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I.—The Wilton Diptych—A Re-examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

John H. Harvey
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Extract

The Wilton Diptych (pls. I, 11) is in quality the most outstanding painting known from the English middle ages. Its unique interest has produced a massive literature, much of it concerned with stylistic problems and with purely theoretical interpretations. Little can be added to the meticulous description of Sir George Scharf, while only one major contribution has been made to the historical analysis of the painting's heraldic data, by the late Miss Maud Clarke. This heraldic analysis offered abundant evidence of approximate date, yet the subsequent literature has failed to take adequate account of the limits set, and a fundamental reassessment of the facts is overdue.

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Research Article
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Archaeologia , Volume 98 , 1961 , pp. 1 - 28
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Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1961

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References

page 1 note 1 Scharf, George, Description of the Wilton House Diptych (Arundel Society, 1882)Google Scholar.

page 1 note 2 Clarke, M. V. in Burlington Magazine, lviii (1931), 283 ff.Google Scholar; reprinted in Fourteenth Century Studies (1937), pp. 272–92.

page 1 note 3 Since the publication of Miss Clarke's paper there have been a number of outstanding discussions of the Diptych. Those of E. W. Tristram in The Month (1949), N.s. i, 379–90; ii, 18–36, and in English Wall-Painting of the Fourteenth Century (1955), pp. 55–56; and of Joan Evans in Archaeological Journal, cv (1950), 1–5, in English Art 1307–1461 (Oxford History of English Art, v, 1949), pp. 102–4, and in L'Œil, Christmas 1956, pp. 18–23, this last with sumptuous coloured plates, favour early dates (c. 1377 and 1389 respectively); those by E. Panofsky in Early Netherlandish Painting (1953), i, 118; and by F. Wormald in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xvii (1954), 191–203, plead for dates after 1400 (probably c. 1413–15), in this following a line of argument suggested by W. A. Shaw in Burlington Magazine, lxv (1934), 171–84, and by V. H. Galbraith in History, n.s. xxvi (Mar. 1942), 237–8. The best summing-up of the picture is that by T. Bodkin, The Wilton Diptych (1947), and there have been serious accounts of it by M. Davies in National Gallery Catalogue: French School (1946), pp. 46–49 (the revised edition of 1957, pp. 92–101, contains a much enlarged discussion of all the available evidence); and by M. Rickert in Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages (1954), pp. 170–2. The recent literature also includes studies by M. Galway in Archaeological Journal, cvii (1952), 9–14; and by J. H. Harvey in Gothic England (1947), pp. 63–65, and in an exchange of letters with E. W. Tristram in The Month, n.s. ii (1949), 433–5; iii (1950), 234–8.

page 1 note 4 For the view that Richard II escaped and survived until 1419 see P. Fraser-Tytler, History of Scotland (3rd ed., 1845), ii, 459–511. Tytler's case has been well refuted; for a summing-up see Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, iv (1880), pp. lxv–lxixGoogle Scholar.

page 1 note 5 This is the normal purpose of armorial bearings, and any exceptional usage requires to be justified by explicit evidence. The point has been made in relation to the Diptych by Joan Evans (Archaeological Journal, cv, 5; L'Æil, Christmas 1956, p. 19) and by Tristram (The Month, 1949, i, 382; ii, 19), but has otherwise been insufficiently stressed in the literature.

page 2 note 1 Such as a gift made for presentation to a religious house or to a private individual. It may be admitted that a portable diptych made for occasional use at an altar (e.g. for keeping the anniversary of Richard's death) might bear his arms and badges and no others, but for the difficulties in regarding the Diptych as a memorial picture see below, pp. 13–14 and footnotes, p. 13 n. 5, p. 19 n. 5.

page 2 note 2 For the dates the best authority is still Wallon, H., Richard II (Paris, 1864)Google Scholar, i, 4, 117; ii, 81, 446, 536. Steel, A., Richard II (1941)Google Scholar, a political history, should also be consulted for the background of the reign in the light of modern research.

page 2 note 3 Several diptychs, some of goldsmith's work and at least one painted, are listed in the inventories of the English Royal Treasury (F. Palgrave, Antient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury, 1836, iii, 313, 344, 345, 346, 349). I am indebted to Mr. Christopher Hohler for informing me that he has found very few references to small altar-pieces of painted panels in English records, and for the inference that portable folding diptychs may have been a continental fashion.

page 2 note 4 Mrs.Lane-Poole, R. in Antiquaries Journal, xi (1931), 145–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Scharf, op. cit. pp. 7–9. A new edition of Vander Doort's catalogue, edited by Mr. Oliver Millar, appears as Walpole Society, vol. xxxvii (1960).

page 2 note 5 Schneider, H., Jan Lievens, sein Leben und seine Werke (Haarlem, 1932), pp. 4, 145Google Scholar.

page 2 note 6 The first published identification with the Jenyngs family seems to have been made by the late W. A. Shaw in The Times, 22 June 1929; see also G. Reynolds in Burlington Magazine, July 1949, xci, 196–7, and n. 4 above.

page 2 note 7 Andrews, H. C., ‘Notes on the Roulett and Jennings Families’ in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th ser., viii (1932–4), 88–108Google Scholar.

page 3 note 1 Hailstone, E., History and Antiquities of the Parish of Bottisham (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 8vo, Publ., 1873), p. 118Google Scholar.

page 3 note 2 The will of Alice Jennings of the City of London, widow of Sir John Jennings, K.B., made on 26 Dec. 1661, was proved on 30 May 1663 by her son Ralph Jennings P.C.C. 65 Juxon). The will bequeaths to her brother, Sir Brockett Spencer, ‘my owne Picture which Holler drew and my daughter Anne picture’. Sir John Jennyns, K.B., of Hallywell, St. Albans, made his will on 21 Mar. 1638/9; it was proved by his widow on 9 Aug. 1642 (P.C.C. 105 Campbell).

page 3 note 3 This usage is abundantly confirmed by descriptions given in the official calendars and registers of wills. Mr. Martin Davies kindly informs me that Mr. E. S. de Beer quotes the specific instance of Lady Cotton, wife of the brother of the diarist John Evelyn.

page 3 note 4 For the wills and genealogical information see Appendix I.

page 3 note 5 P.C.C. 15 Powell. In isolation, the emblem of the chain might be regarded as a heart (though in this sense the spelling hart(e) was becoming relatively uncommon); but this is rendered most improbable by the reference to a cup whose cover bore three standing harts.

page 3 note 6 P.C.C. 17 Spert.

page 3 note 7 By 1564 Barnard Jenyns's son Ralph was the only surviving male of the Jenyns family, and in 1571 he was left by his childless uncle Sir Ralph Rowlett ‘all my house hold stuff in my mansion house called Hallywell’ by St. Albans, the Manor of Sandridge and the house of Haly-well itself (P.C.C. 33 Holney; printed abstract by H. C. Andrews (see p. 2, n. 7 above)). Sir Ralph had himself inherited from his brother Amphabell or Affabell Rowlett, who died in 1546,‘all my goods of my house of Gorhambury’ (abstract of will, Society of Genealogists, D. MSS. ‘Families—Rowlett’), which he had been left by his father, the first Ralph Rowlett. Ralph Jenyns died in 1572 leaving all his jewels and the like to his son Thomas (who died without issue in 1595), with remainder to his own son John (i.e. Sir John Jenyngs the elder). (P.C.C. 14 Daper.)3 8 P.C.C. 93 Wood. In the Public Record Office are two Inquisitions taken after Sir John Jenyngs had become a lunatic (C. 142/297/160; 298/63) and a normal Inquisition post mortem of 23 Apr. 1610 (C. 142/318/156), stating that he had died on 2 Oct. 1609 and that his heir was John Jenyns, aged 13 on 20 May 1609. Sir John's manor of Sandridge, Herts., and properties in Wiltshire, Somerset, and the city of Bristol are mentioned, while at his dwelling in ‘le Strond’ in Middlesex (the Strand, London) was silver plate weighing 313 oz., viz.: ‘one basen and ewer parcell gilte, two little lady pots parcell gilte, two bowles all guilte, one salte with a Cover, two scoopes guilte, two silver bowles, a silver salte with a cover, twelve spoones and a silver porenger.’

page 4 note 1 Such P.C.C. Inventories as survived war-damage are in chronological confusion and cannot at present be produced. I am indebted to Mr. D. A. Newton, Secretary of the Principal Probate Registry, and to Mr. J. R. Whitfield, for information as to these inventories.

page 4 note 2 Victoria County History Hertfordshire, ii, 325, 355, 369, 400, 404, 417, 425, 433–7; iii, 218, 245–6; iv, 38, 40–41. The property included the Manors of Gorhambury, Newnham, Pray, Napsbury, Sandridge, and Caldecote, and the advowsons of Redbourn and St. Michael's, of which had belonged to St. Albans Abbey; and the Manors of Hoares and Hyde bought from the Duke of Norfolk,

page 4 note 3 V.C.H. Herts, ii, 394.

