Catalogue of the Earl Marshal's Papers at Arundel
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CONTENTS CONTENTS v FOREWORD by Sir Anthony Wagner, K.C.V.O., Garter King of Arms vii PREFACE ix LIST OF REFERENCES xi NUMERICAL KEY xiii COURT OF CHIVALRY Dated Cases 1 Undated Cases 26 Extracts from, or copies of, records relating to the Court; miscellaneous records concerning the Court or its officers 40 EARL MARSHAL Office and Jurisdiction 41 Precedence 48 Deputies 50 Dispute between Thomas, 8th Duke of Norfolk and Henry, Earl of Berkshire, 1719-1725/6 52 Secretaries and Clerks 54 COLLEGE OF ARMS General Administration 55 Commissions, appointments, promotions, suspensions, and deaths of Officers of Arms; applications for appointments as Officers of Arms; lists of Officers; miscellanea relating to Officers of Arms 62 Office of Garter King of Arms 69 Officers of Arms Extraordinary 74 Behaviour of Officers of Arms 75 Insignia and dress 81 Fees 83 Irregularities contrary to the rules of honour and arms 88 ACCESSIONS AND CORONATIONS Coronation of King James II 90 Coronation of King George III 90 Coronation of King George IV 90 Coronation of Queen Victoria 90 Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra 90 Accession and Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary 96 Royal Accession and Coronation Oaths 97 Court of Claims 99 FUNERALS General 102 King George II 102 Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales 102 King George III 102 King William IV 102 William Ewart Gladstone 103 Queen Victoria 103 King Edward VII 104 CEREMONIAL Precedence 106 Court Ceremonial; regulations; appointments; foreign titles and decorations 107 Opening of Parliament 108 Queen Victoria's Jubilees 109 ROYAL TITLES AND PEERAGE 111 ORDER OF THE GARTER 114 BARONETAGE 116 HONOURS 121 MALTESE NOBILITY 122 FAMILIES Dukes of Norfolk 123 Pedigrees; privilege; armorial bearings 125 CHANGES OF NAMES 131 MISCELLANEOUS Lords Lieutenant 132 Royal Arms and Wales 132 Arms of the Channel Islands 132 Flags 133 Societies; Exhibitions 133 Unclassified 134 INDEX OF PERSONS, PLACES AND SUBJECTS 135 FOREWORD By Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms It was a fortunate day for students of heraldic history when in 1956 Mr. Francis Steer, at that time Archivist of both East and West Sussex, accepted the additional appointment of Archivist and Librarian to the Duke of Norfolk. In 1938 Norfolk House in St. James's Square, the London home of the Dukes for nearly two centuries, had been sold and the many documents stored there were moved to Arundel and added to the large accumulation already there. The war coming shortly after, followed by the death in 1948 of the Duke's old Librarian, Mr. R. C. Wilton, produced a situation of great difficulty, so that, until Mr. Steer began his grand reorganization, the extent and nature of the surviving elements of this great historical archive deposit were largely unknown. Now that the work is progressing, the extent and range of the Duke's records is becoming apparent. The section of these here dealt with consists of those arising from the exercise of the office of Earl Marshal of England. This great Office of State came to John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, in 1483 through his descent from Edward I's son, Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk. It was lost to the Howards in 1485, recovered in 1510, lost again in 1524, recovered in 1533, lost in 1547, recovered in 1553, lost in 1572, recovered in 1621, lost in 1646 and recovered finally in 1672, since when it has been hereditary in the Dukes of Norfolk, though from 1673 to 1824 those who were Roman Catholics were compelled by the Test Act to exercise the office through Deputies, whom they were permitted to appoint and usually chose from Protestant branches of their family. The oldest papers in this collection date from the time of Thomas, Earl of Arundel, in whom the Office of Earl Marshal was revived in 1621, and the catalogue comes down to the reign of King George V. The Marshalcy in this period has been concerned with the Court of Chivalry, Ceremonies of State and the College of Arms, and all these activities are well represented here. Where the heralds' affairs are concerned, one finds what one would expect to find at Arundel and at the College of Arms respectively. With Ceremonies the division is not quite so clear, yet the same is broadly true. The division of the Court of Chivalry documents, on the other hand, seems meaningless and explicable only by caprice or accident. For a student of the heralds' history there is material here of great interest as I hope to show in a forthcoming book. To a holder of my office, correspondence between my predecessors and those of the Earl Marshal is especially interesting. It is a