A French Protestant text suppressed by the King of France from the library of the courtier, explorer and author Sir Walter Ralegh (1554-1618). One of only ten known printed books certainly from the library in the Tower of London and one of only four known volumes stamped with his armorial crest on the covers.
Amorial Binding: The online British Armorial Bindings Database records four armorial stamps for Sir Walter Ralegh. Three of these, however, were made for the Bodleian Library and were applied to 72 books purchased with a £50 donation given in 1603. They display Ralegh’s arms of five lozenges in bend with a crescent for difference. The fourth armorial stamp, as found on the present volume, is the only one which Ralegh personally used to mark his own books. It shows his crest - out of a ducal coronet a conical hat surmounted with a plume of three feathers. The British Armorial Bindings Database records only four examples, including the present volume. The others are:
Bibliander (Theodorus), Machumetis Saracenorum principis, eius successorum vitae (Basel, 1540). Calf. Derry & Raphoe Diocesan Library, on deposit at the University of Ulster.
Commelin (Hieronymus), Rerum Britannicarum (Heidelberg, 1587). Calf. Signature “Walter Ralegh” and motto “Ad spes hortamur”. A few annotations in a later hand. Cambridge University Library.
Ricci (Matteo) & Trigault (Nicolas), eds, Histoire de l’expedition Chrestienne au Royaume de la Chine (Lyon, 1616). Calf. Signature of “H. Saues 1618”; Sotheby, 25/11/1947, lot 443 [the arms unidentified], £10 to Maggs. No annotations, a few corners turned-in. Parham House, Sussex.
Sir Walter Ralegh’s Bloody Tower Library: Around 1608 an inventory was taken of the 500+ books that Ralegh had with him in the Bloody Tower of the Tower of London where he had been imprisoned for Treason since 1603 (Phillipps MS 6339, now British Library MS Add. 57555). It was published by Sir Walter Oakeshott (“Sir Walter Ralegh’s Library”) in The Library (Fifth Series, XXIII/4, Dec. 1968, pp. 285-327). By 1614, when The History of the World was published, he would have had more, including the present volume and the history of China mentioned above, and he refers to a book published in 1611 (Torniellus, Annales) in the History. Only seven other printed volumes, six of which are listed on the online Catalogue of English Literary manuscripts 1450-1700 (CELM), can be said with certainty to have belonged to Ralegh as they all have his signature:
Colombo (Fernando). Historia del S. A. Fernando Colombo (Venice, 1571). Signature “WRalegh” on title. University of Glasgow (Hunterian Collection).
Horae. 15th-Century French MS Book of Hours. Signature “WRalegh”. Bodleian Library.
Patrizi (Francesco). La Militia Romana (Ferrara, 1583). Signature “WRalegh” heavily deleted and motto “Amore et virtute”. Subsequently owned by Inigo Jones. Worcester College, Oxford.
Rocca (Bernardino). De’ discorsi di Guerra libri Quattro (Venice, 1582). Signature “WRalegh” and motto “Medium Mediis”. Subsequently owned by George Carew, Earl of Totnes (1555-1629) and has his painted arms on the covers). No annotations. London, Royal College of Physicians (Dorchester Library).
Tasso (Torquato). Rime, e prose. Parte prima (Ferrara, 1583). Signature “WRalegh” and motto. Beinecke Library, Yale University.
Tasso (Torquato). Rime, e prose. Parte seconda (Ferrara, 1583). Signature “WRalegh” and motto. Phillips, 13/12/1997, lot 351, £15,000 + premium [present location unknown].
Tasso (Toquato). Rime, eprose. Parte terza (Vencie, 1584). Signature “WRalegh” and motto. Bonham’s, 11/3/2020, lor 48, est. £30-50,000
Otherwise CELM lists four manuscript maps and a manuscript Rutter (British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius D. IX) that were probably owned by Ralegh. A few other volumes (including two then in his own collection and one in the British Library) identified by Sir Walter Oakeshott as containing Ralegh’s annotations but no other marks of ownership have now been dismissed by CELM.
