Beschreibung:

WASHINGTON, GEORGE, President ]. The Visitation Book of Northhamptonshire, England, a manuscript collection of coats-of-arms and genealogies, CONTAINING AN EARLY GENEALOGICAL CHART AND COAT-OF-ARMS OF WASHINGTON'S ENGLISH ANCESTORS, England, n.d., [ ca. 1600]. Folio, 84 leaves, 355 x 225mm. (13 15/16 x 8 7/8 in.), ink calligraphic manuscript on paper, written in a small, regular English court hand, comprising: pp.2 (table of contents), 10 (blank), 105 (genealogies and arms, including later note on an inscription from the Parish church of Oundle), 50 (blank); THE TEXT INCORPORATING 143 CAREFULLY RENDERED PEN-AND-INK COATS-OF-ARMS AND CRESTS (most measuring 65 x 52mm. (2 1/2 x 2 in.), each with colors indicated, bound in contemporary limp vellum, vellum ties (missing), spine with contemporary ink label: "Northampton," first 11 leaves slightly defective at lower edge affecting one page of contents, those pages loose in binding, minor soiling and slight dampstains to lower margins, but generally in good condition. A HERALDIC MANUSCRIPT WITH A DETAILED EARLY GENEAOLOGY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON'S ANCESTORS A very attractive, finely executed Elizabethan heraldic manuscript, certainly the work of a trained herald, notable for containing a pedigree and coat-of-arms of George Washington's ancestors from Northhamptonshire. The Tudor and Stuart Heralds, beginning in about 1560, were authorized by the Crown to make official "visitations" throughout the country to examine and record the legitimacy of all coats-of-arms in use; those employing them were required to document their use for at least three generations and to trace their descent from the first bearer of those arms. "The fruits of the Visitations are an invaluable corpus of genealogical and heraldic information" (Thomas Woodcock, The Oxford Guide to Heraldry, 1990, p.145). Most of the original Visitation Books are in the library of the College of Arms in London; the present Visitation book was apparently the gift of one Herald to another, as recorded in a presentation inscription at the front, dated 1634. The Washington genealogy and coat-of-arms appear on fol.14v and commence with the first of the line to bear the arms, John Washington of Whitfield, Lancaster (1st generation), and extending to the 5th generation. George Washington of Virginia, First President, is of the 11th generation, and descends through Lawrence Washington (d.1616) of the 5th, second son of Lawrence Washington (d.1585) of Sulgrave Manor, Northhampton. The family arms are "a shield, argent , two bars gules, in chief three mulletts of the second." Here, the arms are without crest; that used by George Washington: "a raven with wings endorsed proper issuing out of a ducal coronet or ,"probably came into use at a later date. The arms and crest appear, among other uses, on the President's familiar bookplate and on the wax seal still present on some letters. . See Charles Arthur Hoppin, The Washington Ancestry , (Privately published, 1932) and Henry F. Waters, An Examination of the English Ancestry of George Washington, Setting Forth the Evidence to Connect Him with the Washingtons of Sulgrave and Brington (Boston, 1889). A copy of the detailed genealogical chart from Waters accompanies the lot. Provenance : Ink inscription on front pastedown: "Ex dono Jo[hann]is Philipot Somerset.... a[nn]o 1634. Guil. Ryly [Riley] Lancaster." Jonathan Philipot was Somerset Herald from 1624 until his death in 1645; William Ryley is recorded as Lancaster Herald in 1641 (see The Book of Dignities , pp.332-333).