page 4 note 4 Ibid, ii, 325.

page 4 note 5 For example, by Joan Evans in Archaeological Journal, cv, 4.

page 4 note 6 By M. Rickert, Painting in Britain …, p. 172. I here withdraw, in face of the evidence of infra-red photography, my own earlier suggestion that ‘the golden collars would probably be among the last details to be added’ (Gothic England, p. 65).

page 4 note 7 In Burlington Magazine, July 1929, lv, 42.

page 4 note 8 Photographs by infra-red light and by X-rays were taken by the National Gallery in 1955–6, and the new facts have been published in the 1957 edition of the Catalogue of the French School (pp. 92–93) by Mr. Martin Davies, to whom I am much indebted for a pre-view of the evidence.

page 4 note 9 Owing to the larger scale of the detail on the back, the black lines are wider and less carefully drawn, but are of the same character. Note especially the line drawing of the lion as crest. This technique of the black outline seems not to be very common, but is found also in the illumination of Thomas Occleve presenting his book to Prince Henry (British Museum, Arundel MS. 38, f. 37), illusall trated in Rickert, op. cit., pi. 169 c. Outlining of decoration occurs in some fourteenth-century Bohemian paintings, notably the Adoration of the Magi from the Vyssi Brod Cycle (reproduced in colour in A. Matějček and J. Pešina: Czech Gothic Painting 1350–1450, Prague, 1950, pl. 9), where the form of the crowns also is close to those of the Diptych.

page 5 note 1 The arms on the shield are less carefully drawn than the details of the other panels, but this panel necessarily presents the contrast of pure heraldry on a fairly large scale to the small-scale pictorial treatment of the other three. While it is intrinsically likely that the heraldry would be painted by another artist, there is nothing to suggest that it was added at another time, nor any trace of repainting of an earlier coat, which in that case would surely have existed.

page 5 note 2 By M. V. Clarke; see p. 1, n. 2 above.

page 5 note 3 P.R.O., E. 101/470/7: ‘armis quadratis Regis Anglie et Francie.’

page 5 note 4 Ibid. 502/24: ‘cum Genestres, Ernes et rotulis infrascriptis Soueraigne.’ The use of the eagle was traced back to Edward III and John of Gaunt by the late H. Stanford London, Royal Beasts (1956), p. 61; but there is nothing to suggest its use as a badge by Richard II. The political poem Mum and the Sothsegger (ed. M. Day and R. Steele, Early English Text Society, vol. 199, 1936) makes it clear that Henry of Lancaster (Henry IV) was referred to as ‘the Eagle’ at the end of Richard's reign. A painted figure of an eagle was made to stand on the new conduit outside West-minster Hall on the day of Henry IV's coronation (E. 101/473/11).

page 5 note 5 F. Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (1837), p. 274.

page 5 note 6 For example, attached to Richard's will (P.R.O., E. 23/1); the arms attributed to the Confessor impale the corquartered arms of France Ancient and England. See T. F. Tout, Chapters …, v, 204, 448, pl. iv, fig. 6; H. Maxwell Lyte, The Great Seal of England, pp. 116–17; and for the will, below, p. 18, n. 3.

page 5 note 7 Corporation of London Records Office, Bridge-Masters' Account Rolls, 12 (1392–3), xxxiii, xli, xlv, xlvii, xlviii, l, li, lii. The first of these items, dated to Saturday 10 May 1393, reads: ‘Item solutum Thome Wreuk lathomo in partem solucionis pro factura et operacione .ij. ymaginum de Rege et Regina petris liberis ad ponend. supra portam lapideam super Pontem cum .iij. Scutis de armis Regis et Regine et Sancti Edwardi et cum grossis tabernaculis per preceptum domini Regis Lx.s.’ Wreuk was paid £10 in all for the job, and a certain painter (cuidam pictori) £20 for painting the images, shields and tabernacles, while 20s. was paid for two gilt latten sceptres (‘pro .ij. septris de laton. et deauratis emptis pro ymaginibus prescriptis’).

page 5 note 8 A. Pugin, Specimens of Gothic Architecture (1821), i, 24, pl. 33, 35; Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England): London, ii (1925), 121, pl. 174. The external and much of the internal masonry was renewed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but there is evidence that the heraldic charges were copied with some care. The new work of the hall was put under the charge of John Godmeston as clerk of the works and Hugh Herland as carpenter and controller on 21 Jan. 1393/4 (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1391–6, p. 349).

page 5 note 9 The new stone cornice and the twenty-six stone corbels were made by the masons Richard Washbourne and John Swalwe under a contract of 18 Mar. 1394/5 (E.101/473/21, printed in Salzman, L. F., Building in England, 1952, p. 472Google Scholar), according to designs by Master Henry Yevele, half to be completed by 24 June 1395 and the rest by 2 Feb. 1395/6. For the masons and carpenter of the hall see J. H. Harvey, English Mediaeval Architects (1954).

page 6 note 1 Froissart, Æuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, xv (Brussels, 1871), p. 180; cf. Wallon, op. cit. ii, 83. The possibility that the Confessor's Arms might have been first impaled before the death of Anne of Bohemia is suggested by stained glass in the north chantry chapel of Westwell Church, Kent (Griffin, R. in Archaeologia Cantiana, xlvii, 1935, 170 ff.Google Scholar), where the arms of the Confessor are twice impaled: once with those attributed to St. Edmund (Azure three crowns or). The other shield contains a double impalement: the Confessor's arms impaling France Ancient and England quarterly impale the Empire quartering Bohemia. But it seems more likely that the glass commemorates a royal interest in the work soon after Anne's death but before Richard's second marriage. For Richard's use of Anne's badges after her death see below; and for his probable use of her arms posthumously, p. 20.

page 6 note 2 The enrolled accounts of the Keeper of the Wardrobe of the Household for the whole of Richard II's reign are contained in P.R.O., E. 361/5, rot. 21 dorse ff. The earliest mention of the arms of St. Edward occurs in an account covering plate newly made between 30 Sept. 1393 and 30 Sept. 1396 (rot. 24).

page 6 note 3 P.R.O., E. 101/403/22, f. 1 ff., f. 5V, f. 7; the Controller's book also survives for this year: British Museum, Add. MS. 35115. The normal description is ‘cum armis Anglie et Francie quartellatis’, which is applied without exception to the pieces of new plate made in the year 17 Ric. II.

page 6 note 4 E. 361/5, rot. 24; E. 101/403/10, ff. 55–60 (bound after f. 6), f. 38. The formula used is ‘;signat. armis Sancti Edwardi et Anglie et Francie partitis’. Among old silver vessels sent to London goldsmiths for breaking up, in part exchange for new, were some ‘signat. armis quartellatis’.

page 6 note 5 Monk of Evesham: Historia vitae et regni Ricardi II, ed. T. Hearne (1729), p. 122: ‘Ubi datum erat primo signum vel stigma illud egregium cum Cervo Albo, cum corona et cathena aurea.’ Brooches of white harts had been pawned by Richard to the City of London in 1379 (Riley, H. T., Memorials of London, 1868, pp. 429Google Scholar, 443, 550; cf. J. G. Nichols in Archaeologia, xxix, 38), but there is nothing to suggest the distribution of the badge as a livery before 1390. G. F. Beltz, in Retrospective Review, N.S. ii (1828), 501, actually states that the badge of a hart distributed at Smithfield in 1390 was ‘pendent from a collar of golden broomscods’, referring to Cotton MS. Tiberius C. ix, f. 25; but this is merely the Monk of Evesham's statement quoted above, and does not mention broom-cods; cf. Leland, Collectanea (1770), ii. 482.

page 7 note 1 E. Perroy: The Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II (Royal Historical Society, Camden 3rd ser., xlviii, 1933), p. 103: ‘cuique signum nostrum quo fruimur et quo nostri milites nostris lateribus assistentes utuntur, admodum cervi cubantis, tradidimus ubilibet deferendum.’ The Wardrobe Book of 1392–3 (see above, p. 6, n. 3), f. i ff., mentions ‘.ij. olle argent, deaur. de lagena eyem. [i.e. enamelled] in cooperculis vno albo ceruo iacenti sub vna arbore’, a piece ‘cum Rege equitante super equum album cum vno ceruo albo iacenti in medio plat, super montem’ and another ‘cum vno ceruo super cooperculum’.