Vignier’s Text: “A grievous tormenting Boyl unto the Papists”: Nicolas Vignier the Younger (1575-1645) was Minister of the French Protestant Reformed Church at Blois. His father, Nicolas (1530-96) was a lawyer and historiographer who converted to Catholicism. A copy of his Bibliotheque historiale (1587) was probably the volume described as “Vignier ab orbe condito french” (no. 287 in Ralegh’s Tower inventory]. Ralegh quoted from it in The History of the World. The nonconformist Minister John Quick (1636-1706), in Synodicon in Gallia Reformata: or, the Acts, Decisions, Decrees, and Canons of those Famous National Councils of the Reformed Church in France (2 vols., London, 1692), described Vignier as “the very Learned Son of a most Learned Father” and his Theatre de l’Antichrist as a “a grievous tormenting Boyl unto the Papists“ (I, p. 258, n. 3).
Quick related how, at the Synod of the French Reformed Church at St Maixant (25+ May 1609) it was resolved that, “Monsieur Vignier presenting his Theater of Antichrist, composed by him in obedience to the command of the National Synod, received the thanks of this Assembly for his great and worthy pains, and the University of Saumur is ordered to peruse it, and having given their opinion of it, we order that it be printed with the Authors name.“ (I, p. 316).
Three years later, at the Synod of Privas (14+ May 1612), it was resolved that, “Out of the Arrearages due unto the Churches from the remaining Moneys of the yeare six hundred and four, five and six, amounting to the sum of two and twenty thousand five hundred threescore and fifteen Livers, the Assembly ordaineth that the tenth portion of the said Moneys be given unto the Sieur Vignier as a Gratuity and acknowledgment of his Charges and great Pains taken in the Writing and Printing of his Book intituled, Le Theatre de l’Antechrist.” (Quick, I, p. 381).
Vignier was a friend and correspondent of the Glasgow theologian and poet Robert Boyd of Trochrig (1578-1627) who had been Professor of Philosophy from 1605 and then of Theology from 1608 at the Protestant University of Saumur before returning to Scotland, at the request of King James, as principal of the University of Glasgow in 1614.
Robert Wodrow (1679-1734), in his Life of Robert Boyd of Trochrig (1578-1627), wrote that “Monsieur Vignier, minister of Bloys, writes to [Robert Boyd] of Trocherege, August 10, 1609, … I am advancing as fast as I can in my Theatre Du L’Antichrist, but the deutys of my charge do not allow me to mak that progress I wold. As soon as its finished Ile send it to you, and then youl know it best. Bloys, 10 Aout, 1609’. The same learned minister writes another letter, Jan. 3, 1610, wherin he thanks him for his reading over his book (Theater of Antichrist, I suppose), and begs him to write what he thinks proper to be published with it, at the end of his preface, by way of approbation of the book. He adds that he is already grievously threatned, if he shall publish that book; but he believes he is in the Lord’s hand, who is able to preserve his oun in the midst of wolves. …” - Collections upon the Lives of the Reformers and most eminent Ministers of the Church of Scotland (2 vols, 1845), II, pp. 82-3 (the Low Scots translation presumably being by Wodrow).
George Sibbald, who would later marry Boyd’s widow, subsequently wrote to Boyd from Paris, 28 Jan. 1611, that “The Pope has written to the Queen [of France] to cause Burn the Theatre of Antichrist and its author.” (ibid., II, p. 96).
The Huguenot minister and historian Elie Benoist (1640-1728) recorded that, “The said Book appear’d soon after Entitul’d The Theatre of Antichrist: Among the other effects it produc’d, it induc’d Gontier [Jean Gontery], a Jesuit, to Preach against the Thirty first Article of the Confession of Faith of the Reform’d; which he did before the King [Henri IV] in so seditious and so insolent a manner, that the King reprimanded him severely for it: but lest the Catholicks should accuse him upon that account of favouring the Reform’d, and of suffering their writings to pass unregarded, he also suppress’d Vignier’s Book.” – The History of the famous Edict of Nantes (1694), pp. 442-3.
Subsequently, as Anthony Wood reported, Vignier studied at Oxford for some years: “[He] retired to Oxon to improve his studies by the hearing and doctrine of Dr. John Prideaux, an. 1623, was incorporated master of arts in Oct. the same year, as he had stood at Saumur, being about that time entered a sojourner of Exeter coll. (of which house Prideaux was then rector) and numbered among the academians. Soon after he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, as a member of the said college, being at that time reputed to be a person of great erudition, singular piety, and of a most polite ingenie. After he had tarried there for some few years, he returned to the place of his nativity, where he became a zealous minister of, and preacher to, the Protestant church.” - Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Philip Bliss, 1815, II, col. 521-2).