relationship near the heart of what Bagehot called the dignified part of government, while that of the Earl Marshal to the Sovereign, also illustrated here, is nearer still. From this relationship the heraldic enactments, which we see here in the making, derive their authority. This book in sum presents a new historical vista for which we are all indebted to the Earl Marshal and to his Librarian. PREFACE The first duty of an archivist is to his archives and he is not necessarily the best interpreter of the documents in his custody. But one of the ways in which an archivist can serve other people is to produce lists of records with sufficient information to indicate their potential value to anyone concerned with a particular problem, with the history of a special aspect of legislation or jurisdiction, or with the broader canvas of obsolete social conditions. Perhaps the Catalogue printed in the following pages will be an aid in all these branches of historical enquiry, and it is fortunate for me (and for the users of this book) that the history of the Court of Chivalry and its administration have been adequately dealt with by a scholar, lawyer and herald who has become the recognized authority on this intricate subject. Mr. G. D. Squibb's book, The High Court of Chivalry (Oxford, 1959), with its extensive formularies, and his Reports of Heraldic Cases in the High Court of Chivalry 1623-1732 (Harleian Society, vol. 107, 1956) should satisfy the most demanding student. It would be presumptuous of me to attempt either to give a resume of his work or to lay claim to having made any additions to it; my only regret is that I did not discover the case papers at Arundel Castle before The High Court of Chivalry was published because some of them are accessory to those that Mr. Squibb has quoted. The list of contents of this Catalogue will show the various main classes of records at Arundel Castle which may be justly included as papers relating to the office of Earl Marshal. It has sometimes been difficult to distinguish between the Earl Marshal's official and his private archives, but as many of them date from the time of the 15th Duke of Norfolk (and nobody could have been more assiduous than he in endorsing and filing papers), I have included documents which were found among his official records although they may seem, at first sight, to be of personal or family interest. The work of sorting and listing the records has been done at odd times over the past few years with the result that there may be minor lapses of uniformity in the style of entry. While I am conscious of this defect, I trust that it will be excused on the grounds that this book is a tool and not a literary exercise. The index1 has been designed to pull together entries which, by the nature of the contents of original bundles of documents, may be widely separated from others in any principal group. In the same way, the names, for example, of peers, have been expanded in the index and modern spelling adopted for Christian and place-names whereas in the Catalogue the forms given in the documents have been used. It will be noticed that spellings of any name may vary within the same or associated documents. The occasional square brackets in the text enclosing some small item of information may also tend to clarity; the difficulties of printing superscript letters (often with unnecessary punctua- 1 See prefatory note to Index on p. 135. tion beneath them) have been overcome as far as is typographically possible without incurring needless expense. The figures in heavy type are to catalogue marks: references to the entries should be quoted as Arundel Castle MS., E.M. 12, or whatever the appropriate number may be. With regard to the history of the College of Arms and the biographical details of its Officers, readers are recommended to consult the final monograph of the London Survey Committee;1 the manuscripts at the College, although not generally available to the public, are described by (Sir) Anthony R. Wagner in The Records and Collections of the College of Arms (London, 1952). Both these works are complementary to Mr. Squibb's books2 and therefore to this Catalogue. Except for a few isolated and unimportant references, the documents here described do not extend beyond 1936, the year of the death of His Majesty King George V. The inclusion of any document in this Catalogue does not imply that it is available for study: as a general rule, none of the archives at Arundel Castle less than one hundred years old are made public, and enquiries about them should be addressed to the County Archivist, West Sussex Record Office, County Hall, Chichester. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to compile this Catalogue although there were times when I almost despaired of seeing it completed.