1. Preface
  Acknowledgements
2. The four Randle Holmes
  The family background of Randle Holme III
    Political affiliations
  The life of Randle Holme III
3. The Academy of Armory
  Randle Holme's plan for the Academy  
    Table of Contents.
  The manuscript of the Academy  
    The images
    Image and text links
    The text
4. Randle Holme's sources
  Citations in the Academy of Armory
5. Publishing the Academy
  Book publication in late seventeenth century England
  Printing the Academy
6. References and Bibliography
  Primary sources
  Editions of the Academy of Armory
  Other references
 
 
1. Preface
Randle Holme's Academy of Armory is a seventeenth century Universal Encyclopaedia, preceding Diderot by more than 50 years. Its value for early modern social history and as a source for the study of material culture has long been recognised. However, the overlay of its content with heraldic descriptions, and the inaccessibility of the section that was only published in 1905 have made its use frustratingly difficult (footnote 1). The editors of the present edition initially approached the work from different angles and with different aims in mind. The recognition ten years ago (by Nat Alcock) that the Harleian manuscripts in the British Library contained innumerable original drawings for the Academy led to the vision of a new edition of Randle Holme's work that would make these drawings accessible to historians (footnote 2). Nancy Cox became interested in his text as a prime source for the Dictionary of traded goods and commodities 1550-1800, which was being compiled at the University of Wolverhampton. At this stage the focus was quite narrow, on the household and agriculture sections and on those trades that produced goods for sale. It was only later that the range and depth of Randle Holme's coverage of all aspects of life and work in the late seventeenth century was fully appreciated. The two editors became aware of their joint interests from chance discussions and agreed to explore the possibilities of electronic publication. So the project was born, strengthened by the support of the British Library.
The project's long gestation has had the great advantage that digital cameras, CD-ROM and web-site technology have made possible the effective presentation of 2,500 original drawings in a way that would be impossible in a conventional book. The contributions of the two editors have remained roughly in line with their early interests. Nancy Cox was responsible for the original database into which the text was transcribed, and for the addition of further text sections. She was also mainly responsible for identifying the bibliographic references to Randle Holme's citations. Nat Alcock undertook the collation of the images with the text, the preparation of the index (a task whose magnitude will become apparent as the site is used), the incorporation of text and images into a series of html files, and the overall construction of what was in fact a website, although originally presented on a CD-ROM.
For the transfer from the CD to an actual website, only minimal editing has been undertaken, principally to remove direct references to the CD. In particular, no account has been taken of publications concerning Randle Holme and the Academy of Armory that have appeared since the original publication in 2003.

Acknowledgements
We greatly appreciate the enthusiasm and support of Andrew Prescott and David Way of the British Library. Maggi Cook produced the effective initial design for the 'web-site' and modified this as the project progressed. Barbara Carson, who independently recognised the significance of the Randle Holme drawings, encouraged the project by making her photographs and notes available. The University of Kansas is thanked for the appointment of Nat Alcock to the Rose Morgan Visiting Professorship, which gave an opportunity for most of the detailed work on the illustrations to be carried out.
The British Library is further thanked for allowing public access to the material, and the Tools and Trades History Society and their president, Jane Rees, for agreeing to host the website and for undertaking the transfer of the data from the CD.

2. The four Randle Holmes
The family background of Randle Holme III (footnote 3)
Randle Holme III (1627-99) came from a long line of antiquaries, genealogists and heraldic painters. Both his grandfather and father had belonged to the Chester Company of Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers and Stationers and both also served as Deputy of the College of Arms for Cheshire, Shropshire and north Wales. The first Randle Holme (1571-1655), was Sheriff of Cheshire in 1615 and mayor of Chester in 1633-4. Randle Holme II (1601-59) held these same offices in 1633/4 and 1643/4 respectively. Randle Holme I married in c. 1598 Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Alcock of Chester and the widow of Thomas Chaloner, an antiquary and herald of Chester. Through his wife, Holme acquired the collection of antiquarian and genealogical papers compiled by her late husband, which were added to by each member of the Holme's family in turn. By 1707, when the last Randle Holme died, the collection comprised some 250 substantial volumes which are now among the Harleian Manuscripts at the British Library.

