Harley MS 6066

Contents:

f. 1*recto: A note by Sir John Cutts of Cambridge: ‘Mr Allen I pray bring to Ms Lady Cutts Ms Lady wilds house on the back side of the Drury Lane right agaynst the Cockpitt Sir Sir John Cutts Coate of Armes with all quart[er]ings [...] if you have them, the day [...] the Clocke, one Mr La[...] putt them to you about 12 yeares agon in theire perfectnes Sir John Cutts of Cambridge’.

f. 2*recto: A list of the days of the month when the Visitation was made and at what locations.

ff. 3*recto-6*verso: An alphabetical index of family names included in this manuscript.

ff. 1r-25v: Coats of arms (6-15 per page) of Northamptonshire families [from an unspecified Visitation], organized according to their town, and probably all copied from monuments and windows in churches (‘church notes’). The ones that are explicitly from churches are also dated: ‘In Kettering Church [St Peter and St Paul's Church] the 30th of August 1618’ (f. 21v); ‘In Rodson [? Radstone] Church 11 of August’; ‘In Rowell Church [Holy Trinity Church, Rothwell] the 24th of August 1618’ (f. 22r); ‘In Irtlingburgh [St Peter’s Church, Irthlingborough] the 31 of August 1618’ (f. 22v); ‘In Higham fferrers Church [St Mary's Church, Higham Ferrers] the first of September 1618’ (f. 23r).

f. 26r: A letter by William Segar [including a copy of his signature] concerning the arms of ‘Barnard Garter’ of Northamptonshire, beginning: ‘To all and singular Persons as well nobles as gentles to whom these presents shall come’.

ff. 26v-137v: Pedigrees of Northamptonshire families [up to 1618], with coats of arms and crests, including copies from charters and seals; including blazons of the ‘Armes in the Hall at Ashby’ [? Mears Ashby] (f. 53r).

ff. 138r-140r: Coats of arms copied from the Church of All Hallows, Northampton [destroyed in the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675], entitled: ‘In the parish Church of Alhallowes in Northampton’.

ff. 140v-145v: An Alphabet of Arms, with the arms of Northamptonshire families blazoned in French heraldic terminology.

Decoration:

Coats of arms and crests, tricked, drawn in brown ink throughout the manuscript. Relationship lines in genealogies in red or brown ink. Two patrons, a man and a woman, wearing heraldic gowns, kneeling in front of a lectern, drawn in brown ink [perhaps from St Mary’s Church, Higham Ferrers] (f. 23v). Copies of seals from charters (in brown ink (ff. 57v, 59v, 110v, 112v, 126r) Men in heraldic gowns, holding pikes or swords in one hand, and birds in the other; an effigy and a clock with a coat of arms, drawn in brown ink: all copied from the Church of All Hallows at Northampton, now destroyed (ff. 139v-140r). Heraldic elements drawn in brown ink throughout the Alphabet of Arms (ff. 140v-145v).