Lansdowne MS 882/3

3. The History of the Earls of Warwick, ascribed to John Rouse or Ross of Warwick, with their arms emblazoned, and portraits of them neatly painted in water colours. Although these portraits are imaginary, they are interesting for the armour and costume of a period anterior to the manuscript itself, which is only a copy of some other. Concerning this work Mr. West, to whom it belonged, has made the following remark on fo. 1; "The drawings of the Earls of Warwick seem to be taken from John Rous roll of the Earls of Warwick which in Sir William Dugdale's time was in the possession of Robert Arden of Parkhall. What relates to the Earls of Warwick is printed by Mr. Hearne at the end of his Life of Richard the Second, though without the arms or draughts of their effigies here expressed." It is not impossible that the portraits might have been copied as is here stated, but the works are certainly different. The roll used by Dugdale, and then in Mr. Arden's possession, was in Latin, and had besides a portrait of Ross himself, which Dugdale has caused to be engraved by Hollar in his Warwickshire. The roll of Warwick, mentioned by Bishop Nicholson in his Historical Library as in the Bodleian library, is in all probability another copy of the same work. Both these have been confounded by Mr. Gough in his British Topography, vol. ii. p. 301, with Rous's Life of Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, in the Cotton library, Jul. E iv. the beautiful drawings of which have been engraved in Mr. Strutt's Horda Angel cynnan, and the contents or arguments of it printed in Hearne's Hist. Vitæ et Regni Ric. II. The curious reader may collect still further information on the present artcle from the preface to the last-quoted work by Mr. Hearne.