page 7 note 2 E. 361/5, rot. 7d.: ‘Et Gilberto Prince pictori London, pro diuersis operibus per ipsum factis circa vapulacionem diuersorum Baneriorum penons pencell. standard, de armis domini Regis et Sancti Edwardi et cum Bagis [i.e. badges] suis ac pictura vnius bargie domini Regis cum vno ceruo albo pro eadem bargea ac alijs necessarijs officium suum tangentibus’, for which he was paid £180. 3s. 10d. by a writ of Privy Seal enrolled in the Memoranda of Easter Term year 19 (1395–6). The word vapulacio is used of printed or stamped designs: I am indebted to Mr. R. E. Latham for references to the word in similar contexts in Rymer, Foedera, ix, 334 (from a wardrobe account of 1416); E. 101/407/5, m. 3 (c. 1421), and 409/2, m. 19 (1439–40).

page 7 note 3 Ibid.: ‘Et Thome Litlyngton pictori London, pro diuersis operibus … ac pro vapulacione .xx. goun. long. de tartaryn rub. cum ceruis albis de argento cum coronis et cathenis de auro iacentibus in Genestr. factis pro .xx. dominabus ordinatis ad ducendum .xx. milites armatos de Turri London, usque Smethefeld contra hastilud. ibidem tent, post coronacionem domine Isabelle Regine mense January anno .xx0. vna cum .xx. goun. curt, de eadem secta pro dictis militibus….’ Litlyngton was paid £700. 5s. id. for his work for the King's Wardrobe alone in 1396–8; Prince had similarly received very large payments and it is quite possible that the Diptych was included among the ‘various other works of their art’ (alijs diuersis operibus artem suam tangentibus') referred to in the summary accounts which alone survive. It should be noted that two of the half-yearly Issue Rolls are missing for the period Apr. 1396–Apr. 1397 out of a series otherwise continuous for many years, while no accounts for the King's Chamber survive at this period. Harts lying in trails of broom occur between words of the inscription on the brass of Sir John Golofre (died November 1396) in the south ambulatory of Westminster Abbey. (For a good rubbing see Society of Antiquaries, Brass Rubbings, Middlesex portfolio 2.)

page 7 note 4 E. 101/495/23, particulars of account from 14 Oct. 1396 to 16 Dec. 1397. Among the works done at Eltham Palace was: ‘Opera vitri ad taxam. Et Galfrido Glasyer pro factura tarn diuersarum fenestrarum vitr. de nouo puluerizat. cum ceruis in aula ibidem quam pro emendacione omnium fenestrarum vitr. infra magnam Capellam eiusdem manerij ex conuencione secum facta in grosso promaiori commodo dicti domini Regis—viij.li.’

page 7 note 5 E. 101/495/30, counter-roll of works at the Old Manor in Windsor Park: ‘Opera pictat. ad taxam. Et Thome Prynce pro pictura .v. camerarum ordinatarum pro Rege et .ij. capellis paruis necnon vnius capelle magne de longitudine .Lxx. pedum depict, cum ceruis cum cornibus deauratis vna cum inuencione colorum et auri pro pictura earundem ex conuencione secum facta in grosso pro maiori commodo dicti domini Regis … CC. .ix.li. xvj.s. vj.d.’ For references to this account and to several others I am greatly indebted to Mr. L. F. Salzman.

page 8 note 1 E. 101/470/17, particulars of accounts for works at Westminster Palace and the Tower of London, 1397–8. Among the works at Westminster a payment is included to William Bourgh, glasier, ‘pro .xij. pedibus vitri operati cum armis domini Regis et Sancti Edwardi similiter emptis pro lez oylettis earundem .iiij. fenestrarum aule.’

page 8 note 2 Many, but not all, of these badges were recut in the nineteenth century; see p. 5, n. 8 above.

page 8 note 3 E. 101/502/23: ‘cum Escuchons garters et colers de lez Bagez nre sire le Roy … cum Escuchons colyers et corones et fibres cum soueignez vous de moy.’

page 8 note 4 See p. 5, n. 4 above.

page 8 note 5 B.M., Harleian MS. 319, ff. 53–58. The principal devices described as marking the royal plate at this time (30 Sept. 1406–8 Dec. 1407) were: cum armis Anglie et Francie quartellatis (16); armis Anglie et Francie (13); armis domini Regis quartellatis (8); armis domini Regis (7); cum uno leopardo (7); armis Anglie et Sancti Edwardi partitis (6); cum una parua corona (4); cum uno Cressant, una Stella, et una Rosa (3); cum una Rosa (3); cum una corona (2); armis Anglie Francie et Sancti Edwardi partitis (2); armis Regis et Francie partitis (1); armis Anglie et Francie partitis (1); cum vno ceruo (1); and 20 other marks each occurring only once.

page 8 note 6 Scharf, op. cit., pp. 39–41. The effigy was undertaken by an indenture of 24 Apr. 1395 (printed by Rymer, Foedera, vii, 797) and was to be completed by Michaelmas 1397; the marble tomb, made under indenture of 1 Apr. 1395, had been paid for (with the exception of £6. 13s. 4d. out of a total of £250) by 24 July 1397 (E. 101/473/10). The account for payments to Nicholas Broker and Godfrey Prest, the two coppersmiths who made the effigies and other metalwork (E. 364/35, rot. E, Foreign Roll 2 Hen. IV), shows that they received the full sum of £400 for the work in instalments paid between 28 Apr. 1395 and 23 July 1397, and a further £300 allowed for the gilding of the work between 7 Dec. 1398 and 14 Apr. 1399. The images were made in two houses in the parish of St. Alban Wood Street in the City of London hired for four years (i.e. Apr. 1395–Apr. 1399), and the materials purchased are listed as ‘in auro, argento, cupro, laton., ferro, asseri, carboni maritimo voc. charcole, focale, zabulo, ollis luteis, pannis tel. lin. et alijs diuersis rebus’; the lengths of linen cloth may have been for drawing full-size cartoons. It is worth noting that the effigies are specified as being made in the likeness of the deceased king and queen: ‘ad similitudinem dictorum nuper Regis et Regine Anne contrafact.’

page 8 note 7 The view that the use of the broom by Richard II was entirely unconnected with the surname Plantagenet has been generally accepted since the appearance in 1842 of two brilliant papers by John Gough Nichols, on the heraldic devices of these effigies (Archaeologia, xxix, 32–59) and on royal livery collars (Gentleman's Magazine, 1842, pt. i, pp. 250 ff., 378–9). While Nichols proved beyond question the immediate French origin of the collar of broom-cods, his dismissal of the traditional connexion with the dynasty of Plantagenet depends solely on the negative evidence that the cognomen is not found in use as a family surname until it was adopted by Richard, duke of York, about 1448.

page 9 note 1 The description was given in an account of Charles Poupart, silversmith to Charles VI of France, formerly in the Chambre des Comptes at Paris, and including payments to Jehan Compere, goldsmith of Paris, for making a golden collar for the King of France, another like it for the King of England, and three similar but less valuable collars for the dukes of Lancaster, Gloucester, and York. According to P. Helyot, Histoire des Ordres Monastiques, etc. (1719), viii, 278, the date of the original account was 1393, but an eighteenth-century transcript (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS. fr. 20684, ff. 467–78)) published by L. Mirot (Mémoires de la Société de l'Histoire de Paris et de l'Île-de-France, xxix, 1902, 125 ff.) puts the date of the account as 1398 and the occasion of the gift of the collars as the proxy marriage at Paris of Isabella de Valois to Richard II on 12 Mar. 1395/6. The king's collar is described as ‘fait en façon de deux gros tuyaulx rons, et entre iceux tuyaux cosses de genestes doubles, entretenant par les queux, et autour d'ycelui collier sur lesd. cosses, fait 9 potences, garnies chacune de deux [neuf] grosses perles l'un par l'autre et entreux deux d'icelles potences autour dudit collier a 50 lettres d' or pendant a l'un d'iceulx tuyaux, qui font par diz fois le mot du roy Jamès, et au devant d'icelluy collier a un gros balay quarre environne de huit grosses perles de compte et au derriere d'iceluy collier a deux [cosses en forme de] cosses de genestes d'or ouvertes, esmaillees l'une de blanc et l'autre de vert, au a dedans en chascune d'elles cosses 3 semblables grosses perles, et lesd. tuyaux d'iceluy collier pooinsonnez de branches, fleurs et cosses de genestes, valant en tout 258 frans., 7s., 8d.’ (The text given here is taken from Mirot; possibly significant variants from Helyot are included within square brackets.) I have to thank M. Jean Chazelas for a detailed investigation of the French accounts which he most kindly undertook. M. Chazelas finds that Bibl. Nat. MS. fr. 20684 does not refer to 1398, but quite specifically to works done between the beginning of Mar. 1395/6 and the beginning of Oct. 1396. He has discovered further that Archives nat., KK. 25, f. 74v contains a reference to repairs carried out, between 1 Feb. 1395/6 and 31 Jan. 1396/7, to the French king's collar ‘pareil a celui que ledit sire envoia au roy d'Angleterre’; further that the money-changer Andry du Moulin, who appears as one of those responsible for making the collars sent to England, is mentioned only in accounts of the period 1 July 1395–31 Jan. 1395/6 (KK. 41, ff. 84, 113, 169).

