AUTOGRAPH LETTERS & HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS MAGGS 1449 No. 79, Duke of Lorraine Front cover: No. 27, George VI and Queen Elizabeth (detail) AUTOGRAPH LETTERS & HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS MAGGS 1449 No. 1, John of Lancaster At this period of royal celebration, we are pleased to open our catalogue by offering a selection of British royal letters and documents from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, covering, in chronological order, all the dynasties from the House of Plantagenet to the House of Windsor. We follow this with a selection of our stock in the fields of history, literature, music and art, arranged in our usual chronological order. We hope that in these two sections our readers may find items to interest, entertain, and even amuse them. Catalogue compiled by Hinda Rose and Polly Beauwin Maggs Bros Ltd., 50 Berkeley Square, London W1J 5BA Open Monday – Friday, 9.30am – 5.00pm Tel: (00)44-(0)20-7493 7160 Fax: (00)44-(0)20-7499 2007 [email protected] [email protected] Bank Account: Allied Irish (GB), 10 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6AA Sort code: 23-83-97 Account Number: 47777070 IBAN: GB94AIBK23839747777070 BIC: AIBKGB2L VAT No.: GB239381347 Access/Mastercard and Visa: Please quote card number, expiry date, name, security code and invoice number by mail, fax or telephone. EU members: please quote your VAT/TVA number when ordering. Items may be subject to VAT within the EU; EU customers outside the UK may not be subject to VAT if they provide a VAT number at time of purchase. The goods shall legally remain the property of the seller until the price has been discharged in full. ©Maggs Bros Ltd. 2011 Printed by Purely Print HENRY V’S BROTHER AS REGENT OF FRANCE 1. [JOHN OF LANCASTER, Duke of Bedford (1389-1435). Protector of England and Regent of France after the death of his brother Henry V]. Document in his name as Regent of France, directing his Treasurer Hamon de Bellknap to settle the account of the English merchant John Cutberd, who had supplied goods to the Duke’s household and had not been paid in spite of his “great pursuit and diligence” in the matter. 1 page oblong folio on vellum, in French, 16 long lines, lacks seal, subscribed at the foot by the official R. Veret followed by a decorative flourish which may incorporate, in the hand of the scribe, the letters of the Duke’s name in French, ‘Jehan’. Mantes [Normandy], 14 July 1423. £2400 It appears that Cutberd had supplied goods to the Duke when Bellknap was Treasurer of his Household, before his promotion to the important position of Treasurer General “of our finances in France and Normandy”, as he is described here. The sum of nine pounds fifteen shillings sterling was due to him, and he had made “humble supplication “ to the Duke for it, as his previous “diligence” in pursuing the matter had not succeeded. The Duke, after consideration, now asks Bellknap to settle the matter through Pierre Surreau, the Receiver General of his finances. The Duke of Bedford was with his brother Henry V when he died at Vincennes in August 1422. Devoted to the interests of his young nephew Henry VI, he organized his coronation as King of France in Notre Dame. It was Bedford who purchased Joan of Arc from her Burgundian captors and caused her to be burnt as a heretic in Rouen in May 1431. As he later spoke of her as a ‘disciple and leme (lover) of the fiend’ he may really have believed that she was a witch. A collector and patron of the arts, Bedford bought the Louvre library after the death of Charles VI of France, which then contained 843 books. Two months before the date of this document, on 13 May 1423, Bedford married Anne, sister of the Duke of Burgundy. The magnificent ‘Bedford Hours’, now in the British Library, was commissioned in celebration of the marriage. Produced in Paris, it has portraits of the bride and groom in elegant court clothes. Anne died in 1432 and soon after Bedford married Jacquetta of Luxembourg, twenty-five years his junior. After his death, Jacquetta married the son of his chamberlain, Richard Woodville. Their daughter was the glamorous and ambitious Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV. Documents in the name of John of Lancaster as Regent of France are very rare. Slightly dusty, but in clear and legible condition. 2. RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK (1411-1460). Claimant to the throne; father of Edward IV and Richard III. Document Signed (an elegantly written “R York”), a grant to Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Lord Treasurer of England, who had fought at Agincourt in Henry V’s retinue; Sir William Oldhall, Richard’s Chamberlain and a future Speaker of the House of Commons; William Boerly of Bromcroft and his wife Margaret; and John Wynnesbury and Thomas Hopton; of the manors of Cressege [Shropshire] and Arley [Staffordshire]. 