The Ludlow castle parchment roll was purchased relatively recently from an antiques market on the Portobello Road in London. Its previous ownership is entirely unknown, but it is closely linked with the chapel of Ludlow castle, and has been dated by the authors to 1576−80.

It records the heraldic scheme from an extension to St Mary’s chapel undertaken at the behest of Sir Henry Sidney KG and completed in 1574. The roll begins with the eleven perceived owners of the castle in chronological order, followed by the twenty-three members of the Council of the Marches of Wales as constituted in 1570, beginning with Sir Henry Sidney as Lord President of the Council. The roll concludes with seven previous presidents, again in chronological order, with the most recent four presumed to have been lost due to the destruction of the end of the manuscript.

The roll provides an excellent vehicle for explaining the entire history of the castle and of the Council of the Marches. There are many interesting snippets of information, such as the fact that the fifteenth-century sword of state for the Council of the Marches has upon it the unidentified coat argent a chief azure. This is intriguing because of its similarity to the Templar arms argent a chief sable. Gilbert de Lacy, whose personal arms are unknown, built the round chapel of St Mary in the mid-twelfth century in emulation of Templar churches, and died as a professed Templar knight. The chapel was eventually allowed to fall into ruin, and the interior is no longer extant, but was recorded by the Reverend William Mytton in c 1735.

The authors were keen to explore the purpose of the roll, and have subjected it to painstaking scrutiny, including pigment analysis. The latter demonstrates the use of valuable pigments, including azurite and ultramarine. It has not been possible to determine with certainty who commissioned the roll, but it is clear that it was not created to inform the painter of the chapel shields, because there are significant differences in colour for two of the shields from those observed by Mytton, with that of Bishop Smyth having the tinctures reversed, suggesting that the artist was working from a carelessly tricked drawing made in the chapel. Sidney had a close working relationship with the heralds, four of whom were mentioned in his will of 1585, and he is known to have employed the painter-stainer Robert Greenwood. Robert Cooke, Clarenceux, was a particular friend who obligingly fabricated the first 150 years of Sidney’s pedigree. Although appointed as Sidney’s executor, he was absent from his state funeral. This was organised by William Dethick, who as Garter King of Arms was necessarily involved in the obsequies of a Garter Knight. The authors consider that the arms on the roll were added by a skilled painter, one who exhibited certain ‘idiosyncrasies’ of style, but that the scrivening was added by a different, non-skilled (or elderly) individual. It is to be doubted that a professional herald could have been the informant for the original chapel scheme since the arms of Bishop John Alcock, the founder of Jesus College, Cambridge, were left blank. The authors described the arms of Miles Sandys as being enigmatic for two reasons: firstly because the colours on the roll are at variance with those noted by Mytton (which the authors consider to be the correct version), but more importantly because he was a fifth son, with at least two surviving elder brothers, but took as his cadency mark the crescent traditionally ascribed to the second son. Heraldic treatises have tended to create the false impression that the system of cadency marks was immutable from the Tudor period, but it is clear that no such certainty can be relied upon in the Elizabethan era. In all probability there was a long period during the sixteenth century when the heralds were not in complete agreement about the need for standardisation.

From the medieval era most of the same cadency markings had been used without attaching them to any particular son. Two further examples from the roll need not, therefore, be a cause for consternation: Sir John Throckmorton with an annulet for difference, supposedly the mark of a seventh son, when he was known to be the fifth, and William Gerard with a mullet for difference on the roll (third son), but a crescent on his tomb. It would be somewhat anarchic had brothers changed their arms every time an elder brother died, and the discrepancy on Gerard’s funeral monument more likely constitutes a herald’s idea of what the correct mark needed to be. This does not mean, however, that church monuments can be completely relied upon to bear what we now understand to be the correct markings.

The reproduction of all the arms in colour with a wide variety of additional illustrations make this an enjoyable and accessible guide, one which contains everything that might be wished. To round it off, the complete roll is illustrated on the fold-out front cover, inside of which is a reconstruction of the Elizabethan chapel.