The Institution, Laws & Ceremonies Of the most Noble Order Of The Garter. Collected and digested into one Body By Elias Ashmole of the Middle Temple Esq; Windesor Herald at Arms. A Work furnished with variety of matter, relating to Honor and Noblesse.
Despite the irregular pagination, the text and register are continuous. Page 710 is misnumbered as 610.
The leaves of plates carry no plate-numbers, but carry the numbers of the pages next to which they are to be bound. ESTC describes copies having [34] pl., but the Royal Academy's copy has the frontispiece and [31] leaves of plates, six of them carrying two prints, making a total of [37] prints in addition to the frontispiece. Of the 31 leaves of plates that at p.144 carries 2 prints and those at pp. 708/709, 710/711, 712/713, 714/715, 716/717 carry two prints, one on the recto and one on the verso.
Contents
[License-to-print, t.p., frontis., dedic.] - Preface - The Contents Of the Chapters - [Text, with pl.] - [Blank leaf] - Appendix: The Statutes of Institution ... - Errata.
Responsibility Note
The frontispiece portrait of King Charles II is signed as engraved by W. Sherwin. Several plates are signed as drawn and engraved by W. Hollar, or as made by W. Hollar. Plate [23] is signed as designed by Marcus Gerard and made by W. Hollar.
The work is dedicated by Ashmole to King Charles II.
References
R. Pennington, A descriptive catalogue of the etched work of Wenceslaus Hollar, 1607-1677 (1982).
M. Hunter et al., Elias Ashmole, 1617-92 (1983). A survey is G. Parry, The trophies of time: English antiquarians of the seventeenth century (1995).
ESTC, R225555
Summary Note
The publication-date is given as 1672 on the title-page; some plates carry earlier publication-dates (1663, 1666, 1667, 1670).
ESTC (at R225555) describes this as a revision of an earlier issue (ESTC R16288), which had 719 pages: in the present issue pp. 717-9 have been reset and some mispaginations have been corrected.
Provenance
Acquired by 1802. Recorded in A Catalogue Of The Library In The Royal Academy, London (1802).
Copy Note
A blank leaf has been bound in between p.720 and the first page of the Appendix.
Binding Note
20th-century brown morocco; gilt-decorated spine, lettered 'Ashmole's Order Of The Garter' and 'R.A.'.
Orders of knighthood and chivalry - Associations - Ceremonies - Rules of procedure - Great Britain - Berkshire - Windsor Castle - History
Treatises - Great Britain - 17th century
Pictorial works - Great Britain - 17th century