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white greyhound he used both by right of his wife through the Nevills and his own maternal ancestors the Earls of Somerset. The corner bosses bear the portcullis, the emblem of the castle of Beaufort in Anjou, the residence of Catherine Swinford, and where Henry’s maternal grandfather was born. Each of these portcullises is borne upon a white and green ground, the livery colours of the Tudors, and it has been used as a royal badge from the time of Henry VII. until the present day.

      The book is held together by bands of gold braid, and fastened by beautiful clasps of richly-chased silver-gilt, with enamelled red roses. Appended to the boards are five impressions of the Great Seal, each in a silver box, with either a portcullis or a red rose upon it. The seals hang by plaited cords of green and gold.

      There are similar books of Henry VII.’s besides this one. A fine instance was shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Binding in 1891. It is a Book of Penalties for non-performance of services in the Chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster, and is bound in red velvet, with tassels and silver-gilt and enamelled bosses like those just described. It has silver clasps, and four silver boxes containing the seals of the parties to the indenture depend from the lower edge.

      Fig. 1.—Indentures between Henry VII, and John Islippe, Abbot of Westminster, concerning the foundation of the Chantrey, etc., MS.

      On one book, probably once the property of Henry VII., which somehow became separated from the rest, is found his coat-of-arms impressed on the gilt edges—a curious and early instance of decorative edge-work. A drawing of it was published in Bibliographica, vol. ii. p. 395. It is a Sarum Missal, Rouen, 1497, and was given to Cardinal Pole probably by Queen Mary, and eventually purchased by the British Museum.

      Henry VIII. apparently thought much of his library and its proper preservation and extension. He appointed John Leland, the antiquary, to be his library keeper, and gave him a special commission under the Broad Seal to travel and collect all kinds of antiquities and make records of them. Leland acquired, under these powers, many valuable manuscripts from the monasteries, then so ruthlessly being despoiled of their treasures; but, unfortunately, he does not seem to have been able to preserve any of the precious bindings in which many of them were doubtless encased.

      There is a considerable amount of documentary evidence concerning the binding of Henry VIII.’s books. Notices occur in the records of the “Privy Purse Expenses” of payments for velvet and vellum; and these two materials are again largely mentioned in the most interesting account now preserved among the additional manuscripts at the British Museum of the royal printer and binder, “Thomas Berthelett.” This account, which is very full, refers to work done during the years 1541–43; and although, so far, no actual book has been identified as being one of those mentioned, yet the bindings we still possess of Henry VIII.’s are so generally of the same kind as those described that there seems little doubt that most, if not all of them, were bound by Berthelet.

      He mentions a Psalter “covered with crimosyn satyne,” and we possess a collection of tracts bound in this manner, with a delicate tracery of gold cord, and on the edges is written in gold the words “Rex in Æternum Vive Neez.” This is probably what Berthelet, in an entry a little further on, calls “drawyng in gold on the transfile.” There are several mentions of books “gorgiously gilded on the leather,” and also others where he says books are bound “backe to backe” none of which seem to have survived, but there are plenty of instances of the “white leather gilt,” so often used. “Purple velvet” was used to cover “ij Primers,” which are now lost; but we possess a splendid volume covered in this way with embroidery upon it, and again he says he has bound books after the “Venecian fascion” and “Italian fascion.” Truly the Italian work of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is extremely fine, and Berthelet may have seen some specimens of it, and, admiring them, have endeavoured to imitate their peculiar and beautiful gilded tooling.

      To Berthelet must be conceded the honour of being the first English binder to use gold stamped work on leather, and he does so with admirable effect. Many of his bindings gilded on white leather, sometimes deer-skin, sometimes vellum, are most charming; indeed, the taste for vellum has never died out in England from Berthelet’s time to the present day, when we have William Morris’s dainty volumes with their green ties. Berthelet’s books also generally had ties, but they are now all worn off.

      A fine instance of this white leather and gold occurs on Sir Thomas Elyot’s Image of Governance, printed by Berthelet in 1541.

      It bears the same design on each side. A panel, enclosed by an ornamental fillet, contains a very graceful arrangement of curves forming a central space in which are the words “Dieu et mon Droit”; and at each side of this the royal initials contained in two semicircles left for them. At each of the inner corners is a large set stamp, and the ground is dotted over with small circles and the daisy—a badge used by the Tudors probably as a compliment to their ancestress Margaret de Beaufort. On the edges are painted in gold the words “Rex in Æternum Vive.”

      Some of the same stamps are used on another book which is probably Berthelet’s work. It is a manuscript Latin commentary on the campaign of the Emperor Charles V. against the French in 1544, addressed by Anthonius de Musica to Henry VIII. It is bound in brown calf, and bears within a broad outer fillet a panel containing in the centre the royal coat-of-arms and initials enclosed in an inner rectangular panel; above and below this are two rectangular cartouches, with titles of the king and various initials which have not yet been interpreted. Flanking the long central panel are medallions of Plato and Dido, favourite stamps afterwards with English binders, but occurring here for the first time.

      A design which was probably a favourite one of Berthelet’s is found on a copy of Opus eximium de vera differentia Regiæ Potestatis et Ecclesiasticæ, printed by him in 1534 (Fig. 2). There is an instance of the same binding in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The arms of the king, with the supporters of the dragon and the greyhound, occupy the centre of each board. This is enclosed in an oval ribbon bearing the words “Rex Henricus VIII. Dieu et mon Droit,” and the whole is surrounded by an ornamental fillet with decorative corners. Above and below the shield are crowned double roses and the initials K. H.

      A collection of sixteenth-century tracts is covered with crimson satin, and ornamented with an arabesque design outlined in gold cord. This is the earliest English book remaining that is bound in satin, but no doubt many more existed, as they are so often mentioned in accounts of the time. The satin is always crimson, and, curiously enough, long afterwards under the Stuarts the use of satin was revived, but of a white colour. This collection of tracts was certainly enough bound for the king, as it has the peculiarity of the motto painted on its edges in gold, “Rex in Æternum Vive Neez,” which seems to have been a favourite form of decoration of Berthelet’s, so very likely this is one of his books.

      Velvet, mentioned also by Berthelet, is used to cover a large Bible printed at Zurich in 1543, but there does not appear very clearly any mark by which it can be identified as his work. It is now of a tawny colour, but was originally probably crimson, and on it is outlined an elaborate design in gold cord. A broad outer border has an arabesque pattern arranged diamond-wise, with large double roses at each corner. Within this is a smaller rectangular border, enclosing a circle with the king’s initials bound together by a scroll, and above and below the circle a repeating arabesque design. On the edges of this book are very elaborate heraldic paintings.

      A different kind of work altogether covers the splendid Description de toute la terre Sainte, by Martin de Brion (Fig. 3), a beautiful manuscript on vellum dedicated to Henry VIII., and full of illuminated reference to him and his heraldic attributes.

      It is bound in purple velvet and richly embroidered, and is the first of a splendid series of embroidered books on velvet executed in England. The design is simple, but it is carried out with such skill and taste that it is altogether most effective. In the centre is the royal coat-of-arms, the coats of France and England quarterly,

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