Another broom-cod collar brought to England by Queen Isabella later in 1396 is described as being made of eight pieces like open broom-flowers, with eight other pieces shaped like pairs of broom-cods (F. Wormald in Journal of Warburg, etc. Inst. xvii, 199). It is in the highest degree unlikely that the carefully drawn collar worn by Richard in the Diptych would differ so markedly from both of these French collars if the only purpose of showing the collar was to compliment the House of Valois.

page 9 note 2 Hartshorne, E., in Archaeological Journal, lxvi (1909), 86Google Scholar, states: ‘When Richard II and Anne of Bohemia visited London in 1392, the queen wore a robe embroidered with an edging of broom-cods, and a rich carcanet round her neck.’ No reference is given for this statement, and it has not so far been traced in any of the chroniclers' accounts of the state visit to London in 1392, nor in the Latin poem describing it (T. Wright, Political Poems from Edward III to Richard III, Rolls Series, 1859, i, 282–300).

page 9 note 3 Devon, F., Issues of the Exchequer (1837), p. 253Google Scholar. The original Issue Roll (E. 403/546, m. 13), under the date Wednesday, 3 Dec. 17 Ric. II, reads: ‘Drugoni Barantyn et Hans Doubler aurifabris London. In denar. eis liberat. super fabricacione duo Collarium et vnius Nouche de auro cum perlis et lapidibus preciosis ornatorum pro persona domini Regis. Lxvj.li. xiij.s. iiij.d.’ This must be regarded as disproving the negative statement of Miss Clarke (Burlington Mag. lviii, 289) that ‘there is no evidence that Richard wore a collar of his own and no evidence beyond the diptych that he ever wore any other collar than that of Lancaster’. See further n. 1 above, and p. 10, n. 5 below.

page 9 note 4 Rivalry between the English and French royal houses in heraldry, badges, the holy oil of unction, and probably the broom-cod collar has been emphasized by Tristram in The Month (1949), ii, 26–27Google Scholar.

page 10 note 1 Tristram, loc. cit. p. 20.

page 10 note 2 See p. 1, nn. 4, 5, above. It seems incredible that the French Court, which had certainly sent Créton on a voyage of discovery to Scotland expressly to ascertain the true facts, should not have been certain of Richard's death by 1406, when Queen Isabella was married for the second time (29 June; her betrothal had taken place on 4 June 1404. See Wallon, op. cit. ii, 536, and p. 1, n. 4 above).

page 10 note 3 The plant is shown without flowers or seeds, whereas known representations of the Planta Genista show it bearing both flowers and fruit. The plant of the Diptych agrees with rosemary in having consistently opposite pairs of sessile leaves, with pairs of smaller leaves in the axils. The likeness to dried branches of rosemary is very close in general effect. This may be relevant, as it is doubtful whether the plant was grown in England at the time, and if not, the lack of flowers on the plant shown in the Diptych would be explained. Rosemary is not mentioned in the long list of herbs given in a mid-fifteenth-century English treatise on gardening (ed. A. M. T. Amherst in Archaeologia, liv, 1895, 157–72), but it does appear in the list in B.M. Sloane MS. 1201 of about the same period (printed in T. Wright, Homes of Other Days, 1871, p. 312).

page 10 note 4 Palgrave, Antient Kalendars, p. 357 (cf. J. H. Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, 1898, iv, 193 ff.). No. 334 of the Inventory of Jewels which had belonged to Richard II, taken 29 May 1400, reads: ‘Item .ix. overages d'or d'un coler du livere de la Royne Anne de braunches de rose maryn garnisez de perles sanz peres pois —vi. unc. iii. quart.’ A sword-belt and sheath were embroidered for the king with white harts and rosemary in 1398–9, to be hung beneath his helmet in the chapel at Windsor: ‘Ad broudat. unius vaginae et Zonaepro i Gladio Dom. Regis operat. in brouder. super velvet rub. cum Cervis albis coron. et Rosemary de auro de Cipre, et serico ad pendend. subtus Galeam Dom. Regis infra capellam de Windesore hoc anno.’ (J. Anstis, The Register of the Order of the Garter, 1724, ii, 56.) In the same year two long gowns with sleeves were embroidered for Queen Isabel for Christmas with sprays of rosemary and broom: ‘pro broudatur. ii gown. long, cum manicis larg. una de panno sanguin. in grano, et altera di Blanket long, operat. in brouder cum frondibus de Rosemary et Genestre de auro de Cipro et serico pro dom. Regina contra festum Natal is Domini ad broudatur. ii gown.’ (Ibid., i, 115 quoting account of Keeper of the Great Wardrobe for 22 Ric. II.)

page 10 note 5 A detailed account of the meeting between the two kings near Ardres on 27, 28, and 30 Oct. 1396 is given in a manuscript (Oriel College, Oxford, No. 46, ff. 104–6) printed by P. Meyer in Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de France (1880), pp. 209 ff. Richard is described as wearing a long gown of red velvet, with a hat full of hanging pearls and a rich collar of the livery of the French king, a great hart on his arm, and accompanied by his gentlemen in gowns of red cloth with bands of white of the livery of the dead queen (‘en gownes de drap ruge ove bendes de blanc de la livree du roigne que derrein murrust’, p. 212). Richard gave to Charles a collar of pearls and other precious stones of the livery of the dead queen, worth 5,000 marks (‘un coler des perles et autres preciouses perres de la liveree de la roigne que derrein murrust, pres de Vm marcz’, p. 217). Charles VI gave to the duchesses of Lancaster and Gloucester, to the countess of Huntingdon and to Joan daughter of the duke of Lancaster collars of his livery of broom-cods (‘colers de son liveree de bromcoddes’, p. 219: printed ‘broincoddes’), which he fastened round their necks.

Richard's singular preoccupation with the memory of his first wife, at the very moment of receiving his second, suggests that the Elizabethan equation of rosemary with remembrance may have been due to a tradition of this royal obsession. The earliest occurrence of the theme quoted in O.E.D. dates only from 1584.

page 11 note 1 The glass of the east window appears to be certainly of earlier date than some of that in the side windows bearing both ‘W’s and crowned ‘H’s, the former doubtless alluding to William of Wykeham (died 27 Sept. 1404; the windows bore inscriptions asking prayers for him, not for his soul), the latter to Henry IV, who interested himself in the college (see B. Rackham, Victoria and Albert Museum—Guide to the Collections of Stained Glass, 1936, pp. 50–51). It is then reasonable to associate the glass of the east window with that brought from Oxford to the college in the summer of 1393, as recorded by a surviving household account of Wykeham for Apr.–Sept. in that year: ‘In expensis .ij. chariettorum de Esshere usque Oxoniam et de ibidem usque Clere et Wyntoniam cariantium vitrum pro fenestris Collegii domini Wyntonie per .ix. dies cum .xij. equis et .vj. hominibus charettivis, xix.s. iij.d.’ (Winchester College Muniments, no. 1 = Domus I. 1, printed, not quite correctly, by J. D. LeCouteur, Ancient Glass in Winchester, 1920, p. 117). The chapel was consecrated on 17 July 1395 (A. F. Leach, A History of Winchester College, 1899, p. 134), by which time it is to be expected that the glass of the east window would have been in place, while the Account Rolls of 1396–7 (WCM 22080) record a payment to a glazier for mending the glass of several windows damaged in the chapel (‘Sol. .j. vitreatori emendando vitrum diversarum fenestrarum in Capella hoc anno peioratarum vj.s. viij.d.’; cf. LeCouteur, loc. cit.). The painter of the glass is known to have been Thomas (of Oxford) who inserted his own portrait in the east window with the inscription: ‘Thomas operator istius vitri’, and visited the college from time to time, as well as producing the glass for New College, Oxford (C. Woodforde, The Stained Glass of New College, Oxford, 1951, pp. 3–6). For the Winchester glass see LeCouteur, op. cit.; J. H. Harvey in Illus. London News, 1 Apr. 1950, ccxvi, 491–3; M. Rickert, Painting in Britain—The Middle Ages, 1954, pp. 186–8. Thomas of Oxford was very probably not the designer of the painted glass, and it is therefore interesting to note that Wykeham's account roll for 1393 shows that he was employing the London painter Herebright (‘In carecta Rogeri atte Groue conducta de Esshere vsque Farnham cum hernesio Herebright pictoris Londoniensis cariato mense Aprilis iij.s. iiij.d.’), presumably the same as the Herebright de Cologne, citizen and painter of London, who on 13 Aug. 1398 undertook to paint an image of St. Paul with its tabernacle of carpentry on the right of the High Altar of St. Paul's Cathedral for £8 or more, and later petitioned the Dean and Chapter for £12. 16s. for painting the image of St. Paul (Historical Manuscripts Commission, 9th Report, i, 30, Nos. 7, 41).

