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Detailed record for King's 396

Title Genealogy of Queen Elizabeth I
Origin England
Date c. 1567
Language English
Script Gothic cursive (formal later court hand, with cancellaresca features)
Artists Robert Cooke (d. 1593), Clarenceux King-of-Arms
Decoration Genealogical tree with portrait miniatures, in colours and gold (ff. 4v-27v). Heraldry, royal portraits and great seals throughout, both real and fictitious.
Dimensions in mm 455 x 330
Official foliation ff. 29 (+ 4 modern paper flyleaves and 1 post-medieval parchment flyleaf at the beginning, and 2 post-medieval and 3 modern paper flyleaves at the end)
Form Parchment codex
Binding Post-1600. Brown leather panels, before 1692, stamped with the arms of Elias Ashmole at the centre of both covers, set into a later gilt-tooled binding.
Provenance ? Robert Cooke (d. 1593), herald: possibly the manuscript mentioned in his inventory (Lansdowne 75, f. 68) as 'the Quenes boke', and presented by him to Elizabeth I as a New Year's gift in 1567 (see Add. 9772); the genealogy has been attributed to Cooke himself (see Warner and Gilson 1921).
Elias Ashmole (b. 1617, d. 1692), astrologer and antiquary: his arms on the binding.
King George III (b. 1738, d. 1820).
Given to the British Museum by King George IV in 1823 as part of the library of King George III.
Select bibliography George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), III: Description of the King’s Manuscripts and Indexes to both Collections, pp. 65-66.

Richard Marks and Ann Payne, British Heraldry from its Origins to c.1800 (London: British Museum, 1978), cat. no. 223 and pls on pp. 114-15 [exhibition catalogue].

Sonja Drimmer, 'Questionable Contexts: A Pedigree Book and Queen Elizabeth's Teeth', in Scholars and Poets Talk About Queens, ed. by Carole Levin and Christine Stewart-Nuñez (New York: Palgrave, 2015), pp. 203-24.


Images
* * *
 
Rollo

f. 4v
Rollo
Robert

f. 4v
Robert
Charles, Ludericus

f. 14
Charles, Ludericus
 
Genealogical tree

f. 20v
Genealogical tree
Geoffrey and William

f. 20v
Geoffrey and William
Godfrey and Eric

f. 20v
Godfrey and Eric
 
Genealogical tree

f. 24v
Genealogical tree
Thomas and Bartholomew

f. 24v
Thomas and Bartholomew
Henry and Patrick

f. 24v
Henry and Patrick
 

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