Political affiliations (footnote 4)
The prominent positions of Randle Holme I and II in Chester during the Civil War led to problems that undoubtedly affected the career of Randle Holme III. The family's affiliations appear ambivalent, though this may have been no more than an attempt to accommodate themselves to events. Throughout the siege of Chester in 1645-6, Randle Holme I remained in the city. He was fined £160 in January 1646 for the 'delinquency' of taking the King's part (footnote 5) even though he had come under the protection of Sir William Brereton, a noted parliamentarian, and had taken the national covenant in 1645. Subsequently, to support his protest against the fine, Mr Peter Brereton declared that Holme 'never acted, nor was ayding to the Kings party during the troubles but still manifested his good affection to the Parliament'. Randle Holme II was in an even more invidious situation as Mayor of Chester in 1643/4. He was party to inviting the king to the city in 1642 and his name appears on the King's Commission directing the seizure of the rebels' goods in Chester (footnote 6). After the City surrendered he was removed from the office of Alderman. Possibly as a result of these apparently divided loyalties and the effects of the fighting round Chester, the family suffered considerable losses during the Civil War, and their position must have been difficult after the Restoration. Randle Holme I died in 1654/5, and his son in 1659, so it was left to the third Randle to rescue the family fortunes after 1660. The difficulties he experienced may have been no worse than those of others; however, he seems never to have gained the status held by his father and his grandfather, and it is probable that the family involvement in the Civil War contributed to this decline.

