MS. Digby 185

Provenance and Acquisition

The arms quarterly (1, 4) argent a chevron azure, a label of three points ermine (2, 3) gules a griffin segreant argent, occur in all three codicological units: in I and II by themselves (fols. 1r, 104r), and in III impaling another coat (fol. 166r), also in part II alongside various other shields. The arms are associated with the Swillington family and were assumed in the fifteenth century by the Hopton family of Blythburgh, Suffolk, and Swillington, Yorkshire, for which see C. Richmond, John Hopton (1981) with pedigree at p. 100; Dictionary of British arms : Medieval Ordinary, ed. D. H. B. Chesshyre et al., 4 vols. (1992-2014), II.277-8 and IV.234. On fol. 1r the arms appear with the crest a monk's head hooded, which is attributed to George Hopton (d. 1489) in a Tudor book of arms: C. Meale, ‘The Politics of Book Ownership: The Hopton Family and Bodleian Library, Digby MS 185’, in Prestige, Authority and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. Felicity Riddy (2000), 106 and n. 14. In addition to George other candidates for the patronage and/or ownership of the different sections include John Hopton (d. 1478), his wife Thomasia (d. 1498) and John's son Sir William (d. 1484). The later history of part II (see below) may indicate a connection with Thomasia.

In part III (fol. 166r) the preceding arms impale quarterly argent and gules fretty argent (?) on a bend sable three mullets argent; in II (fol. 80r) the arms argent a chevron azure, a label of three points ermine impale the same. The arms quarterly arg. and gu. fretty arg. on a bend sa. three mullets arg. were associated with the Despencer family and afterward with the Wentworth family of Nettlestead (Ordinary II.51-2). Their presence here may relate to the marriage of Sir William Hopton (d. 1484) to Margaret, dau. of Sir Roger Wentworth of Nettlestead; this took place by 1451 (Richmond, pp. 103-4).

The other arms in the manuscript are as follows; the tinctures are not always certain:

• Ermine a saltire gules (fol. 80r): Scargill (Ordinary IV.362); Thomas Hopton (d. 1486) married Margaret, dau. of William Scargill of Whitkirk, Yorkshire;
• Ermine three bars gules, three crescents sable (fols. 80r, 157v): Ordinary I.72, attributed to Sir Robert Waterton of Yorkshire
• Azure a saltire gules (fol. 157v): Neville (of Hornby?) or possibly Scargill, as above (Ordinary IV.358)
• Gules fretty ermine (fol. 157v): Ordinary IV.102-3, Eynesford? or Valoignes?
• Barry of 8 (?) sable and argent (fol. 157v): Hoghton of Yorkshire (Ordinary I.98)
• Argent a fess sable in chief three mullets sable (fol. 157v): Dyneley or Towneley (Ordinary III.348-9)
• Argent a fess dancetty sable (fol. 157v): Ordinary III.313, perhaps Vavasour
• Argent on a pale sable a lucy's head argent (?) (fol. 157v): Ordinary IV.274, Gascoigne

‘Nicolas Gilbourne’ (fol. 1r), with his (?) motto ‘Non uiuit cui nihil est in mente nisi ut uiuat’ (not 'iuvit', 'iuuat', as in M. Siddons, A dictionary of mottoes in England and Wales, 2014, s.n.), perhaps identifiable as Nicholas Gilbourne of Charing, active late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.

Kenelm Digby, 1603–1665: his signature fol. 1r and motto ‘Vindica ti tibi’

Donated to the Bodleian, 1634.