page 11 note 2 The building of the Outer Gate can be dated to 1394–7. An account roll for 1394–5 (WCM 22078) allowed commons on All Saints Day (1 Nov. 1394) to masons and carpenters who had come to make a contract with William Wynford, the master mason, for building the outer tower (‘pro turre exteriori construenda’; LeCouteur, op. cit. pp. 77, 119); and in 1397–8 payment was made for the provision and setting of cresset-stones at the gates (Custus Operum roll 3, WCM 75). The design and execution of the statue presumably belong within these same years; it would have been paid for as part of the main work financed by Wykeham, recorded in accounts now lost.

page 11 note 3 The most decisive evidence is that of the Winchester College glass panel and stone head; see above, n. 1, and below, p. 12, nn. 3, 4. Some apparent evidence to the contrary exists in the illuminated initials of charters at Ipswich (Ipswich and East Suffolk Record Office, photographed by the Courtauld Institute of Art, negative 138/67(32)) and Shrewsbury (Corporation Muniments, Box I, No. 24), both of which show the king with a forked beard, and that at Shrewsbury with a moustache as well. The Shrewsbury charter is dated 22 Nov. 1389 and that at Ipswich 26 Feb. 1379/80, when Richard was thirteen years old. Since it is manifestly impossible that Richard should have worn a beard at this date, and the illumination of initials was an optional addition to charters after their delivery, it must be presumed that the dates of painting are some years later than those of the charters. At Shrewsbury the portrait may even have been based on the life during Richard's visit to hold Parliament there in Jan. 1398. I am indebted to Dr. G. Zarnecki for drawing my attention to the Ipswich miniature and for his generous gift of a photograph of it.

page 12 note 1 See p. 8, n. 6 above.

page 12 note 2 The identity of the surviving portrait with that referred to in the Issue Roll (E. 403/554, m. 12; abstract in F. Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, p. 262) was suggested by W. Burges (in G. G. Scott, Gleanings from Westminster Abbey, 2nd ed., 1863, p. 176n.) and accepted by W. R. Lethaby (Westminster Abbey and the Kings' Craftsmen, 1906, pp. 278–9) and E. W. Tristram (English Wall-Painting of the 14th Century, 1955, p. 45), who regards Master Peter (Combe) as himself most probably the painter. (For Combe see E. H. Pearce, The Monks of Westminster, 1916, p. 109.) The entry in the roll, dated Tuesday, 14 Dec. 1395, runs: ‘Dompno Petro Sacriste ecclesie beati Petri Westm. In denariis sibi liberatis per manus Johannis Haxey in persolucionem .xx.li. quas dominus Rex sibi liberare mandavit tam pro pictura cooperture supra Tumbam Anne nuper Regine Anglie infra dictam ecclesiam humate existentis quam pro remocione vnius tumbe prope tumbam eiusdem Regine ac eciam pro pictura eiusdem tumbe remote et pro pictura vnius ymaginis ad similitudinem vnius Regis contrafacte in choro ecclesie predicte per breve de priuato sigillo inter mandata de hoc termino—.xx.li.’

page 12 note 3 Scharf, op. cit. p. 60, who saw the original glass in its corroded state at Ettington Park, Warwickshire, states that the portrait is ‘wearing similar tufts of hair upon the chin to those described’ (in referring to the effigy and the abbey portrait). Minute examination of the glass in 1949, before, during, and after its cleaning failed to reveal the slightest trace of these tufts of hair, though cracks and surface corrosion gave a false impression at a slight distance. See also LeCouteur, op. cit. p. 81.

page 12 note 4 Chitty, H. and Pitcher, S., Mediaeval Sculptures at Winchester College (1932), pp. 10–11Google Scholar and pl. xxiva.

page 12 note 5 See above, p. 11, n. 1. There was no invariable practice as to the carving of architectural sculpture. Some pieces were certainly worked at the bench, others in situ, but at least the final touches and any relatively delicate work would be added after the stone was in position, to avoid the risk of damage. Two such important portraits as those flanking the great window of the chapel probably did not receive their final form until shortly before the scaffolds were struck, almost certainly in 1394–5.

page 12 note 6 P.R.O., E. 101/402/10, f. 6 ff.

page 12 note 7 Wykeham's household account (Winchester College Muniments, no. 1), compared with the bishop's itinerary.

page 12 note 8 Chitty and Pitcher, op. cit. pl. xxivb.

page 12 note 9 B.M., Royal MS., 20 B. vi, f. 2; reproduced in M. V. Clarke, op. cit. pl. 2; in J. H. Harvey, The Plantagenets (1948), fig. 48; and in G. M. Trevelyan, Illustrated English Social History (1949), i, pl. 41. This illumination is presumably connected with the visit to England of Robert le Mennot or Lermite in the spring of 1395, when he saw the king immediately after his return from Ireland (Perroy, E., L'Angleterre et le grand schisme d'Occident, Paris, 1933, p. 364Google Scholar). But it is uncertain whether the manuscript was brought to England by Robert, or was the immediate out-come of his visit: on this depends the question whether the portrait of Richard goes back to a ‘type’ of 1394 or earlier (as on the whole seems probable), or is to be accepted as based on his appearance in May 1395.

page 13 note 1 The portrait might have been worked up from an earlier sketch if painted during Richard's absence in Ireland, Oct. 1394–May 1395; and this absence on campaign following so soon on his cruel loss might well have been the occasion of the king's allowing his beard to grow. There has been a tendency in much of the literature to exaggerate the youthfulness of Richard's appearance in the Diptych: all that can safely be said is that the king's age might be anything between about 17 (1384) and 30 (1397)as extreme limits.

page 13 note 2 B.M., Royal MS. 12 E. xxii, f. 132(art. 5): ‘medicina pro petra probata per medicum Ricardi Regis secundi in ipso Rege, etc.’

page 13 note 3 The Wardrobe Book of 1395–6 (E. 101/403/10) contains long lists of payments (f. 40) for medicines ‘pro sanitate corporis Regis et familie sue’, to a total of £63. 9s. 3d., of which at least a payment of £4. 5s., as well as a proportion of the rest, was for the king's personal medicines alone. See also F. Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, p. 257.

page 13 note 4 For Richard's outburst of fury at the funeral of Anne of Bohemia see A. Steel, op. cit. p. 203. The case of Jeffreys is a well authenticated clinical history; see Irving, H. B., Life of Judge Jeffreys (1898)Google Scholar.

page 13 note 5 No theory in favour of a date after Richard's death can face the multitude of factors which prevent the Diptych from being regarded as a memorial painting (see above, p. 1, and below, p. 19, n. 5), the many indications that its complicated and unique iconography can only be associated with Richard's own personality, or the fundamental impossibility of supposing that a painting dictated by Henry IV or Henry V would so emphasize Richard's regality and association with England's royal saints.

For the date of the change from the arms semee de fleurs-de-lys in France and England see Wyon, A. B.in. Journal of the British Archaeological Association, xxxix (1883), p. 164Google Scholar; The Great Seals of England (1887), pp. 43–44; Jenkinson, H. in Archaeologia, lxxxv (1936), 293 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. The late H. S. Kingsford (in Archaeological Journal, xcvii, 1941, 154–80) regarded the gold great seal with the arms of France Modern as ‘made at the beginning of Henry IVs reign’ (p. 173).

The use in the Diptych of the older heraldry is the more striking in that the forms of helm and shield (fig. 1) are those first being introduced in the last decade of the fourteenth century (see below, p. 15, n. 2). The helm, with its lip of slight projection, is a development from that of the Black Prince, but was soon to be superseded by that with a large ‘frog-mouthed’ lip which became universal by 1420 or earlier and is always shown heraldically in threequarter view (compare pls. vi and vii in A. Wagner, Heraldry in England, 1946). Among the best examples of the actual piece of armour are the helms associated with Sir Reginald Braybrook (died 1405) and Sir Nicholas Hawberk (died 1407), which would not have been new when hung over their tombs in Cobham Church, Kent (G. F. Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms, ii, 1920, 103–4, a reference for which I am indebted to Mr. Claude Blair).

