2"'^ S. X. July 7. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



in compliment to the memory of the Pausanias of 

 the British Isles. ^' 



« Clarenceux. — William Camden, Richmond, the Pau- 

 sanias of the British Islands, and the illustrious ornament 

 of the College of Heralds, had this office by patent, dated 

 6th of June, 41 Eliz. 1599, with a salary from Michaelmas 

 preceding. An account will be given hereafter of his 

 being made a titular or nominal Herald by the title of 

 Richmond. There hath been justice done to his memory 

 by Anthony h. Wood, Dr. Smith, and the editor of his 

 Britannia, in English ; so that there is no occasion to re- 

 peat the particulars of his life, but only to observe that 

 Sir Henry Spelman was misinformed when he ascribes 

 his creation to be Clarenceux to the year 1595, the 39th 

 of Queen Eliz., which was certainly not till after the 

 death of Lee, and performed (as we are assured) on Sunday 

 the 23rd of October, 1597, which indeed was in the 39th 

 of Eliz. ; to which office he was promoted without any 

 application made by him, upon the recommendation of his 

 great abilities and deserts by Sir Foulke Grevil to the 

 Queen : whereon the Lord Burgley, his great patron, and 

 who had a design to have brought him into the Heralds' 

 Office, expressed his imeasiness that he had not applied 

 to his Lordship for his interest, who was then Lord Trea- 

 surer, and one of the Commissioners for the office of Earl 

 Marshal, till he understood the same was purely a 

 thought of Sir Fulke Grevill's, and conferred upon him 

 without his knowledge. He enjoyed this office above 26 

 years, and having made his will on the 21st of May, 

 1623, wherein he gives a remembrance to his fellow 

 officers, and to Sir Fulke Grevil, who (as the words are) 

 preferred me gratis to my office, and what he doubtless 

 intended should have been a public service to all his suc- 

 cessors in the following ages. He devises all his printed 

 books and manuscripts to Sir Robert Cotton, 'except such 

 as concern arms and heraldrj', ' the which with all my 

 ancient seals (these are the terms) I bequeath unto my 

 successor in the office of Clarenceux, provided that 

 whereas they cost me 'much, that he shall give to my 

 Cousin John Wyat, Painter, such sum of money as M"' 

 Garter and M'' Nor/oy for the time being shall think 

 meet, and also that he leave them to his successor in the 

 office of Clarenceux.' The collector hath not hitherto seen 

 any Catalogue of these books and seals, but Mr. Camden, 

 the best judge of their value, expressly saith that they 

 cost him considerably, and we know that one single par- 

 cel were bought by him of the executors of Nicholas 

 Charles, Lancaster, for 90/. ; and these must have been 

 improved by the additions he made to them, and also by 

 his own collections, and by his own visitations and trans- 

 actions in the office for so long a time. These came to 

 Sir Richard St. George, his successor; and being manj' 

 of them (among which the collector hereof was once per- 

 mitted to inspect a great volume of the pedigrees of the 

 ancient barons, Avrote by Mr. Camden himself), in the 

 custody of the late Sir Henrj' St. George, who had the 

 good fortune to go through the three Kingships of Arms ; 

 ■who being shewn this devise of Mr. Camden was pleased 

 however to insist that he bought them of Mr. Owen, 

 York Herald, who had married bis aunt, the daughter of 

 the said Sir Richard St. George ; and that he had the 

 opinion of counsel that this legacy (for it seems this will 

 was drawn up by Mr. Camden himself, who was un- 

 acquainted with the chicanery of law,) did not now 

 oblige him, though he well knew these books must come 

 into the family by virtue thereof; and though he fre- 

 quently promised to leave these books to the College) yet 

 for want of a particular disposition thej' went with the 

 other of his personal estate to his residuary legatee and 

 executor, who was an entire stranger in blood to him. 

 " His will is printed at large by Mr. Hearne in the end 



of his • Collections of Curious Discourses wrote by the 

 Antiquaries.' 



"If we believe the recital in a patent granted in the 

 year 1670, Mr. Camden was in his time Poet Laureat 

 and Historiographer, or at least one of them ; but the 

 latter he could not be, if the inscription in the Middle 

 Temple church on James Howell be true: so then, if 

 credit may be given to this recital, he must have been 

 Poet Laureat, which was indeed an ancient office in the 

 household of our kings, and also in that of some of 

 the nobility. He died on the 9th of November, 1623, at 

 Chiselhurst, and was buried in Westminster Abbey with 

 ceremony, having a handsome monument of white mar- 

 ble with" his effigies to the middle, with the draught of 

 the crown of his office placed by him, and his own arms 

 impaled on the sinister side of his office. His will was 

 dated 21st of May, 1623, and proved the 10th of Novem- 

 ber following. Mr. Farnaby characterises him ' Prajco 

 famse, Oraculum Natalium, Armorum Sacerdos, Stemma- 

 tum Hermes, Temporum vindex, rei Antiquarise consul- 

 tus, Regum Fecialis.' " 



" Richmond Herald. — William Camden, that great re- 

 storer of the antiquities of this kingdom, had this title 

 conferred upon him Avithout any Letters Patent, being 

 thus styled in the grant made to him of the office of 

 Clarenceux, 41 Eliz. Lee was advanced to be Clarenceux 

 11 May, 1594, and died in September, 1597, during which 

 time this office of Richmond continued vacant : and (as 

 a MS.* expresses it), 'On Saturday, 22 of Oct. 1597, 

 was Camden made Richmond Herald by the Lord Burley 

 and Earl of Nottingham, without any Bill made or signed 

 by the Lords or the Queen's Majesty, as of custom and 

 right it ought to be, and yet at the same present they 

 made a Pursuivant, Richmond — so there were two 

 Richmonds at one time. In an order f for placing the 

 Officers of Arms, dated the day following, it appears that 

 Mr. Camden was then Clarenceux, so that the conferring 

 this title of Richmond was only nominal. It being pro- 

 bably the notion of that age 'that in regard the usual 

 oath of a provincial King of Arms refers to that formerly 

 taken by him as a Herald, it was therefore necessary that 

 he should be so denominated and sworn accordingly. 

 By the same order it likewise appears that the Pursui- 

 vant then created Richmond was John Raven, Rouge- 

 dragon, who passed no Letters Patent for it in near six 

 years afterwards, his signet bearing date August, 1603 J, 

 and his patent on the 13th of that month §, 1 Jac. I." 



EDGAR ^THELING. 



Rapin de Thoryas, in his authentic and admir- 

 able History of England, during the annals of the 

 year 1106, informs us that Edgar A(Seling (who 

 you are aware was the child and only son of Ed- 

 ward of Saresbury, better known as Edward the 

 Exile^ and grandson of Edmund II., surnamed 

 Ironside), having been taken prisoner lay William 

 the Norman (being then in arms against the Con- 

 queror, assisting llobert, Duke of Normandy, after 

 their return from the first " Cruxayde in the Holy 

 Land"), the death and burial in the reign of 



* Penes Da Chuml. Dering, Bar', L. 6. 1. p. 102. 



t Order of Lords Commissioners for placing the Officers 

 of Arms. 



X E libro Signet apud Whitehall, Aug. 1603. The office 

 of Richmond granted to John Raven, Rougedragon. 



§ Pat. 1 Jac. I., p. 12., 13 Aug. 