The life of Randle Holme III
The mother of Randle Holme III was Katherine, daughter of Matthew Ellis, gentleman of Overleigh, and he was baptized at St Mary's, Chester on 30th December 1627; nothing more is known of his early life. Holme followed in the footsteps of his forebears, becoming a heraldic painter, though he does not seem to have served his apprenticeship in his family, unlike at least one professional painter (footnote 7). Although he made entries in the minute book of the Chester Company of Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers and Stationers in 1648 (when he would have been 21 years old and presumably just out of his apprenticeship), he was only admitted in 1656 (footnote 8), his entry presumably delayed by the Civil War. The following year he became Churchwarden at St Mary's church. In 1659, after his father's death, he was elected Alderman of the Company and duly entertained his fellows to dinner at his house in Chester (footnote 9). He married three times, firstly in 1655 to Sarah, daughter of Henry Sole of Forton, Shropshire. She died in 1655, leaving one son (Randle Holme IV) and four daughters; a year later he married Elizabeth Wilson, daughter of George Wilson of Chester, gentleman. She bore Holme seven sons and two daughters before her death in 1685, though only two sons survived their mother. Finally, before 1689, he married Anne Birkenhead who out-lived him, dying in 1713.
In November 1664, 'in consideration of his losses', Charles II appointed Randle Holme 'sewer of the chamber in extraordinary'. The appointment was conditional on his not taking 'any public office whatsoever' (footnote 10). Despite this proviso he subsequently appears to have acted as an unofficial Deputy to Garter King of Arms for Cheshire, Shropshire and north Wales, being accepted as such in Chester. These lucrative activities were threatened by Sir William Dugdale, first as Chester Herald from 1644, then as Norroy King of Arms from 1660; he was commissioned in 1662 to make a visitation to his province, which included Cheshire (footnote 11), during which he pursued with vigour those not entitled to marshal funerals and tore down unauthorized hatchments. Dugdale petitioned successfully against those Chester companies who had presumptuously assumed the badges of London companies (footnote 12), possibly those very badges that Holme described in the fourth book of the Academy of Armory (footnote 13). Dugdale also instigated proceedings against Holme himself on a number of occasions including an indictment in 1667/8 for illegally marshalling the funeral of Sir Ralph Assheton for which offence Holme was fined £20 with costs at the Stafford assizes (footnote 14).
The conditions attached to his appointment as sewer may well have prevented Holme from taking office in Chester as his father and grandfather had done before him, while the difficulties of finding work as an unofficial herald may have encouraged him to concentrate on antiquarian interests. He was the most assiduous of the family in contributing to the collection of heraldic and genealogical memoranda started by his grandfather and in arranging the City's own archives. Collecting material for the Academy, writing the lengthy text (for which he seems to have employed no helpers), and preparing his own drawings for the engraver, appears to have taken a large part of his adult life. As will be demonstrated, when all this was done, publication was by no means straightforward. If the royal sinecure of 'sewer of the chamber in extraordinary' ceased with the death of Charles II in 1685 (as may well have been the case), the expenses of publication of the Academy may have left him in much reduced circumstances. Both Randle Home and his son were in Chester throughout the 1680s and 1690s (footnote 15). Holme III was active in the affairs of the Stationers' Company throughout the 1680s and in 1690 he took his son into partnership in his heraldic work. In 1691 Randle Holme IV became a member of the Stationers' Company. In 1693 Randle Holme III, 'Herald painter' of Chester', was a signatory to the post-nuptial settlement of Margaret, Randle Holme IV's wife (footnote 16). Randle Holme III died in 1699 and was buried at St Mary's Chester on the 12th March 1699/1700, where the entry in the parish register identifies him as 'Herrald of Armes of Bridgestreet' (footnote 17). One other of Holme's concerns is documented directly through the Academy. He was by his own declaration a member of a lodge of Free-masons in Chester. Unfortunately, we do not know the date of his admission, which might indicate whether he joined as a result of his fascination with crafts, or whether these interest were sparked by the links with Free-masonry.
Randle Holme IV continued the family collection of antiquarian material; when he died in 1707, he left the collection, including the manuscript copy of the Academy itself, to his executors, his two half-brothers John and George (footnote 18). Most of the collection was bought by Francis Gastrell, Bishop of Chester, acting for Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, who, during the 1710s, negotiated unsuccessfully to acquire another portion of the collection from Francis Bassano, Herald-Painter of Chester. Harley's part of the collection was calendared by his librarian Humfrey Wanley; it was sold to the British Museum in 1753 (now Harleian Mss 1920-2180). Other parts of the collection are now in the Charter Collection at the British Museum and in the Crewe-Cowper Mss in Chester Record Office (footnote 19). A single volume of plates appears among the collection of John Bagford which has also found its way into the Harleian Mss (Ms 5955). A note in the calendar indicates that the volume does not belong with Bagford, though it neither gives a reason for this assertion nor suggests any other provenance for the volume.
Evidence on the standing of Randle Holme III is ambivalent. As noted above, he never attained the civic rank accorded to his father and grandfather, each of whom served as sheriff of Cheshire and Mayor of Chester. He designated himself a 'gent' on the title page of the Academy and he was granted a Royal Warrant to use the records in the Tower of London; a privilege not easily acquired (footnote 20). On the other hand, the Earl of Oxford's librarian, Humfrey Wanley, wrote of him in a disparaging and condescending way, commenting on 'honest Randle's manifest want of common Literature' and 'the numerous Errors of the Printer', only conceding that it was 'really a very curious and useful Book upon many accounts, although now so much neglected and worn out of memory, as to be known to few people in these parts'. Finally, damning with faint praise, he suggested that 'the vile price it hath been bought at viz, eight shillings', must have been 'much below the Prime cost of Paper & Print' so that 'the diligent Man must have been a great loser, after so many years pains' (footnote 21). If these remarks reflect a common attitude among the educated to Holme's monumental work, it may well go some way to explain why the Academy sank into obscurity for two centuries.