Similarly the shield with vertical sides and obtusely pointed base is found in the masonry of the north porch of Westminster Hall (1394–1400). A work of the supreme quality of the Diptych is likely to date from the initial phase of such new fashions.

page 14 note 1 Wallon, op. cit. ii, 527–31.

page 14 note 2 In 1404 Maud (de Ufford), the old countess of Oxford, widowed mother of Robert de Vere, was active in Essex on behalf of Richard II, whom she declared to be still alive. According to the St. Albans chronicler Thomas Walsingham (Historia Anglicana, Rolls Series, ii, 1864, 262–4) ‘she also had made many silver and gilt harts, namely the badges which King Richard used to give to his knights, esquires and friends; that the knights of that countryside and other brave men might the more easily be drawn to the cause by this distribution (of badges) on the king's behalf.’

page 14 note 3 Wallon, op. cit. ii, 383, 532.

page 14 note 4 Ibid, ii, 526; The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland 1406–36, pp. 71, 213, 239, 289.

page 14 note 5 43rd Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, p. 579.

page 14 note 6 Wallon, op. cit. ii, 532.

page 14 note 7 John de Fordun, Scotichronicon, ed. T. Hearne (1722), iv, 1211; Liber Pluscardiensis (The Historians of Scotland, vii, 1877), p. 337.

page 15 note 1 F. M. Kelly and R. Schwabe, A Short History of Costume and Armour (1931), p. 26.

page 15 note 2 B.M., Royal MS. 2 A. xviii, f. 23v; reproduced in Rickert, M., Painting in Britain—The Middle Ages (1954), pl. 166Google Scholar; the date lies between 1399 and 1410, almost approximcertainly after 1401 (ibid. p. 192, n. 64). A stylistic connexion between this miniature and the Diptych has often been stressed, most recently by Professor Wormald (Journal of Warburg, etc. Inst. xvii, 196), but the more humanistic, less hieratic, poses should be noticed, the marked differences of costume and coiffure, and in the treatment of faces and the archangel's wings. Likenesses have also been traced between the Diptych and some of the illuminations in the Bedford Psalter and Hours (B.M., Add. MS. 42131), but it should be noted that this is clearly later, not only because of its more humanistic faces, but in that the achievement of arms on f. 73 displays the Royal Arms quartering France Modern, and a helm of the ‘frog-mouthed’ type in three-quarter view (see above, p. 13, n. 5).

page 15 note 3 In the library of the, duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle; see J. A. Herbert, The Sherborne Missal (Roxburghe Club, 1920). The crucifixion is reproduced in Rickert, op. cit. pl. 161. One may also compare the closely similar forms of collar and hair-cut of kings in the Jesse ceiling of St. Helen's, Abingdon, painted soon after 1391 and certainly by 1404 (reproduced in Rickert, op. cit. crosspi. 158; cf. A. E. Preston in Berkshire Archaeological Journal, xl, 1936, 136, 138).

page 15 note 4 Insufficiency of precisely dated material makes dog-matism unwise, but examination of a very large number of paintings, illuminations, and carvings (both English and French) has failed to disclose any evidence conflicting with the proposition that the sweeping and everted high collar framing the face, and a shorter hair-style for men, cut well above the ears, together formed a new fashion approximately coinciding with the opening of the fifteent century, It can be seen already in being in the French illuminations of a copy of the works of Christine dePisan (B.M., Harleian MS. 4431), which can be dated to c. 103; at f. 178 a broom-cod collar, unlike those of the Diptych, is shown.

High collars and a helm (see above, p. 13, n. 5) rather later than those of the Diptych, and hair-styles slightly more developed towards the pudding-bowl cut, appear in the remarkable ‘jewel’ known as ‘Das goldene Rösslin’ at Altötting, Bavaria (pl. xiii), certainly Parisian and not later than 1403 (see Frankenburger, M. in Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, xliv (1924), p. 23Google Scholar; and Müller, T. and Steingräber, E. in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 35. v (1954), pp. 29–79Google Scholar).

page 15 note 5 B.M., Arundel MS. 38, f. 37; reproduced in Rickert, op. cit. pl. 169c.

page 15 note 6 See above, p. 12, n. 9.

page 15 note 7 See above, n. 4. Little or no difference can be detected between the fashionable costumes of France and England, but both are distinguished from those of Germany, Italy, and Spain. While the courtof Paris may have set the crosspi. Channel fashions, there is no reason to think that the London usage was separated by a time-lag of more than a year or two at most.

page 15 note 8 The Month (1949), i, 384.

page 16 note 1 Reproduced in Tristram, E. W., English Wall-Painting of the 14th Century (1955)Google Scholar, pls. 10; cf. pls. 8b, 9, and pp. 36–37.

page 16 note 2 While it is possible to trace Italian, French, Flemish, Bohemian, and Byzantine influences in the style of the painting, its overall impression is markedly different from that of the known works of any foreign country, but differresembles the atmosphere of contemporary English wall- and panel-paintings and stained glass. For an admirable summing-up of the case for English authorship see T. Bodkin, The Wilton Diptych, pp. 10–14; among recent authorities, Borenius, Tristram, Dr. Evans, and Dr. Rickert accept an English origin. Professor Wormald, though stressing Italian contacts, fits the painting into the frame-work of English development.

page 16 note 3 See London, H. S., Royal Beasts (1956), p. 65Google Scholar; Scharf, op. cit. pp. 42–45, 57.

page 16 note 4 P.R.O., E. 101/403/22, f. 15: ‘Johanni Shelwode de Foresta de Wyndesore de dono domini Regis pro custodia vnius Cerui albi de partibus de Chirburgh [Cherburgh—B.M., Add. MS. 35115] sibi presentati ex parte Stephani Scrop militis xiij.s. iiij.d.’ The place may be Cherbourg in France, whence the English garrison was then being evacuated, or Chirbury in Shropshire.

A comparison has been instituted by Professor Wormald (loc. cit. p. 196) between the hart of the Diptych and the beautiful drawing of a stag in the sketchbook of Giovannino de Grassi, who died in 1398 (U. Thieme and F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon). There are significant differresembles ences: de Grassi's sketch is a lifelike view of a real stag, with its broad muzzle and heavy neck (the mane grown in the rutting season) and haunches, while the Diptych shows a refined beast with a greyhound-like muzzle and slender neck and quarters. This stylization of the deer in English heraldry can be traced back at least to 1382, the date of a fine seal (pl. xi, c) of Thomas de Holand, eail of Kent, Richard's half-brother, bearing a hind lying beneath a tree (Winchester College Muniments, 9693, 9694, two documents dated 26 Sept. 1382). This, like the hart of the Diptych, belongs rather to the insular tradition of linear design than to Italian representational realism.

page 16 note 5 E. Perroy, L'Angleterre et le grand schisme …, pp. 341–2.

page 16 note 6 Wallon, op. cit. ii, 275; see also pp. 259, 271, 277.

page 17 note 1 B.M., Cotton MS. Galba B. i. 21, printed in J. Stevenson, Wars of the English in France (Rolls Series, 1861), i, pp. lxxv–lxxvi; and in æuvres de Froissart (ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, 1874), xviii, 584–5. See Appendix II.

page 17 note 2 A. Steel, Richard II, pp. 217 ff.

page 17 note 3 E. Perroy, L'Angleterre et le grand schisme …, p. 353. In the draft truce with France of 1st Jan. 1395/6 it was even stipulated that the French king, his brother, and his uncles should be allied to Richard against the latter's potentially rebellious subjects: ‘Parensi que le Roy, son Friere, et les Uncles soient aliez ovec lui, encountre toutes maneres de Gentz, queux deussent en aucune manere obeir a lui, Et auxi de lui Aider et Susteigner ovec tout lour Povair encontre aucune de ses Subgiz’ (Rymer, Foedera, vii, 811).

page 17 note 4 Ibid. pp. 301, n. 3, 330, 341–2.

page 17 note 5 F. Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, p. 259; issues of Saturday, 24 Apr. 1395: ‘et vnius libri de miraculis Edwardi nuper Regis Anglie cuius corpus apud villam Glouc. humatum existit’ (E. 403/551, m.i). The efforts to obtain Edward's canonization are also referred to in a Memoranda Roll of 20 Ric. II (E. 159/173, Brevia directa Baronibus, Hilary Term, rot. 4V), when the Bishop of London was discharged of £200 of arrears of subsidy in consideration of his having made payments including over 100 marks to the king's proctor in Rome for the process of canonization (‘cent marcs et pluis a mestre William de Storteford nostre procuratour en la Court de Rome pur la canonizacion de nostre Besaiel Edward qui gist a Gloucestre’).

