News & Grants - College of Arms
Record Manuscripts of the Tudor Visitations: The College of Arms has published an important new volume, which provides a detailed catalogue and index to this key series of official record manuscripts, created by the heralds in the sixteenth century and preserved at the College ever since. The visitation manuscripts are one of the main classes of record, and have long been recognised as of vital significance for genealogical, heraldic and other areas of historical research. The volumes preserve records of periodic surveys of the arms and pedigrees of the gentry of England and Wales, carried out by the heralds between 1530 and the end of the seventeenth century.
There are thirty-two colour plates illustrating the types of manuscript and the principal hands occurring, and comprehensive indexes of family and personal names, places and subjects. The compiler of the Catalogue is Robert Yorke FSA, Archivist of the College of Arms between 1978 and 2011. The volume was launched with a reception at the College of Arms on 19 October.
For more information see here. Copies can be ordered by emailing the College This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
New Appointments
03 November 2023By Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 6 November 2023, His Majesty The King has been pleased to appoint Phillip Alan Bone to the Office of Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms, vacant by the promotion of Adam Simon Tuck, now Lancaster Herald of Arms. The appointment has been gazetted here.
Phillip Bone was born in Bedfordshire and educated at Bedford School and at Exeter College, Oxford, where he read Literae Humaniores and subsequently received the degrees of Master of Studies and Doctor of Philosophy in Classical Languages and Literature. He subsequently lectured in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at the University of Nottingham.
By Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 2 November 2023, His Majesty The King has been pleased to appoint Adam Simon Tuck to the Office of Lancaster Herald of Arms, vacant by the promotion in 2021 of Robert John Baptist Noel, now Norroy and Ulster King of Arms. The appointment has been gazetted here.
Record Manuscripts of the Tudor Visitations
24 October 2023A Catalogue of Manuscripts in the College of Arms: Records Volume 1
The College of Arms is delighted to announce the publication of an important new volume, which provides a detailed catalogue and index to this key series of official record manuscripts, created by the heralds in the sixteenth century and preserved at the College ever since.
The visitation manuscripts are one of the main classes of record, and have long been recognised as of vital significance for genealogical, heraldic and other areas of historical research. The volumes preserve records of periodic surveys of the arms and pedigrees of the gentry of England and Wales, carried out by the heralds between 1530 and the end of the seventeenth century.
The first part of this substantial 805-page volume catalogues the College’s Tudor visitation manuscripts in detail, describing their content, relation to each other and to other manuscripts, and also their physical make-up. The Tudor manuscripts are much more heterogenous than the Stuart ones, and include considerable amounts of interesting non-visitation material. All the main family names occurring in the visitations are listed.
The second part of the volume consists of a complete analytical list of all Tudor visitation manuscripts, both in the College and in other repositories, arranged by county and giving the published editions. The general apparatus includes four appendices; one of these is a chronological list of visitations and another a biographical list of heralds and others connected with the visitations. A lengthy introduction discusses all aspects of the manuscripts catalogued and also looks at the process of visitation in the Tudor period. 
There are thirty-two colour plates illustrating the types of manuscript and the principal hands occurring, and comprehensive indexes of family and personal names, places and subjects.
The Author
The compiler of the Catalogue is Robert Yorke FSA, Archivist of the College of Arms between 1978 and 2011.
Price
£60 plus postage and packing
TO ORDER
• by e-mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• by telephone to: 0207 248 2762
• by post to: Catalogue of Manuscripts, College of Arms, 130 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4BT
ISBN 978 0 9506 980 3 8
Attacks on Israel: flag instructions
08 October 2023Following the attacks on Israel, special instructions have been received that as a mark of respect, UK Government Buildings able to fly the Israel flag and to light up buildings or monuments, should do so from as soon as possible today 8 October 2023 until 20:00 on Friday 13 October. Other organisations may wish to follow suit.
Local authorities are not bound by this request. Devolved administrations are responsible for issuing instructions for the flying of the Union Flag on buildings in their estate and others as necessary. Enquiries regarding the correct protocols for the flying of Union and other flags should be addressed to the Officer in Waiting at the College of Arms in the first instance.
Register to receive up-to-date advice from the College of Arms on official flag-flying days, instructions for flying flags at half-mast, and other relevant information, here.
His Majesty King Charles III and Her Majesty Queen Camilla were anointed and crowned by the Lord-Archbishop of Canterbury at the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster on the 6th day of May 2023.
Image Yui Mok/Alamy.