1 page oblong folio in Latin on vellum, fourteen lines of text in an accomplished scribal hand with a decorative initial letter “S” (of “sciant”) and flourished ascenders in the first line, signed clearly by Richard at the foot and with a substantial proportion (about two thirds) of his royal armorial seal in red wax attached by the original vellum tag. 20 December 27 Henry VI [1448]. £8000 Richard Duke of York, like his cousin Henry VI a descendant of Edward III, was the richest nobleman in the land, and before the birth of a son to Henry VI in 1453 was in effect the heir to the throne. Always turbulent, he maintained a show of loyalty until September 1460, when he formally claimed the throne, inaugurating the bloody era of the “Wars of the Roses”. He is a major character in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 1, where he significantly declares “I will be King, or die.” His ascendancy lasted only three months, until December 1460, when he was beheaded after losing the Battle of Wakefield to Henry VI and Queen Margaret. The Yorkist claim to the throne was (for a time) successfully carried to fruition by his sons. In December 1448 Richard was, officially, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but as he regarded the appointment as an unwelcome form of banishment he did not actually arrive there until July 1449. After some indeterminate skirmishing he returned to England without permission a year later, giving as his excuse that he did not have enough funds to maintain himself and his forces. The signature and seal of the Duke of York are extraordinarily rare; as far as we are we are aware, no examples have been offered for sale for more than twenty years. Provenance: The Lyttelton Collection (Viscount Cobham), dispersed in 1978. An attractive document in clear fresh condition. Lightly laid down on maroon board, glazed, and in a plain gilt wood frame, measuring in all c. 17¾ x 17 ins. See inside back cover illustration. 3. [EDWARD VI (1537-1553). King of England]. Letters Patent in the name of Edward VI, a confirmation (inspeximus) of a decree of the Court of Augmentations allowing the Bishops of Worcester to continue to enjoy the pensions and revenues deriving from some of the possessions, in the city of Worcester and elsewhere, of many dissolved monasteries and convents in several counties. 1 page large oblong folio on vellem, c. 14½ x 30 ins, 46 lines in Latin in a good secretarial hand with a large decorative initial ‘E’ (of the flourished first word ‘Edwardus’). The official ‘duke’, evdently the scribe, has written his name at the end of the last line. A fine impression of the rare Great Seal of Edward VI in brown wax, c. 4 ins in diameter, with on one side the King on the throne and on the other the King on horseback, is attached by the original vellum tag. The seal is complete apart from some minor loss at the upper and lower edges, and the detail on both sides is clear and attractive. Westminster, 31 May 1 Edward VI [1547]. £3950 A document issued only three months after Edward VI’s accession to the throne. The Court of Augmentations had been established by Henry VIII in 1536 to administer monastic properties and revenues at the dissolution of the monasteries. On the evidence of this document, the Bishopric of Worcester (now, of course, firmly Protestant) was being greatly favoured. Among the revenues of which they were to enjoy a share were those of Whitnuns, Evesham and Malvern in Worcestershire; Winchcombe and Tewkesbury (which was saved from destruction by becoming a parish church) in Gloucestershire; Bath in Somserset; Eynsham in Oxfordshire; Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire; and Sheen in Surrey. Apparently unrecorded; not in the Calendar of Patent Rolls. Some rubbing along original creases, and a little dusty, but a handsome document in clear condition, legible throughout. 4. [JAMES I and VI (1566-1625). King of Scotland from 1567 and of England from 1603]. Document in his name as King of England, a confirmation (inspeximus) of Letters Patent of Henry VIII of 1543 granting adjacent tenements in Fleet Street, formerly belonging to the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in England, to William Lambe. 1 page large folio on vellum c. 19 x 27 ins, 45 lines in Latin in an accomplished secretarial hand with a large decorative initial letter J (of “Jacobus”) and other decorative letters with elaborate strapwork in the first line. A major portion (about two thirds) of the second Great Seal of James I, with on one side the King on the throne and on the other the king on horseback, an unusually clear impression, is attached by the original vellum tag.