No copy of the miracles attributed to Edward II seems to have survived; I am indebted to Mr. W. A. Pantin for much assistance in the attempt to trace them.

page 17 note 6 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1388–92, p. 406; the arrangements were given papal ratification in December 1403 (Cal. Papal Registers, 1396–1404, pp. 598–600). The painting of white harts that now survives probably belongs to one of the repairs carried out at the expense of Oriel College in 1737, 1789, and 1798 (inscription on pier west of tomb), but must represent an earlier scheme. I am indebted to the late Mr. R. P. Howgrave-Graham for drawing my attention to these paintings, and to the Rev. G. H. Fendick, Canon and Librarian of Gloucester Cathedral, for a copy of the inscription and other information.

page 18 note 1 The intermingling of religious and political motives is a commonplace of the Middle Ages, and it would be a mistake to impute to Richard II any lack of sincerity in his religious outlook on the ground of its political implications. He was a most devout Catholic and obtained, for instance, a papal indult in 1397 that his chaplains might read the canonical hours after the use of the Friars Preachers, ‘that being the use which the King reads daily’ (Cal. Papal Registers, 1396–1404, p. 67). His benefactions to the Church were enormous: besides his contribution of £ 100 a year to the works of Westminster Abbey from 1387 onwards (Rackham, R. B. in Proc. British Academy, iv, 1909–10, 40Google Scholar), he gave over £1,000 sterling as well as jewels to Canterbury Cathedral (B.M., Arundel MS. 68, f. 19). To give an approximate idea of the value of these gifts in terms of building costs at the present time (1957) they must be multiplied by 100 (for this factor see Harvey, J. H., The Gothic World, 1950, p. w42Google Scholar; plus allowance for subsequent fall in the value of money). As regards Canterbury, the Memoranda Rolls show that the king also advanced money to the Prior and Convent for the building of the west front (‘la feseur de la gable de leur eglise’) in 1396–7 (E. 159/172, Brevia Easter Term, rot. 9; —/173, Brevia Michaelmas Term, rot. 11), and to help the cathedral smithy, presumably engaged on the making of the ironwork for the great west window, in 1398–9 (‘en eide de la forge de lesglise metropolitane de Canterburs’;—/175, Brevia Easter Term, rot. 5).

Richard also took a friendly interest in the founding of William of Wykeham's colleges, which he endowed with remarkable privileges in return for daily masses to be said for himself and his first queen (Cal. Charter Rolls, 1341–1417, p. 352; the text of the Winchester College privileges is printed in T. F. Kirby, Annals of Winchester College, 1892, pp. 452–5).

page 18 note 2 ‘Quemvis prostravit—regalia qui violavit; Obruit hereticos—et eorum stravit amicos’; for the whole inscription see Royal Commission on Historical Monuments: London, i (1924), 31aGoogle Scholar.

page 18 note 3 The text of the will is printed (from P.R.O., E. 23/1) in Nichols, J., Wills of the Kings and Queens of England, etc. (1780), pp. 191–200Google Scholar; translation in J. H. Harvey, The Plantagenets (2nd ed., 1959, pp. 222–7).

page 18 note 4 Cal. Papal Registers, 1396–1404, p. 259; cf. A. Steel, op. cit. p. 243.

page 18 note 5 For an account of the Parliament of Shrewsbury see Steel, op. cit. pp. 241–3; Wallon, op. cit. ii, 193–205.

page 18 note 6 Steel, op. cit. p. 233; the number of archers was probably 400 (and not the 4,000 stated by the chronicler Adam of Usk). The Foreign Roll of 21 Ric. II (E. 364/32. H.) includes an account of the Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe in the Tower of London which shows that for the king's guard at the Parliament of Sept. 1397 there were issued 170 bows, 160 sheaves of arrows, 3 gross of bowstrings, 160 hatchets of war, and 30 breastplates. It does not follow that this issue of arms comprised all those used by the guard.

page 19 note 1 Rot. Parl iii, p. 368b; Wallon, op. cit. ii, 203.

page 19 note 2 Wormald, loc. cit. p. 201.

page 19 note 3 For the number eleven in folk-lore see Broad-wood, L. E. and Maitland, J. A. Fuller, English County Songs 1893), pp. 154–9Google Scholar; Bett, H., Nursery Rhymes and Tales 1924), pp. 49–55Google Scholar.

page 19 note 4 Cook, A. K., About Winchester College (1917), pp. 97–99Google Scholar.

page 19 note 5 The general purpose of all religious works of art is excite devotion and to serve as foci for the contemplative act of prayer. Where figures of donors or other mundane personages are included, it is with the intention of asking for prayers on behalf of their good estate during life and for their souls after death. In such ‘donor pictures’ the main subject is taken from accepted religious iconography (Canonical and Apocryphal Scripture and the Lives of the Saints) and the ‘donor’ shown in prayer.

The Diptych, though superficially resembling a ‘donor picture’, does not belong to this type: its main subject is not otherwise known and Richard's posture is not that of prayer. The painting's specific purpose must therefore have been in any case quite exceptional (cf. Tristram in The Month, 1949, i, 380–1). Had it been a memorial picture inviting prayers for Richard's soul, its iconography would have been normal.

It seems certain that the collars of broom-cods have a central importance, and they clearly associate Richard with the eleven angels. The angels are therefore not simply the Court of Heaven, for even if Richard's concept of his own Divine Right reached the proportions of megalomania, so devout a Catholic would hardly have suggested that the Heavenly Court would wear his personal livery. The angels are then certainly symbolic; their collars might indeed be symbolic also, marking attachment to the known livery of the King of France; but this view is greatly weakened by the dissimilarity of the collars to that known to have been presented to Richard, and also by the lack of any more overt reference to France. It has been argued (by J. G. Nichols and Miss Clarke, among others) that the lack of evidence for the making of collars of broom-cods in England, in spite of the exhaustive researches of Ashmole and Anstis carried out when many more of the accounts of the Royal Wardrobe were available than now survive, proves that the collars of the Diptych are those of the French Order. Yet it is difficult to avoid the inference that English collars were made (see below, p. 23, n. 4), though only for private use, and this secrecy accounts for the absence of a broom-cod collar from the king's effigy, where one would otherwise have been expected, and from all other known representations of Richard.

In The Arts, Artists and Thinkers, edited by John M. Todd (1958), Mr. Eric John writes on ‘Faith and Works in Mediaeval Art’, trenchantly criticizing the Wilton Diptych (pp. 51–53) on the ground that it represents ‘a thoroughly secular arrogance and pride’ and ‘violates every canon of propriety based on the Gospels and the established norm of Christian tradition’. Such strictures are based on the supposition that the Diptych is a memorial picture, and would be only too well justified if the angels represented simply the Court of Heaven welcoming a deceased monarch. But set in relation to Richard's known orthodoxy (see p. 17, n. 1 above) this line of argument becomes an additional proof that the picture cannot have been a memorial, and that it must have had a purpose in which the sacred and the secular were worthily united,

page 20 note 1 Alford, M., Annales Ecclesiastici et Civiles Britannorum—Fides Regia Britannica (Leodii, 1663), i, 57Google Scholar; Waterton, E., Pietas Mariana Britannica (1879), p. 13Google Scholar; Bridgett, T. E., Our Lady's Dowry (4th ed., ? 1899), pp. v–viiGoogle Scholar, 1 ff., 217; Coupe, C., in The Month, June 1895, pp. 229–42Google Scholar.

page 20 note 2 D. Wilkins, Concilia (1737), iii, 246.

page 20 note 3 B.M. Harleian MS. 360, f. 98V; printed in Bridgett, see n. 1 above.

page 20 note 4 Petra-Sancta, S. (Pietrasanta), Tesserae Gentilitiae (Rome, 1638), pp. 677–8Google Scholar.

page 20 note 5 ‘O clemens Christe—cui devotus fuit iste; Votis Baptiste—salves quern pretulit iste’; see above, p. 18, n. 2.

page 20 note 6 S. Petra-Sancta, op. cit. p. 677; reproduced by Coupe, see above, n. 1.

page 21 note 1 It seems highly probable that the Diptych and the Roman polyptych were two related parts of a single artistic programme in Richard's mind, and that they were of approximately the same date, soon after the death of Anne of Bohemia and before the king's remarriage. That the Diptych is associated with the Dos Mariae and the Roman painting was suggested by H. Thurston in The Month, July 1929, pp. 27 ff.