3. The Academy of Armory
Randle Holme's plan for the Academy
The work was conceived in four books. Crucial to an understanding of the overall plan and its implementation is the Table of Contents.
This was apparently constructed after most of the text was written but before some substantial revisions were made. It provides clues to the original conception and an outline of the work as it appeared at a stage when Randle Holme must have thought his work complete. The table of Contents also provides the only information we have about the now missing portions of Book IV (chapters I-III).
The first and fourth books contain almost entirely heraldic matters and are largely of specialised interest. The first chapter of Book I deals with the origin and office of Heralds and their College, an essential introduction accompanied by a fulsome dedication. The rest of the book examines the 'Rules of Heraldry [and] with the several Ways or Methods of Blazon'. Book IV expands on this, describing 'the Art of Blazon ... and Marshalling of Coats'. It finishes with 'Processions of State, and at Coronations' and the 'Solemnizing of Funerals'. It is difficult to see why Holme chose to separate these two sections of exclusively heraldic matters, though it is clear that he intended it thus from an early stage. Possibly he thought it stylistically appropriate in a work of heraldry. Holme's epitaph to Book IV epitomizes its place in the Academy, reading Post Funera nihil, a fitting end to a monumental work.
Randle Holme claims that the second book
Treateth in General of all Essential, and Created Beings, in whom there is either Life, or Motion, as Vegitives, Sensitives, and Rational Creatures.
though the first two chapters are on the Heavens, earth fire and water (footnote 22). This book displays contemporary thought and knowledge on such matters as botany, zoology and anatomy, much that is mythical being intermingled with substantial sections on domestic animals and crops and on mankind.
Book III moves on to 'Artificial things, such as are Wrought or Invented by the Wit, Art, or Endeavour of Man, for the use and behoof of both Man and all living animals'. Here Randle Holme's urge to classify and to describe took precedence over heraldry. To modern historians, this section provides the main value of the work, but in places this change of direction overwhelms the original conceptual balance of the work and may well have fuelled the doubts of such critics as Humfrey Wanley. Despite the aspirations of those like Joseph Moxon and Richard Houghton (below) to produce monumental works describing and classifying technology and trade, educated society was disinclined to pay much attention to these subjects. Elisha Coles' An English Dictionary explaining the difficult terms that are used in divinity, husbandry, physick, philosophy, law, navigation, mathematicks, and other arts and sciences, achieved respectable sales, judging by the number of editions, but it has more on divinity and physick than on husbandry, and it hardly refers to industry and trade at all. In this respect, Coles seems to have adopted the same policy as Samuel Johnson several decades later, who dismissed the vocabulary of craft tools as unworthy of consideration (footnote 23). Holme's more distinguished contemporary, Joseph Moxon, 'Member of the Royal Society, and Hydrographer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty', experienced similar prejudice. He remarked 'I see no more reason why the sordidness of some Workemen should be the cause of contempt upon Manual Operations, than the excellent Invention of a Mill should be despis'd because a blind Horse Draws in it.' (footnote 24) His comment is apposite, but the prejudice was real.
Holme seems to have been aware of the criticisms of his contemporaries and his deviation from his original plan. At one point he wrote
and having now in these Chapters occasion to treat of Instruments, and other things belonging to Physick, Chyrurgery, Chymistry, & Druggists, as they are used and pertaine to Arms. I hope the Courteous Reader will not be offended, though I go a little astray out of the rules of Herauldry, and inform you the terms of Art used by the foresaid Artists, (which is that promised in the Title Page of the Book) and from which I cannot go back (Book III, chapter 12, number 35).
The defensiveness is even more apparent in the Conclusion to Book III, in which he also states more boldly his reasons for giving the work its final form:
And here I shall conclude the Third Book of the Academy of Armory wherein though I haue used my utmost indevor to giue the reader some light and knowledge in the termes and Instruments or tooles of most sciences and Trades: yet I must acknowledge my selfe to be wounderfull short in many things; for as the proverb saith He that is aboue seeth all things, But eyes which lodge in terrestiall tabernacles, are not capable of seeing what may be seen or know what may be know; there being yet much more behind which I have not seen, and some not able to express. (Book III, Conclusion)
The plan spelt out in the table of Contents, was found difficult to implement in other respects. Each chapter was accompanied by a plate containing 30-120 numbered images, depending on the complexity of the subject matter. Unfortunately the number of topics in each chapter did not always fit even within these broad boundaries. Furthermore, as work progressed, Holme found more information and more topics he wished to cover; newly developing crafts of tinmen, brass founders, tobacco pipe makers and tobacco cutters, soap-makers and sugar boilers all had to be given a place. As a result chapters of addenda litter the work; The Contents lists chapters 9 and 10 in Book I, chapter 18 in Book II, and chapters 5b, 7b 9c, 16b and 19b in Book III, but chapters 19 in Book II and 18b in Book III were added even later. Randle Holme acknowledged the problem and admitted that he 'had thought vpon the finishing of Millitary concerns, to have put a period to all the Bearing of this third Book, but friends and noble Assistance' persuaded him to supplement existing entries and to add sections on crafts not covered before (Book III, preface to chapter 20).

