Catalogue of English Nobility and Royal Officials

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Scope and Content

The manuscript comprises three sections:

  • 1. A list of the titles and title holders of the major nobility of England in 1616.
  • 2. A list of the titles, title holders and pay of most royal officials then in existence, including the extended Royal Household; the judicial staff of the King's Bench, Common Pleas and Star Chamber; the royal Councils at law, of the North, and of Wales and the Marches; the Admiralty, Ordnance and Armory; the College of Arms; the Royal Mint; and the Great Wardrobe to name a few of the areas covered.
  • 3. A list of the individual custodians and captains of major royal castles and fortified towns as well as the permament staff of royal residences, parks, hunting grounds and forests. Both of these are arranged by county.
Entitled: "A Catalogue of the Nobilitie of England and a Collection as well of His Maties Courtes of Record as of his highness most honble househould, The Counsells of the North, of Wales and the Marches, the Admiraltye, the Armorye, and the Minte, His Maties Tounes of Warre or defence, Castles, Bulwarks and fortresses. The Islands with his highnes howses, parkes, forrestes and chases, collected in the yeare 1616."

Access Information

The manuscript is available for consultation by any accredited reader.

Acquisition Information

This manuscript was item 467 in the Phillipps sale of 1910, and was purchased by the London bookseller Bernard Quaritch on behalf of the John Rylands Library.

Note

A.N.L. Munby, The formation of the Phillipps Library from 1841 to 1872, Phillipps studies no. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 138.

Other Finding Aids

Catalogued in the Hand-List of the Collection of English Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, 1928 (English MS 112). The manuscript is also referred to as Rylands Latin MS 324.

Custodial History

Purchased as part of a larger collection of manuscripts by the great English bibliophile Sir Thomas Phillipps on 20 May 1870 at a Sotheby's auction; Phillipps no. 150.