If, as has been suggested (Joan Evans in Archaeological Journal, cv, 1 ff.), the saints of the left panel symbolize Richard's ancestors, the figure of the Blessed Virgin would naturally be equated with his dead queen; such symbolism is quite possible even without actual portraiture being intended. See also n. 4 below.

page 21 note 2 Gasquet, A., A History of the Venerable English College, Rome (1920), p. 31Google Scholar.

page 21 note 3 E. W. Tristram in The Month, 1949, i, 387. Not only was Richard born on Twelfth Day, but there is some historic basis for the legend that three kings brought him gifts: at his christening there were present James (IV), titular King of Majorca, his principal sponsor; Peter the Cruel, King of Castile; and perhaps Charles (II) of Navarre also.

page 21 note 4 See above, n. 1. Whether or no the faces of the saints were intended as portraits of Richard's ancestors their figures may have had an ancestral symbolism (cf. M. Galway in Archaeological Journal, cvii, 11), which would at least agree with their order and apparent ages: St. Edmund = Edward II (aged 43 at his death); St. Edward = Edward III (aged 64, but senile); and St. John, Richard's special patron = the Black Prince, his earthly father (aged 46 at his death).

page 21 note 5 E. W. Tristram, English Wall-Painting of the 14th Century, pp. 55–56; the case seems to be irrefutable, and if the action depicted is the preparation for performance of homage, it necessarily follows that this will shortly be complemented by the delivery of some object symbolizing the fief for which fealty has been rendered: exactly such a symbol is the standard of St. George so prominently shown.

page 21 note 6 Although the banner of the Resurrection sometimes appears in Italian painting without a cross on the staff, the cross-staff seems to be universal in northern art of the Middle Ages. In any case, the orb surmounting the staff in the Diptych is too heavily emphasized to have a merely decorative value.

page 21 note 7 Oman, C., The Great Revolt of 1381 (1906, p. 53Google Scholar). The significance of St. George's flag is national, and symbolizes the whole body-politic of ‘England’ as distinct from the English Crown, with its inherited arms. The use of the banner of St. George as a rallying-point and of the St. George's cross as a uniform by English troops is referred to in the ‘Statutes of the Hoste’ drawn up for the English army on 17 June 1386 (B.M., Harleian MS. 1309, ff. 36V, 37). It is clear from Richard's will (see above, p. 18 and n. 3) that the concept of ‘the government of the English’ as a specific task placed upon him by divine authority, was present in his mind.

page 21 note 8 P.R.O., E. 364/30. E: ‘in obsequio ipsius Regis ad partes Scocie mensibus Julij et Augusti anno ix0 ac eciam de diuersis standardis de armis Regis ac armis Sancti Georgij quolibet cum vno leopardo in capite … xxxviij standard. de armis domini Regis standard, de armis Sancti Georgij cum leopardo in capite.’

page 21 note 8 F. Palgrave, Antient Kalendars …, iii, 359.

page 22 note 1 Many authors have followed Scharf (op. cit. p. 49) in considering that the Child's hand ‘does not imply benediction’ because not fully turned outwards, but the argument is rightly rejected by Tristram (The Month, 1949, i, 382). Since Richard is shown, not as actually performing, but as about to perform, his homage, it is logical that the Child should be shown about to bless. The artist has obviously taken advantage of the Child's uncompleted gesture to emphasize the importance of the standard on His right.

page 22 note 2 Tristram in The Month, 1949, i, 390.

page 22 note 3 de Mély, F. in Revue de l'art chrétien, xlix (1900), 397–8Google Scholar; in Riant, , Exuviae Sacrae Constantinopolitanae (Paris, 1904), iii, 344–5Google Scholar, 370; cf. Catholic Encyclopaedia, x, 672, as to one of the holy nails at Prague. For Richard's imperial ambitions see below, p. 23, n. 1.

page 22 note 4 The flowers of the Diptych appear to be used both as religious and secular symbols. The rose and the fleur-de-lis were emblematic of the Blessed Virgin and of purity as well as of England and France. (See Tristram in The Month, 1949, ii, 24; and, for the use of roses as decoration, W. R. Lethaby, Westminster Abbey and the Kings' Craftsmen, 1906, pp. 49–54.) I am indebted to Miss A. P. Wylie for much information on the varieties of rose cultivated in the Middle Ages, and particularly for pointing out the confusion (e.g. in Lethaby, loc. cit.) between the quite distinct Provence (or Cabbage) and Provins (or Apothecary's) roses; and to Mr. G. S. Thomas, who informs me that in his view ‘all the roses depicted are … only symbolical of the rose; none appear … to represent any particular species’. This supports the view that the artist of the Diptych was working in the tradition of English stylized naturalism rather than that of Italian realism (see above, p. 16, n. 4).

Apart from roses and fleurs-de-lis, the right panel of the Diptych includes two large daisies or marguerites and (to right of the Virgin's robe) a blue periwinkle (‘peruynke’ is among the herbs of ‘Jon Gardener’, printed in Archaeologia, liv, 157–72). On the back, to right and left of the hart are recognizable fronds of bracken, while the smaller flowers include considerable numbers of either forget-me-not (Myosotis) or borage. Among Richard's jewels (Palgrave, Antient Kalendars …, p. 338, No. 160) was a belt garnished with flowers of borage: ‘Itm. i. autre seynture le tissu rouge blank et bloy garnis ove floures de burrage et autres blanks flours et petitz sonetz pois ii.lb. v. unc’ The forget-me-not was certainly a royal badge, but seems to have been particularly used by Henry IV (for the botanical identification of the mediaeval’ forget-me-not’ see Beltz, G. F. in Retrospective Review, N.S. ii (1828), 507Google Scholar, where Teucrium chamaedrys and Veronica chamaedrys are suggested as possible alternatives to Myosotis spp.).

page 22 note 5 F. Palgrave, Antient Kalendars …, iii, 356. No. 326 in the Inventory of 1400 is: ‘Item un chapelet fait de xiiii overages d'or frettez ove roses rouges et blankes amiles chescun overage de xiii ove .ix. perles et un overage de .xii. perles pendantz.’ It should be noted that none of the roses of the angels' chaplets is single, like the native briar, as mistakenly stated by E. A. Bunyard, Old Garden Roses (1936), pp. 49–50. Probably the red and white roses had a personal association with Anne of Bohemia, for the Inventory of 1400 also includes a belt with crowned ‘A's and red and white roses (Palgrave, op. cit. p. 338, No. 167: ‘Item i. autre seynture le tissu noir garnis ove lettres de A. coronez et floures de roses rouges et blancz pois ix. unc’

page 22 note 6 The badges worn by the angels are dark green with a fine black outline; not black, as stated by Dr. M. Galway (Archaeological Journal, cvii, 12) and by Dr. Evans (L'Æil, Christmas 1956, p. 18); hence no conclusion that the Diptych has a specifically mourning character can be drawn. I am much indebted to Mr. Martin Davies for checking this point with the Diptych itself. The angels are remarkable, as Scharf pointed out (op. cit. p. 51), for the raised position of their wings. To the few instances quoted by him of this peculiarity may be added the large carved figure of the Archangel Raphael above the entrance (1399–1402) of the Barcelona Town Hall, by the sculptor Jordí de Déu; and in England those of c. 1325 on the vaulting of the south choir aisle of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (Tristram, English Wall-Painting of the 14th Century, p. 232, pl. 26).

page 23 note 1 It may be, as suggested by Tristram (The Month, 1949, i, 388–90) that the coronation symbolism in the Diptych is connected, at least in part, with Richard's desire to be reanointed with the Holy Oil of St. Thomas ‘rediscovered’ in the time of Edward II. The prophecy that the first king of the English to be anointed with it should recover the land in France lost by his forefathers, be greatest among kings, build many churches in the Holy Land and put the heathen to flight from Babylon (L. G. Wickham Legg, English Coronation Records, 1901, p. 170) accords with Richard's wide ambitions and with his long continued attempts to obtain the Imperial Crown, carried on secretly from 1394 and more openly in 1397 (Perroy, L'Angleterre et le grand schisme d'Occident, pp. 342–3).

page 23 note 2 See above, p. 8, n. 7.

page 23 note 3 Consideration of the unyielding prosecution of the English king's hereditary claims to France, even by Richard himself in his negotiations for an alliance with Charles VI, makes it most unlikely that the broom-plant could have been adopted for no reason beyond a desire to compliment the King of France. At the same time it is probable that the usage was intentionally ambiguous.

page 23 note 4 Rotuli Parliamentorum, iv (1783), 220, 225. The first collar is inventoried among ‘L'Estuff de Meaux’: ‘Item I Coler d'or de Bromecoddes, ovec I Saph’ et II Perles, pris vi.s. viii.d. pois' xxxvii.d. dount abatez v.d. de poys, pris de l'unce xxiii.s. iiii.d.—en tout xLiv.s.’ The other, among ‘Les biens de S'r l'Escrop, en le gard' du d' Garderober’(viz. Robert Rolleston), is described as: ‘Item, I Coler d'or de Bromecoddes, pois' de Troie vii vnc' di, pris l'unce xxiii.s. iiii.d.—viii.li. xv.s.’

page 23 note 5 Palgrave: Antient Kalendars …, iii, 354, 357: No. 307, ‘Item i. coler d'or du livere de Roi de Fraunceys ove i. bone baleys quarre parentre bones perles rondes ove vi. autres bons perles einz deux cas de jenestres pois—xiii. unc. i. quart’; No. 332, ‘Item un colare de livere du Roi de Fraunce cont. ix. overages de genestres garnisez de iiii. baleys iii. saphirs xxvii. perles pois vi. unc. et dī’ No. 333, ‘Item un coler d'or de mesme la livere plein pois ii. unc. et. dī.’ It does not seem that the French collar made to Charles VI's order for Richard (see above, p. 9, n. 1) can be identified with any of those described in the English inventories.