The manuscript of the Academy of Armory
The history of Randle Holme's Academy of Armory is complicated and at times obscure. The published volumes can best be understood when viewed in relation to the manuscript text and in the context of the chequered history of their printing and publication. It is to these aspects of the work we now turn.
The compilation of the manuscripts took place over at least three decades. Some of the illustrations seem to have been completed by 1649. On the other hand Holme was still working on the text into the 1680s. One of the books he cites in the section not included in the 1688 edition was not published until that year (John Smith, Fortifications and Military discipline, in two parts), suggesting that even when the first part was in print he continued to work on the later sections, whatever he claimed about their readiness.
The images
It might have been valuable to prepare this edition of Randle Holme's grand project, even if none of his drawings had survived. In our view, the existence of more than 2,500 original drawings of the objects he describes vastly enhances the value of his text. These images are often much more realistic than the engraved versions (e. g. the hat in Ch. 1, square 66).

Randle Holme's drawings and the associated text jottings and notes are now mostly bound into two volumes (Harleian Mss 2026 and 2027, with some in 2034), though they must have originally existed as loose sheets. All the drawings in both books have been lightly struck through, probably indicating that they had been copied to form the basis of the published plates.
Randle Holme seems to have started collecting material as a young man; in the first of these volumes he wrote 'This is my first collections and draughts for the Academie of Armory, Anno 1649'. In the second, he refers to 'his second collection of Draughts for the Academy of Armory', but gives no date. The comment on the second collection (Ms 2027) in Humfrey Wanley's catalogue could equally well be applied to the first; Randle Holme's drawings, Wanley wrote, are a 'confused and unmethodical' jumble. They may once, however, have been better organized. Almost all the drawings are now mounted as single sheets, although one double spread has survived (Harleian Ms 2026, f.88v-90). Many of the other pages probably originated in this form, although only in a few places has it been possible to re-unite the severed images of an original sheet (footnote 25). This confusion suggests that the original collection was broken apart, added to and copied to provide fair versions for the engravers, before it was bound into the two existing volumes.
The collection contains no less than five types of drawing. First in sequence of the three main types are draft drawings, fairly rough in execution, generally with the images labelled, and with additional labels for parts of machines, etc. The second consists of more developed drawings, without labels and much more finished in style. A few of these final drawings are accompanied by their text entries (especially those in Harleian Ms 2034, e.g. f. 201), though such clear associations with the accompanying text are rare. Thirdly, ten examples survive of plate-layout drawings showing the images organised into numbered squares; these were presumably prepared for the engraver to work from.
These three main types are accompanied by two of less importance. A few pages comprise heterogeneous rough sketches, no more than jottings, though occasionally containing interesting material [e.g. Harleian Ms 2026, f. 127]. They were perhaps compiled while Holme leafed through books of heraldic illustrations, picking out images that he thought might be useful. The final small group consists of drawings of costumed half-length figures and heads with hats, possibly taken from portraits he had seen (H2026 f.46v and its top, H.2027, f.240); H2027 f.176; H2027 f.180; H2027 f.261v). These may have been intended for the Academy, but did not find a place in it. They are similar to drawings scattered through his other volumes of archival material. Holme was a compulsive sketcher.
Proof Plates. As well as the original drawings, a group of proof pulls survive for most of the plates (in Harleian 5955). These are generally preferable as sources for illustrations to the published plates, as they are mostly good clear impressions (though a couple are slightly blurred). These pages include some added sketches and also incorporate pen alterations to some squares. However, the plates in the printed volume are the only sources for Book II chapters 17 and 19 and Book III chapter 13b, for which no proof plates survive. The published plates also provide the only sources for some illustrations that were added at a late stage; for chapters 14 to 21 where we have no published plates, these added images are mostly lost. The plates were being updated even after publication, as can be seen from Plate 9c, where the Thatcher's tools are only shown on some copies.