Engraved title-page: The anonymously designed and engraved title-page is intriguing. A pair of columns entwined with laurel branches support a classical pediment on which are seated naked figures of Time/Chronos and Truth/Aletheia, a banner between them reads “ΑΓΕΙ ΔΕ ΠΡΟΣ ΦΩΣ ΤΗΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΝ ΧΡΟΝΟΣ Menand[er]” [Time brings Truth to Light]. At the foot is an oval vignette depicting the Angel with the little Scroll from Revelation 10.1. It has two features in common with Renold Elstrack’s elaborate engraved title-page for the first edition of Ralegh’s History of the World. Elstrack’s engraving depicts “Magistra Vita” (History), supporting a globe and standing on the bodies of Death and Oblivion. She is flanked by two standing figures between pairs of columns: on her left is an old woman, “Experientia” or Experience and on her left is “Veritas” or Truth while the right-hand column is entwined with laurel branches. The Ralegh frontispiece was analysed by Margery Corbett & Ronald Lightbown in The Comely Frontispiece: the emblematic title-page in England 1550-1660 (London, 1979), pp. 129-35. Both title-pages and both books illustrate Ralegh’s theme, as expressed in the History, that it is “the end and scope of al Historie, to teach by example of times past, such wisdom as may guide our desires and actions.” (Book II, chapter 21).
Sir Walter Ralegh’s History of the World (1614): “The captive explorer had been condemned to death. Aging and scorned, Sir Walter Ralegh spent his declining years in the Tower of London, a convicted traitor. … Deprived of his corporal strength and his mobility, with little audience for the wit and poetry that had endeared him to Elizabeth, Ralegh set himself to new tasks. In the Tower, he received visitors, set up a still, and aided by the collection of over five hundred books in his chambers, began working on a universal world history. As was customary, he began with the Creation, intending to proceed to his present in three lengthy volumes. In seven years of work, he produced only one volume, a massive fifteen-hundred-folio tome that examined nearly four millennia from Creation to 168 BC. In 1614, sensing that volatility within James’s regime offered the hope of restoration to the king’s favour, he rushed the History of the World into print. Though only a portion of the original project, this book enjoyed immense popularity for a century after its publication, boasting over a dozen editions, reprints, and abridgments.” – Nicholas Popper, Walter Ralegh’s History of the World and the historical culture of the late renaissance (Chicago, 2012), pp. 1-2.
Ralegh was working on the medieval parts of the continuation in 1610 as we know from an undated letter of around that date to Sir Robert Cotton with a list of ten books on English history that he was hoping to borrow: “If yow have any of thes old books or any manuscripts wherein I can reade any of our Britton antiquities, if you pleas to lend them mee for a little while I will safly restore them …” - Agnes Latham & Joyce Youings, eds, The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh, (Exeter, 1999), Letter 203, p. 319.
With the death of his chief protector Prince Henry in November 1612 and with his health weakened after eight years in the Tower, Ralegh lost heart in his great project. John Aubrey reported that, “He had an Apparatus for the second part, which he in discontent, burn’t and sayd, if I am not worthy of the World, the World is not worthy of my Workes.” (John Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed. Kate Bennett (Oxford, 2015, I, p. 237). Ralegh admitted this himself in the conclusion to the published volume, “Lastly, whereas this Booke, by the title it hath, calles itself, The First Part of the Generall History of the World, implying a Second and Third volume; which I also intended, and have hewn out; besides many other discouragements, persuading my silence; it hath pleased God to take that glorious prince [Henry] out of the world, to whom they were directed, …” – Works (1829), VII, p. 901.
Ralegh, however, was not only occupied in writing his magnum opus during his years in the Tower. As John Aubrey noted, “He was no slug, without doubt”. From his pen poured a series of what would now be described as “position papers” – essays on political and economic, military and naval and philosophical questions, inspired by current affairs but always written from an historical perspective, the standard methodology of the late renaissance “learned counsellor”. Many of these were intended for Prince Henry and his court and some circulated widely in manuscript. A number were published posthumously, e.g. in Judicious & Select Essayes (1650), Remains of Sir Walter Raleigh (1651) and Three Discourses (1702).
