Add MS 40742

BADGES of the nobility, etc. ; circ. 1466-1470. A. Fifty-seven badges, originally drawn in ink and tinted, on two sheets of paper, one pasted on the back of the other, but cut out and laid down in their present form by Sir John Fenn, the Norfolk antiquary, about 1779 (cf. a note in his hand on f. 1 b). They are preceded by a cutting of a diagram of tinctures, below which is a name "Wyllm Horthe" (see below); under that again is a mark of a reversed 4 flanked by the letters "w" and "f." Nineteen of the badges are larger than the others, and may be of a different date. Sixteen of these have names attached, three have mottoes. They are mainly of Yorkist nobles, and five out of the nine lordships of Edward IV (cf. Harl. MS. 992, f. 67) occur, viz.:-(a) The falcon and the fetterlock of York. f. 5;-(b) The white hind of Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent. f. 6;-(c) The white lion of the Earl of March. f. 8;-(d) The white hart "y^t he bereth by King Richard." f. 9;-(e) The black bull of Clare, given here to "y^e erle of Vlstur." f. 9. Among those with names attached the following badges may be allotted with some certainty, viz.:-(1) "my lorde of Glowctr," Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, afterw. Richard III. f. 5;-(2) "my lord Cantebery," Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury 1454- 1486. f . 6;-(3) "my lord of norforke," John Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk, d. 1476. f. 7;-(4) "my lord of Swffolke," John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, 1463-1491. f. 7;-(5) "my lord Warweke," Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, d.1471. f.10;-(6)"Worcester," John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester 1449-1470. f.10;-(7) "lord Boveher," ? Sir William Bourchier, sometimes styled Lord Bourchier, son of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, d. 1483; cf. G. E. C., The Complete Peerage, v, p. 138. f. 11;-(8) "hastynges," Sir William de Hastings, Baron Hastings 1461-1483. f. 11;-(9) "Sir Thomas Borowgh," Sir Thomas Borough of Gainsborough, knt. 1466, 1st Baron Burgh of Gainsborough 1487; cf. F. P. Barnard, Edward IV's French Expedition of 1475, pp. 61-67. f. 12. Three of these badges differ from those ascribed to the same owners in the College of Arms MS. 2. M. 16 reproduced by Barnard, op. cit., the first two being there the supporters from the coat of arms, viz.:-John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk (cf. a seal of his father William de la Pole on Harley Ch.

54 I. 10), Lord Hastings (cf. his seal on Add. Ch. 19808), and Sir Thomas Borough. A number of the other badges are found in the College of Arms MS.; Harley MSS. 992, ff. 95-101; 4632, ff. 234- 236 (cf. Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, iii, pp. b6-76); and in Lord Howard de Walden's Banners, Standards and Badges from a Tudor MS., 1914. B. Two drawings formerly pasted over the badges and removed by Fenn, viz.:-(a) Pen and ink drawing of a foliated cross. English, 15th cent. f. 19-(b) Black chalk drawing of the crucifix with God the Father above. English (?), 15th cent. f. 27. On f. 27 b is an inscription in mirror writing, possibly an offset, in a 15th cent. hand, reading "R[eceyued] of Renard Wycway." On f. 21 b is a description of a drawing, probably of Henry VI, holding a cup in guise of one of the Magi, formerly pasted over the badges and removed by Fenn. The drawing was apparently that engraved by T. Cook as a frontispiece to Fenn's edition of the Paston Letters, 1787, and considered fictitious by O'Donoghue, Catalogue of Engraved Portraits in the British Museum, ii, p. 499, no. 21. On ff. 23-26 b are miscellaneous notes on the MS. in the hand of Fenn, who has also completed some of the drawings where they were fragmentary. Paper; ff. i + 27. Folio. Circ. A.D. 1466-1470. Fenn gives a tracing of the original watermark (a crown with a trefoil) on ff. 1 b, 22. It is a common 15th cent. type; cf. Briquet, Les Filigranes, nos. 4636- 4648, and Add. MS. 38687, ff. 117, 118. The name "Wyllm fforthe" on f. 2 is probably that of the owner of the original collection. A William Forth of Hadleigh, co. Suff., died 20 Henry VII [1504-5] (cf. Add. MS. 19130, f. 76), and in the Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1499- 1509, p. 3, a William Forth of Hadleigh is described as a clothmaker alias "marchaunt." Belonged, in the 18th cent., to Sir John Fenn. Sotheby's sale-cat., 14 Feb. 1923, lot 1022.