Image and text links
It is interesting to see how Holme handled the links between image and text. In Books I and II, and most of Book III, Holme gathered together the images for a chapter on one or more full page plates, numbering them in sequence to correspond with similarly numbered portions of text. Such a scheme reduced the number of plates needed for each chapter, but constrained the way in which text and image could be related. In the later chapters of Book III, Holme increasingly abandoned this approach, first in the sections on Music, Printing and Military architecture, where he used small images scattered among the text as appropriate, while retaining the standard framework of numbered image squares and text descriptions. Then in the manuscript of the final chapter of additions (18b; Harleian Ms 2034, f. 201 on), which includes very detailed images, the standard approach was abandoned entirely and each piece of text has its own image drawn beside it. As this chapter was not published in Holme's lifetime, it is not clear if he intended to retain this arrangement in the printed version.
As a herald, Holme described coats of arms as if he was standing behind them, and not as if he was viewing them on a page. He uses this method when describing each image. Thus Dexter refers to the right as viewed by the user standing behind a shield and Sinister to the left. The reader has to make the transposition, and accept that Dexter refers to the left of the page, and Sinister to the right. The other heraldic terms defining position are more straightforward. Chief and Base refer respectively to the top and bottom of the square, Fess defines images running across the centre of the square horizontally and Pale those running vertically. Holme also includes in each description the appropriate heraldic colours, though these have been deleted from the edited text.
The text
The surviving manuscript version of the text is of two types: a relatively polished draft apparently ready for the printers, but subsequently somewhat altered, and a few chapters not fully prepared for publication. The finished section contains the text of Books I and II, as well as Book III up to the end of chapter 19. It now fills six volumes and part of a seventh (Harleian Mss 2028-34). This text appears to be a fair copy ready for the printers. It is in an obviously edited form, with marginalia giving the printer directions concerning pagination. However, it is unlikely that a printer could have worked from it, unless either Randle Holme did that task himself or the printer was very closely supervised, since this apparently finished text has been substantially amended.
A portion of Harleian Ms 2029, which contains the first part of Book II, was burnt before it was bound, and the missing words replaced on scraps of paper, now interleaved with the main text. Apart from the necessary corrections to rectify this damage, the text is relatively little amended, although some revisions were made after the compilation of the Table of Contents (footnote 26). There are slight indications that much of this section was compiled at an early date, possibly contemporaneously with the first collection of drawings. In at least three places, Holme used for interleaved pages the back of other documents dated in the 1640s (footnote 27). If this deduction is accepted, it follows that this book must have been written when Holme was still in his teens. It is also possible that the first two books of the Academy, which are rather more conventional in format and content than Book III, may have been started by his father or grandfather, while Randle Holme III's unique contribution was to the historically more valuable Book III
The first five chapters of Book III (Harleian Ms 2031) suggest a major revision of the work at an early stage, before the table of Contents was compiled. In those parts of chapter III concerned with craftsmen, each workman was originally treated in three ways. First came a brief text describing the illustration of the workman himself, with some details about those who used such an image in their armorial coats; secondly was a list of terms used in the craft; and thirdly a list of tools given without definitions or illustrations. In most cases this final list has been scored out and the tools are covered more extensively with definitions and illustrations in a subsequent chapter; thus the Butcher's tools were transferred to chapter 6, section 6, the blacksmith's to chapter 7, section 1a, and the husbandman's to chapter 8, sections 1a-c. However, scoring through did not necessarily lead to omission from the printed edition. For example, the 'Instruments & Termes used in Etching' are scored through in the manuscript but were printed. The section on the cook was corrected in a less satisfactory manner. Originally cookery included an image of a cook and a huge list of cookery terms and cooked foods, followed by a list of equipment (Harleian Ms 2031, f. 152d). The last part has been scored through and some of the tools are dealt with among the household goods in chapter 14, others in chapter 21 (for which the drawings have not survived).
The text also contains many minor emendations. For example chapter 1, number 10 has a marginal comment against the Barons coronett, which reads 'or a cap of Maintenance'. This was not inserted in the printed edition, whereas on the next folio the alteration of the heraldic colour from 'Topaz' to 'pearle' in number 14 was. In this phase of revision Randle Holme also scored through a few duplicated sections such as the introduction to Geometry on folio 245, repeated on folio 256, in which position it was printed.
The remainder of Book III (Harleian Ms 2134, f.160 on) includes additional material that was not originally planned. The text, like the previous sections, appears to be in the form of a neat copy, but it is in a less advanced state. The marginalia for the printer are absent and examples of blanks left in the place of terms become more common. For example, Holme did not name or describe any of the braziers tools, nor apparently did he draw them, though their squares are numbered in the text.
Even the ordering of the chapters is uncertain in this section. In the Table of Contents, Randle Holme only lists two chapters after chapter 19, which he labelled chapters 20 and 21. Later, two further chapters were appended and chapters 20 and 21 were re-numbered respectively as chapters 21 and 22; in this edition we have used their original numbers, corresponding to the Table of Contents. One of the new chapters appears in the manuscript starting on folio 189, that is, immediately after the re- numbered chapter 22. It numbering starts at 37, which suggest that it was intended as a continuation of chapter 19, which ends with number 36 and which deals with the same subject matter. This new chapter was labelled chapter 19, plate 2, which seems logical, but it was later altered to be chapter 20 plate 2; we have restored it to chapter 19. After it, starting on folio 201, appears the final chapter of Book III which is labelled chapter 20 (footnote 28). This chapter consists of addenda to chapters 18, 11, 12, and 9. Although the entries are not numbered, the instructions indicate that numbering was intended (Book III, Chapter 18b). Rather than the text identifying a separate plate gathering together all the illustrations, each description has a drawing beside it. Logically the best position for this chapter would be after chapter 18 to which it is in part an addendum, and in this edition we have placed it there.
Randle Holme appends his apologia to Book III at the end of the final chapter.
Thus I resolve, look now who will hereon,
My Task is past, and all my care is gon.
Gloria Dea Filio datur. (Book III, Conclusion)
The manuscript of Book IV, is contained in a separate volume, Harleian Ms 2135. This portion is very defective. Humfrey Wanley in the Calendar to the Harleian Mss described it as 'A parcel of loose Papers, written all by the same Hand, containing part of Randle Holme's Fourth Book of the Academy of Armory as yet unprinted: that is Chapters IV, VI, VIII, IX, XI, XII and XII, or part of them. Here are some Trickings, but generally the Papers look as if the last Hand was not putt to them'. The book deals with 'coats', marshalling, badges, and funerals. To some extent it seems extraneous to the first three books and could easily have been the basis of a separate work. However, the Table of Contents shows that this was not the case; despite the final lines of Book III, Randle Holme intended it to form part of the Academy (footnote 29). Bound in with Book IV is an Index of all personal names referred to in the first three books. Wanley caustically remarked, 'This not being printed, divers who have the Book were obliged to be at the trouble of making a Table to it for their own use', an interesting comment indicating that he supposed that the readers of the work were principally genealogists and heralds.
Several items show how complicated the process of the compilation had been and how long it had taken, beginning in the 1640s and continuing even after printing the earlier sections had begun. For example, in Ms 2031, which covers chapters 1-5 of Book III, an insertion on folio 468 is written on the back of an already printed page from Book III. In Ms 2032 (Book III, chapters 6-13), folio 260 consists of the blank back of part of a flier advertising a work generally believed to be the Academy of Armory (see below). Another copy of the same flier is used for the same purpose a folio or two further on. It seems improbable that Ms 2032 was still being written in 1688, when the Academy was finally published, so it must be assumed that the flier relates to an earlier, and abortive, attempt at publication. The opening comments of the final chapter of Book III give a convincing proof of how the text volumes were compiled and how this overlapped with the printing:
Now to draw to a conclusion of this Third book of Armory, let me beg the Patience of the courteous Reader, as to take these after Gl[e]aneing in as good part as if they had com in at the full tyme of Harvest; when other Instruments of the like professions, were in some part treated of before. But it could not be expected I should set them then down, when the obtaineing of them was at such tyme as this part was neere halfe printed off. ( Book III, chapter 21)

