arms (1955), with an introduction, is in the Society of Antiquaries, London. Contents:-

(1) Recto (membranes 1-9; 10-13 blank, perhaps added when the arms were painted). Enrolled escheats, inquisitions and writs relating to the forfeited lands of John de Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury (d. 1400), in cos. Som., Dors., Berks, Oxon, Cornw., Bucks., London, Heref. and the Welsh Marches, Devon, Southt., Wilts., Hertf., and Glouc., followed by writs for seisin to his son, Thomas, 4th Earl of Salisbury; 1409. See Calendar to the Inquisitions Post Mortem and Escheat Rolls, iii, 1821, p. 325, Calendar of Close Rolls, 1405-1409, pp. 443-445, 455-458, and G. E. C., Complete Peerage, xi, p. 393. Latin.

(2) Verso. Roll of arms originally comprising 607 shields, but with two now missing, divided into two parts, as follows:-

(a) (membranes 1, 2). Painted shields of the twenty-six founder knights of the Order of the Garter, arranged two by two, each shield being surrounded by the Garter, with names superscribed. The top left-hand corner of the first membrane has been torn away, so that shields 1 and 3 (Edward III and Henry, Duke of Lancaster) are now missing; shields 2 and 4 (the Black Prince and the Earl of Warwick) are much mutilated. (b) (membranes 3-13). Roll proper, headed by no. 27, the crowned and gartered shield of Richard II, followed by 580 shields of the nobility and gentry, temp. Ric. II (a few temp. Edw. III), arranged in rows of six shields, with names over, the last row having only four shields: nos. 28-43 comprise shields of Dukes and Earls ('Le Duc John[ - ] de Lancastre' to 'Le Conte de Oxinford'), nos. 44-607 lords and knights ('Le Sr de Spencer' to 'Mons^r. Robert Hovell'). This part of the roll appears to have been compiled from an original made between 1392 and 1397, but includes a few coats from the reign of Edward III; see Willement, ibid., pp. v-viii, and H. S. London, The Coat of Arms, iv, 1956-1957, p. 154. The rows of shields were numbered in the left-hand margin in roman figures, apparently beginning with the row immediately below the arms of Richard II (nos. 28-33), but for rows i-xi the numbering has been trimmed; occasional errors appear in numbering still present. An index to the present roll, using these row numbers, appears among the collections of Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Garter King of Arms 1505-1534, as part of an index to various collections of arms headed (in Wriothesley's own hand) 'Jhc[ - ] Registrum armorum Th. WR alias gartier Regis armorum anglicorum', Add. MS. 45133, ff. 99-139: Willement's Roll is there described as 'Rotulus Edwardi tercii et Ricardi secundi' and entries referring to it are arranged in alphabetical sections (ff. 99, 102b-103, 108, 110b, 112, 113, 113b, 115-115b, 117b, 119, 120, 121-121b, 123b, 125, 126, 127, 129, 13Ib-132, 134, 136b, 139), and by row within these sections (shields from part (a), where rows are unnumbered, also included, marked '1⁰'). The Jhc[ - ] monogram, a feature of Wriothesley MSS., appears in the present roll at the head of m. 3 and at the beginning of row cxxvi (m. 11). Shields derived from the present roll appear in trick in a Wriothesley collection of forty-eight shields compiled as part of an ordinary (Add. MS. 45132, ff. 90-91b) under the heading 'Rex Ric' ii^dus, (f. 91): the names over these shields are in the same hand as the first of the two main hands in the Willement Roll, viz., the hand used for part (a) and part (b) to row xvi; the second and more calligraphic hand (used from row xvi to the end) is also found in other MSS. from the Wriothesley studio, e.g. Add. MS. 45133, ff. 57-65 (alternate leaves). Occasional corrections and additions appear in a later (16th cent.?) hand. Vellum; 13 membranes. 9.1 metresx290 mm. Late xv or early xvl cent. At the foot of m. 13b appears in an unidentified 16th cent. hand: 'The act of Faith not assurance. But affiance, the subject not the understanding but the will, the object not present grace & futur glory but the person of the mediator'. Beneath this appears in a different 16th cent. hand 'ex dono Thome Moncke ar'. In a 17th cent. hand the name 'Henry Davy [Arm?]' is at the foot of the recto. Other marginal notes comprise the scribbled name 'John H[ayes?] 33' (17th cent.?) and pencilled '94 f' m. 5. Belonged in 1834, at the time of Willement's edition, to the Rev. John Newling, Prebendary of Lichfield (d. 1838); subsequently passed to William Noel-Hill, 3rd Baron Berwick of Attingham (d. 1842), who acquired most of the Newling library; Sotheby's sale-cat., 26 Apr.-10 May 1843, lot 2169. Sir Frederic Madden re cords (Diary, 6 May 1843: Bodl. MS. Engl. hist. C 156, p. 108), that the MS. was bought at the Berwick sale 'in the name of Smith for 29£ but said to be for Lord Hill' [Rowland Hill, 2nd Viscount Hill, d. 1875 (?): but not iden tifiable in the sale of his son's library, 23-24 July 1886]. Subsequently in the library of the Earls of Derby at Knowsley Hall; possibly identifiable with one of the rolls listed in A Catalogue of the Library at Knowsley Hall, Lancashire, iii, Chiswick, 1893, p. 749: Christie's sale-cat., 24 Mar. 1954, lot 252.