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An extensive antiquarian and heraldic register, providing the abbreviated arms of hundreds of English monarchs, nobles and landowners from the medieval era (and in some cases before) to the reign of Charles I. To judge from the paper and handwriting it was probably compiled in the first thirty years of the eighteenth century by someone with access to a variety of earlier heraldic manuscripts for transcription. It is particularly interesting for including many retrospectively attributed arms to individuals living before the formal establishment of heraldry, such as the early conquerors of Britain and the kings and kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. Its two largest sections are the catalogue of arms from the reign of Edward the Confessor to that of Charles I on 69 folios (copied via a version by the seventeenth-century herald, Robert Glover from a book belonging to one Joseph Holland), and the transcript of the so-called ‘Parliamentary Roll’ made c. 1312-14 giving a complete catalogue of arms borne in the reign of Edward I. The so-called ‘Rouen Roll’ transcribed on f. 77 of circa 1410, was traditionally thought to be a catalogue of all those bearing arms present at the Siege of Rouen during the Hundred Years War. The complete contents of the register are:

1-1v. The fyve Conquests of this Land with the Names & Arms of the Conquerors (Brutus, Julius Caesar, Constantine of Armorica or Vortigern, Hengist, William Duke of Normandy, with their arms).
1v-3. The Saxons divided this Island into 7 Kingedomes (with the names of their kings and their arms).
3-72v. [Arms of the Peerage in order of their creation] A Catalogue of the Armes belonging to England with the causes of the alterac[i]on thereof from the Reigne of St. Edward the Confessor to this p[re]sent [1628, the reign of Charles I).
73-75v. blank
76-76v. Differences born by the Royal Family.
77-77v. [The Rouen Roll, c. 1410]. Les nosmes des nobles q[ui] fueront oue [?avec] le Roy Henrye le quint au Siege de Roan...
78-98. [The Parliamentary Roll, c. 1312-14] Le copie dun ancien liver daunes q[ue] Messier Somerset Heralt avoit du Joseph Holland in couleurs. Conteniant les nosmes & armes des nobles & chivaliers d’Angliterre au temps d’Edward le prim[er] & second Roies d’Angliterre.
98v-100v. blank
101-110r. [Roll of andowners of Suffolk, in the time of Edward I, listed by Hundred].

The volume was later (after 1939) in the collection of the heraldic scholar, Edward Mars Elmhirst (1915-1957), of Worsboroughdale (Yorks). He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Major in the Territorial Army and was well-known for his researches in heraldry (he was offered a position as herald-extraordinary at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953). He also wrote a book on Merchants’ marks, published posthumously by the Harleian Society in 1959.

An early seventeenth-century heraldic pedigree of the Offley family of Madeley (Staffordshire) with the arms of their prominent dynasty of London guildsmen, which include Henry Offley (d. 1613) who had married Mary, the daughter of Sir John White Lord Mayor of London; and Thomas Offley (1501-1582), a successful wool and cloth merchant — Lord Mayor of London in 1556. Also in the lineage is Stephen Jenyns (1453-1523) another important London Lord Mayor with Wolverhampton origins whose arms are accompanied by an elaborate cartouche noting his mayoralty. An early docket on the verso (legible with ultra-violet light) reads: ‘The Pedigree of Stephen Jenings’.

The youngest member of the Offley family shown is John (b. 1586). He was educated at Middle Temple and married in 1605. He was knighted in April 1615, served as sheriff of Staffordshire in 1616-17 and was a magistrate for the county by 1621. 1625-6 he was MP for Stafford. Another contemporary version of the pedigree is described in the Staffordshire Visitation of 1614:

‘Quarterly — 1. Argent, on a cross fleurettée azure a lion passant-guardant or [OFFLEY]; 2. Azure, a chevron between two eagles displayed in chief and a lion passant in base or [NECHELLS]; 3. Argent, a chevron gules between three plummets sable [JENNINGS]; 4. Azure, a tiger passant or [LANE]. CREST— A demi-lion rampant-guardant or, holding an olive branch vert, fructed gold’ (’Heraldic Visitations of Staffordshire in 1614 and 1663-64’, in History of Staffordshire, 1884).

An antiquary’s heraldic manuscript of the arms of the archbishops of Canterbury from Lanfranc (d. 1089) to Charles Manner-Sutton (installed 1805) copied from a manuscript made for John Whitgift (archbishop 1583-1604) still in the library of Lambeth Palace (MS 555). Much of the heraldry relating to the archbishops of Canterbury is displayed in the church of St Mary-at-Lambeth in London, near to Lambeth Palace the London seat of the archbishops. The manuscript records the arms, together with some etymological explanations of names, and opens with the arms of the See of Canterbury. Included are the arms of Thomas Becket, Stephen Langton, Simon Sudbury, Thomas Cranmer, Reginald Pole, Matthew Parker, John Whitgift, Richard Bancroft and William Laud. It was in the collections of Sir Charles George Young (1795–1869), officer of arms who served in the heraldic office of Garter King of Arms, the senior member of the College of Arms in England, from 1842 until his death in 1869.

First edition. Nicolas Upton’s De Studio militari was first written in 1447 and circulated first in manuscript. The printed text includes numerous heraldic devices in which the colours (or more accurately ‘tinctures’ since they include metallic tints and furs) are hatched using the relatively new ‘Petra Sancta’ system. In the seventeenth century several systems of hatching were devised to represent the tinctures or colours in uncoloured illustrations — the system created by the Italian Jesuit, Silvester Petra Sancta (1590-1647) eventually became the method universally accepted, and is still in use by engravers today. By the 1650s the system was well known in England, one of its early uses in print being Upton’s book, with its numerous hatched shields corresponding to the abbreviated descriptions alongside. A key to system is reproduced in an engraved vignette concluding the address to the reader.
De studio militari ‘is a treatise, in four parts, on heraldry and the arts of war, drawing heavily on a tradition of heraldic and legal writing, but also reflecting contemporary concerns. The first book elaborates a view of nobility and knighthood that recognizes the importance of virtue, but which also attaches importance (as Bartolo da Sassoferrato had done) to princely authority in the granting of arms. Upton voices the topos of the decline of chivalry, as well as contemporary aristocratic concern that too many low-born men were acquiring arms in wartime. The second book discusses various types and laws of war (using Giovanni da Legnano's Tractatus de bello), a theme carried over into the fourth book with treatment of Henry V's campaign statutes. For the third book, on the colours of heraldry, Upton relies, though not slavishly, on the treatise of Johannes de Bado Aureo (possibly Bishop John Trevor of St Asaph's). The fourth draws also on French treatises and especially on encyclopaedias (such as Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum) for the meaning of heraldic signs (animals, birds, fish, flowers, and ordinaries); but the extended list, in 195 sections, also reflects a growing demand for (and disputes over) coats of arms’ (Oxford DNB).
It is followed in this first printed edition by jurist Henry Spelman’s Aspilogia, a Latin treatise on coats of armour, which, although probably written before 1595 had not previously appeared in print. It opens with a fine portrait of Spelman by Faithorne. Magistri Johannis de Bado Aureo Tractatus de armis (Wing J744) and Henrici Spelmanni equitis Auati aspilogia (Wing S4919) each have separate dated title page, with imprint ‘typis R. Norton’, pagination and register. In Nicholaum Uptonum Notæ (caption title) has separate pagination but the register is continuous from Auati aspilogia. The illustrations are signed by W. Hollar and Ro. Vaughan. The two double page engraved plates by Lombart are on paper with clear and visible foolscap watermarks. Wing U124; J744; S4919.