4. Randle Holme's sources
The text of the Academy includes many indications that Randle Holme learnt about the crafts that he described by word of mouth. In a number of places he uses phrases like 'which they call', 'some call it' or 'it is of some named', (e.g. Chapter 9, no. 156, Chapter 19, no. 69 and Chapter 19, no. 79] The fulsome dedication of Book II chapter 17 in the Academy to a medical practitioner seems to be intended as a placatory gesture for publishing descriptions of surgical instruments, presumably acquired from him.
  To the Much Esteemed Allen Penington Esq; Doctor of Physick:
And To William Pennington Practitioner in Physick, his Son and Heir.
It may be thought a Presumption in me (having been brought up only in Herauldry) to Treat of things above my Sphere, and what belong more properly to Doctors, and Chyrugions. It is true, yet give me leave to make this Appology; that though for the Practick there may be pleaded an insufficiency; yet as a lover of Arts and Sciences, it cannot be taken amiss to have the Theorick, and be acquainted as with their Instruments (which are in Arms) so with their Terms, which is for Gentlemens discourse; therefore as it is necessary for the Ingenious to know the one, so it is much satisfaction to be acquainted in the other (for Knowledge is no great Burthen) which is here drawn upinto an easie Method for the benefit of such as be Discreet. And therefore is hoped will with others be as willingly accepted by You, which is all that is desired from him who is
Your Devoted Friend Ready to Serve You
Randle Holme