Ralegh’s reading for The History of the World and his working methods: The few surviving books that have been certainly identified as being from the hundreds in Ralegh’s Tower of London library have not been studied as a group for his marks of readership and whatever insights they might give into his reading and working methods. However, as Nicholas Popper has discussed in Walter Ralegh’s History of the World, the manuscript which contains the library inventory also contains a section of 140 leaves described in the British Library catalogue as an “historical gazeteer” of the Middle East, being geographical notes based on his reading. As Popper noted, it “lays bare his method of note taking”, which “was the same as was used to compile encyclopedic works he owned such as the Lutheran theologian David Chytraeus’s anonymous 1564 Onomasticon Theologicum, the Antwerpian antiquarian and geographer Abraham Ortelius’s 1587 Thesaurus Geographicus, and the French Catholic printer Charles Estienne’s 1596 Dictionarium historicum, geographicum, poeticum.” (Popper, pp. 124-5). As Popper continued, “the notebook stored a catalog of citations directly relevant to the immediate task of writing the History. It was not, however, a perfect or infallible record. Many troubles arose from using the notebook to compress his sources, not the least of which was that he might forget the contexts or misinterpret the meanings of his own notes. … [The] History was certainly produced through the mode of reading that structured the notebook itself. Indeed, it seems likely that, in the process of composition, Ralegh often turned to his notebooks rather than to the original sources and that he preferred a thin, clearly organized volume to the dense, magisterial tomes that filled the walls of his cell. The notebook served as a material surrogate for his library.” (Popper, p. 130).
Marks of readership: At a first glance this copy of Vignier’s Theatre de L’Antechrist appears to be unread. There are no annotations but a number of neat ink underlings and a single pointing finger or manicule show that the second part at least, from p. 311, has been carefully read. The following passages have been underlined:
P. 416 – line 14 underlined in ink, Part 2, Chapter IX, paragraph 5 “Car (comme dit Aristote) La certitude d’une chose à venir change la nature d’icelle, & de future nous l’a fait quasi pre- / sente.”
P. 433 – end of line 2 and line 3 underlined in ink, Part 2, Chapter XIII, paragraph 4 on the progress of celibacy in the Roman Church “on tira plus de six mille / testes d’enfans nouveaux nais & ainsi miserablement traitez par leurs / parens, …” [in 590 the bodies of 6000 murdered babies were discovered in a pond outside the Lateran Palace after Gregory I had introduced celibacy]
P. 524 – beside line 15, Part 2, Chapter XXII, paragraph 1 is an ink cross and part of the line “que nous avons declare au 8. Chapitre de la pre= / miere partie de ce livre, touchant les moiens par lesquels les Papes ont fait perdre l’Italie aux Empereurs de Constantinople, …” is underlined in ink; the last word of the penultimate line and first word of the last line are underlined in ink “Theodore & / Leon” the first terminating in a cross in the inner margin, on the murders of Popes Theodore II & Leo V.
P. 525 – beside line 10, Part 2, Chapter XXII, part of line 10 underlined in ink “Mais ce ne fut rien au prix de la perfidie que / monstra Gregoire 4. Contre ledit Empereur Loys; …”. Part of line 8 from bottom underlined in ink “Regnante Christo, au lieu de Regnante Phi- / lippo” terminating in a cross in the outer margin. Philip II of France was excommunicated and France laid under interdict by Pope Innocent III in 1199.
P. 526 – end of line 1, Part 2, Chapter XXII “du Pape Iules 2.” underlined in ink terminating in a cross in the inner margin. Line 11 underlined in ink “Sixte 5. n’a-il pas declamé au consistoire des Cardinaux a la louange de Iacques Clement, …”. Second half of line 25 “infracti roboris Catholicae fidei & Christia- / nae constantiae, dignum exemplum.” Is underlined ink. Line 33, a small ink finger [points to the line “… / de la paix, de l’union de l’Eglise Catholique Apostolique & Romaine & du / Roi & de son estat, …”.
P. 527 – end of line 8 “… sous les Ottons & Henri fils / de Conrad, …” underlined in ink terminating in a cross in the margin. End line 11 name “Hildebrand” partly underlined in ink terminating in a double cross in the margin.
P. 528 – end of line 12 “… / pour Roi de Germanie Rodolphe de Suabe Beaufrere de l’Epe- / reur Henri, …” underlined in ink. Line 10 from bottom underlined in ink “… & ce miserable par le juge- / ment de Dieu, tomberent ensemble sur le pavé de l’Eglise & fut tout froissé de la / pierre.”
