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Harley MS 6156

Record Id:

040-002052004

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002052004

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000899.0x00036f

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 6156

Title:

Pedigrees and coats of arms of English and Welsh kings, nobility and gentry

Scope & Content:

Contents:

f. 1*recto: A full-page drawing of the coat of arms of Navarre, with a comment in French.

f. 2*recto: An alphabetical index of family names included in this manuscript.

f. 3*recto: A Latin note on the origin of the word ‘honour’ from the Hebew Hon ('Riches') and the French Or ('Gold'): ‘Divitias et opes Hon lingua Haebria vocant / Gallica gens aurum Or, indique venit Honor’.

f. 4*recto: an English (?) rhyme and Latin verses: ‘I Lord have a knife [...] stab her with a dagger [...] stab her / dub a dub a dub / dub a dub a dub knocke her owth [...]’. and ‘The end of all things is to dye [2x] Contemne mortalia Cælestia quære [etc.]'; added in the 17th century.

f. 4*verso: A paper pastedown with the coat of arms of King James I in colours, printed.

f. 5*recto: A frontispiece, consisting of a rectangular frame with an oval at its centre, drawn in yellow, coats of arms with colours in green ovals at its corners, a small blue oval at the top with the date ‘1600’, and a small pink oval below with the ownership inscription of William Smith (‘Liber Guilielmi Smith, alias, Rougedragon, Prosecutoris ad Arma’), and foliate decoration surrounding these ovals. The central oval features a bearded man in heraldic gown, displaying the royal coat of arms, perhaps William Smith himself, and the title inscription: ‘Stemmata Magnatum’.

ff. 1r-1v: A paper sheet mounted onto a paper leaf, featuring a full-page drawing in colours of the achievement of the De Vere family, with their motto: ‘Vero Nihil Verius’ (f. 1r); and a blazon of the achievement in English (f. 1v).

f. 2r: A printed sheet with a genealogy in colours, showing the descent of Empress Mathilda from Ecgberht, King of Wessex, entitled: ‘Angliae Regum Prosapia A Tempore Quo Anglia Appelari Caepit, Nimirum Ab Egberto Rege Primo Eiusdem Monarcha: Vsque ad Henricum Primum Regem’. Another copy of this genealogy bears the date 1602 [altered in pen and ink to 1605] and feature's the engravers name: 'Joan. Woutneel' (see Buck, Daphnis polystephanos (1605)); this is Hans Woutneel, a London-based Flemish bookseller and publisher. The genealogies are identical, but hand-drawn and –written additions in this manuscript trace the descent of Richard I of Normandy back to Rollo, first Duke of Normandy.

f. 2v: A genealogy of kings of Britain entitled ‘Britannorum Reges’, from Brutus of Troy, also including Uther Pendragon and Arthur.

f. 3r: A chart listing the kings of the seven kingdoms of early medieval England in seven parallel columns with arches and golden crowns on top, entitled: ‘Regnum Brittaniae tandem plene in Heptarchiam redactum a Saxonibus expulsis Britonibus. Anno 686’; below is a detailed map of Britain and some of its islands, showing its division during the Heptarchy, in colours. This map is probably based on an engraving with the same title made by Richard Lyne in 1574 (see Hind, Engraving in England, I: (1952), pp. 83-84 (no. 3), and Plate 43).

ff. 3v-74r: Pedigrees and coats of arms of English and Welsh kings, nobility and gentry; including reproductions of red wax seals on f. 71v. The latest date in the manuscript is 1609 (f. 38r).

Decoration:

Coats of arms, some with crests, and achievements in colours throughout the manuscript; some copies of red wax seals.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002052004", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 6156: Pedigrees and coats of arms of English and Welsh kings, nobility and gentry" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002052004

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 6156 : Pedigrees and coats of arms of English and Welsh kings, nobility and gentry

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[6160]/040-002052004

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English
French
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1600

End Date:

1609

Date Range:

1600-1609

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: paper.

Dimensions: 430 x 265 mm.

Foliation: ff. 1*-5* + 74 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); ff. 1* and 1 are smaller paper leaves mounted onto larger paper frames; 1 unfoliated paper pastedown (printed genealogy) on f. 2r; ff. 2*-3* are smaller paper leaves; small paper squares or roundels pasted into genealogies for corrections on ff. 8v, 9v, 14v [2x], 30r [2x], 31v, 36v, 37v [4x, and 2 rectangular strips], each leaf has been mounted onto a paper guard, and has a white paper strip attached to its outer margin.

Script: 16th-century and 17th-century script.

Binding: British Museum in-house.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

William Smith (b. c. 1550, d. 1618), herald and playwright, owned and perhaps compiled between 1600 and 1609: his name inscribed on the frontispiece with the year 1600: ‘Liber Guilielmi Smith, alias, Rougedragon, Prosecutoris ad Arma’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 307).

John Philipot (b. 1588, d. 1645), Blanch Lyon and Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, Somerset Herald, and Norroy King of Arms: his ownership inscription on f. 5*recto: ‘Liber Jo. Philipott alias Rougedragon et Amicorum’ (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 275-76).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Publications:

George Buck, Daphnis polystephanos An eclog treating of crownes, and of garlandes, and to whom of right they appertaine. Addressed, and consecrated to the Kings Maiestie by G.B. Knight (London: Eld for Thomas Adams, 1605).

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 333.

Arthur M. Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue with Introductions, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), Part I (The Tudor Period), pp. 83-84 (no. 3), and Plate 43.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 464.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

England