File NLW MS 21744E. - Antiquarian collections,

Notes and extracts, [c. 1565]-1574, from manuscripts and archives, by several hands, the main one being that of Thomas Talbot, the antiquary, clerk of the records in the Tower, who according to personal memoranda on f. 75 was deprived of his living in April 1560 and apparently lived near Clitheroe, Lancashire, in 1563. The notes were compiled on loose bifolia which were later gathered haphazardly into four large quires stitched into two bifolia of a 14th century noted missal (ff. 1-2, 140-1); this arrangement results in wide separation of related matter on the two leaves of some bifolia.
The matter mostly relates to early English history: pedigrees of Anglo-Saxon, Norman and Angevin royal and noble lines, extracts from records in the Tower (e.g. patent rolls, ff. 26-8 verso), chronicles (e.g. Geoffrey Baker, f. 31 verso, Nicholas Trivet, f. 78 verso, Walter Hemingford, f. 109, William of Jumieges, f. 114, John Pyke, f. 118). Other items include a working list of records in the Tower in 1572 [William Bowyer was then Keeper] which gives the numbers of rolls or bundles in each class for each reign from John to Edward IV (ff. 101-2 and 139): a list of forty-nine evidently manuscript books and fragments, mostly connected with English history and by Northern writers, at least one in Anglo-Saxon (ff. 24, 29 verso) [cf. Talbot's list of MSS printed by A.G. Watson, The manuscripts of Henry Savile of Banke (London, 1969), pp. 78-81]; arms blazoned and in trick, including blazon of arms in 'Mr. Boldes Hall' in Salisbury (f. 6); part of a martyrology for England and Wales (f. 51 recto-verso); pedigree of Sir Ralph Eure compiled by Thomas Pickeringe, precentor of Whitby Abbey in 1458 (ff. 86-7), and, among contemporaries, of Elys ap Howell ap Day ap Ithel [of Tegeingl, co. Flint], in Welsh (f. 110 recto-verso), the Hagerth family, 1571 (ff. 120 verso-121) and the Doyley family (f. 132); an inquisition from Lancashire Quarter Sessions, 1568 (f. 3 recto-verso); poetry in English, apparently original and autograph (ff. 15, 23, 75, 119, 124 verso, 133) and in Latin (f. 111, Walther 3934); the order of burial of Sir Thomas Chaloner, 1565, with a list of personal expenses in London at that time (f. 52 recto-verso); f. 112 was first used to begin a draft deed to which Thomas Heneage, esq., was party, 1574 [Sir Thomas Heneage succeeded Bowyer as Keeper of the Queen's Records in the Tower].