P. 529 – end of line 1 “…,n’empescherent point / ses successeurs …” underlined in ink terminating in a cross. Line 3 name “Conrad” underlined in ink. End of line 4 “…, le Pape Vrbain aiant / recu homage de lui.” Underlined in ink terminating in a cross. Line 8 the name “son autre fils Henri” underlined in ink. End of line 14 “… Baronius au 12. Tome des ses An- / nales, …” underlined in ink.
P. 532 – lines 7-8 and end of line 9 from bottom from the speech of Pope Paschal II at the coronation of the Emperor Henry V underlined in ink “Tout ainsi que cette par- / tie du corps vivisiant est separée de l’autre: Ainsi soit separé du Roiaume de Christ & du Seigneu elui qui attentera de romper & violer cet accord; …”.
P. 533 – beginning of line 5 name “Lothaire” underlined in ink. Beginning of line 23 “Conrad Duc de Suaube aiant …” underlined in ink. Beginning of line 30 “Lothaire éleu Empereur” underlined in ink. End of line 32 “Car il donna la Pouille en tiltre de Roi au Duc / Roger …” underlined in ink. Line 34 name “Frederic Barberousse” underlined in ink.
P. 535 – end of line 18 “… à Venise d’Alexandre 3. Successeur dudict / Adrian au Siege Papal. …” underlined in ink.
P. 537 – end of line 13 and part of line 14 “… Henri son fils naturel espousast / la niece du Pape, comme il desiroit grandement. …” underlined in ink terminating in a cross. Line 12 from bottom “L’armée du Christ” underlined in ink. End of line 6 “… avoir payé six vingts mille onces d’or à / l’Eglise Romaine, …” underlined in ink.
P. 623 – end of line 1, Chapter XXVI, “Car quand nous arrivasmes ici au commencement / nous …” underlined in ink.
In addition three pages have the outer carefully corners turned-in:
P. 372 – top corner turned-down, opening of Part 2, Chapter VI “1. Que l’Eglise Papale est fausse & Antichristienne par une marque donnée de la vraie Eglise par le Cardinal Bellarmin. …”.
P. 396 – top corner turned-down, Part 2, Chapter IX, paragraph 2.4, opens “On peut aussi rapporter / à la profanation de ce Sacrement la benediction des Cloches, …” [Blessing of Bells]
P. 443 – bottom corner turned-up, Part 2, Chapter XIV, paragraph 2, a quote from Thomas James, Bellum Papale (1600) concerning the Vulgate Bibles of Popes Clement (1592) and Sixtus (1590).
Most of these underlined passages are concerned with the turbulent power relationships between Emperors, Kings and Popes from the early Middle Ages until the Sixteenth Century. A number of them may relate to Ralegh’s little-known essay “Of Ecclesiastical Power”, first published in Three Discourses (1702), pp. 148-204. They may also connect to the passage in the preface to The History of the World which caused King James to call in the first edition at the end of 1614 “for divers exceptions, but specially for being too sawcie in censuring princes” as John Chamberlain reported to Sir Dudley Carleton in a letter of 12 January 1615 (The Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. Norman McClure (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1939), I, p. 568). In particular one might consider the passage in the History where Ralegh discusses the fate of the Holy Roman Empire after the death of Charlemagne, a subject mentioned several times by Vignier: “there followed nothing but murders upon murders, poisoning, imprisonments, and civill warre; till the whole race of that famous Emperour was extinguished” (1614 edn, B3r). We have not been able to ascertain for certain whether or not these are Ralegh’s markings but it seems there is a reasonable likelihood that they are and there is nothing to suggest that it has been read since his time. It certainly justifies further research.
The fate of Ralegh’s Library: As a man who was legally dead from the time of his conviction for treason in 1603 Ralegh could own no property. It would seem, however, that when he was released from the Tower on 19 March 1616 in order to prepare for his second and last fateful voyage to Guyana, he was able to take his library with him.
Sir Thomas Wilson, Keeper of the Records at Whitehall, who had also had the role of residing with and reporting on Ralegh in his last months in the Tower, wrote to King James on 2 November 1618, four days after Ralegh’s execution on 29 October, suggesting that several sea-charts and a manuscript on the art of war that had been taken from his house by Sir George Calvert or Sir William Cockayne should be sent to the State Paper office and that his library should be transferred to the King’s own library (abstract in the Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Vol. 103 (November 1618, pp. 588-9, no. 67).
That all his books, or at least those not already represented in the Royal Library, should be seized was of such to concern to Ralegh’s widow that she wrote to Lady Carew, the wife of Ralegh’s cousin Sir George Carew, later Earl of Totnes (1555-1629), asking her to intercede with Wilson and pointing out there was nothing there which could not also be bought from John Bill, the royal bookbinder and stationer:
“I beseech your ladyship that you will do me the favour to entreat [Sir Thomas Wilson] to surcease the pursuit of my husband’s books or library; they being all the land and living which he left his poor child, hoping that he would inherit him in these only, and that he would apply himself to learning to be fit for them. … If there were any of these books, God forbid but Sir Thomas should have them for His Majesty – if they were rare and not to be had elsewhere. But they tell me that Byll, the bookbinder and stationer, hath the very same. Thus entreating your Ladyship’s favour that you will be a mean unto Sir Thomas that I may be troubled no more in this matter concerning the books. …”
Lady Ralegh’s fears were allayed as none of his printed books appear to have entered the Royal Library but it would seem that they were dispersed soon after his death. One of the volumes with his crest (the Ricci at Parham) has a signature “H. Saues 1618” and one volume at least passed to Sir George Carew and has his signature together with Ralegh’s on the title and Carew’s coat-of-arms painted on the vellum cover (the Rocca at the Royal College of Physicians).
Later Provenance: There is a 17th-Century ink note at the head of the front pastedown “This was: Sr. Walter Raleighs booke”. Francis St John (1634-1705), of Longthorpe, Northamptonshire, barrister, M.P. for Tewkesbury 1654 and Peterborough 1656-59, 1660, 1679-81, 1698-1700; with his ink signature “Fran: St John. / B.L.” at the head of the front pastedown and an ink note below, apparently in St John’s hand (and different to the first note): “K Hen: 4 of France greatly offended at this book see memoires du Duc de Sully.” A half-length portrait of Francis St John, attributed to Cornelius Johnson/Janssens and once at Kimbolton Castle is now at Peterborough Museum. He was the first son of Oliver St John (c. 1598-1673), lawyer and republican politician, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 1648-60 and builder of Thorpe Hall, near Peterborough. It may be that he was the second owner of this volume after Ralegh. By descent to Francis St John’s son Sir Francis St John, 1st (& last) Baronet (c. 1680-1756), of Longthorpe, Northamptonshire, with an old ink shelfmark “25 A 9” [? From Thorpe Hall] on the front pastedown. His daughter Mary married Sir John Bernard, 4th Baronet and the St John estate eventually passed to Millicent Sparrow (d. 1848), wife of George Montagu, 6th Duke of Manchester (1799-1855), of Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire, with a 19th-century Kimbolton case-label; sold circa 1960 by the 10th Duke of Manchester to: W. H. Robinson, booksellers, of Pall Mall, London. With a letter from Walter Oakeshott to Philip Robinson, dated 24 July 1962, loosely inserted (“My dear Robinson, …. I have very little doubt that your book belonged to Raleigh ….”. As it is not mentioned it would seem that neither Robinson nor Oakeshott were aware of the identity of the crest on the covers). Lionel Robinson (1897-1983), sale, Sotheby, 26/6/1986, lot 126 [the “gilt crest” unidentified], £600 + premium to “Ryzwick” [perhaps unsold]. Anonymous sale, Sotheby, 19/7/1993, lot 223 [the “gilt crest” still unidentified], £2800 + premium to Quaritch for: Robert S Pirie (1934-2015), of New York, with his bookplate and pencil purchase note “QA-MOHK / 17 Jun ’93 lot 223”; Pirie sale, Sotheby, New York, 4/12/2015, lot 679 [the crest now correctly identified], $8500 + premium to Maggs.
Literature: Coote (Stephen), A Play of Passion: the life of Sir Walter Ralegh (London, 1993). Latham (Agnes) & Youings (Joyce), The Letters of Sir Walter Ralegh (Exeter, 1999). Oakeshott (Walter), “Imago Mundi: Collector’s Piece I”, in The Book Collector (Spring 1966), pp.12-18. Oakeshott (Walter), “Sir Walter Ralegh’s Library”, in The Library, Fifth Series, Vol. XXIII/4 (December 1968), pp. 285-327. Popper (Nicholas), Walter Ralegh’s History of the World and the historical culture of the late renaissance (Chicago, 2012). Rowse (A. L.), Ralegh and the Throckmortons (London, 1962).
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