Probably much of the information on craft tools came from members of the many trading companies in Chester, though some he may have picked up from a perusal of their records. In Book IV are listed the armorial coats of the London companies and their counterparts, if any, in Chester. With over 40 such companies identified, Chester must have offered Holme exceptional sources of information for a provincial city. It is instructive to note which trades were apparently not covered by a Company in Chester and about which Holme may therefore have found it difficult to gain information; absentees at Chester are pewterers, plumbers, founders, salters, brewers, armorers, girdlers and belt makers, masons or free masons, poulterers, carvers, plasterers, fruiterers, scriveners, bottlemaker and horners, marblers and stone cutters, wool packers, paviors, lorrimers, woodmongers, upholders, turners or throwers, clerks or parish clerks, watermen, apothecaries, glovers, distillers, clock and watch makers, silk throwers, soap makers and glass sellers. A reliance on the trade companies could explain the rather uneven standard of the entries; the Brazier, for example is thinly covered, whereas the section on the pinmaker is very full.
For his knowledge of stone masons and their craft, Holme also relied on contacts with working craftsmen, no doubt through his membership of the Free-mason's lodge at Chester: 'In being conversant amongst them I have observed the use of these severall Tools following.' (Book III, Chapter 9, section 16). He had also clearly studied the architectural texts by Palladio, Serlio and Vitruvius, which he cites as translations. He gives here a significant insight into his views on the utility of the Academy,
'I shall in two examples set forth all their words of Art, used about them: by which any Gentleman may be able to discourse a Free-mason, or other workman in his own terms.' (Book III, Chapter 13, no. 66).
The precise detailing of some of the drawings, such as those of musical instruments, suggests that they may be derived from published illustrations. Indeed, for two groups of illustrations it has been possible to identify sources and parallels. Several of the images of surgical instruments match very closely those in Paul Barbette (1676) Thesaurus Chirugiae, one of the few medical publications of the period with illustrations (which Holme does not cite). For example, the images of 'Dr Salmon's head saw' and of the Speculum matricis can be compared:

Head saw: Barbette	Academy Chapter 18, square 109
Speculum matricis: Barbette	Academy Chapter 9, square 172

It is possible that Barbette was not the immediate source for Holmes images, but that they share a common origin. Some (though not many) of Barbette's images are certainly derived from Woodall Surgeon's Mate (the 1639 edition rather than the original unillustrated 1617 edition), which was cited by Holme and might have provided him with illustrations. The images of Woodall's trephine are very similar in all three sources (though the resemblance would hardly be recognisable from the Academy's printed square).

Woodall's trephine: Woodall; Barbette		Academy Chapter 11, square 35

Holme also drew extensively on the only group of tool illustrations available at this date, those in Moxon Mechanick Exercises (published in parts from 1677 onwards). The eighteen plates in volume I include tools for smiths, carpenters and turners, which were used by Holme; he also paraphrased Moxon's descriptive text, or sometimes copied it directly. In the Academy, Chapter 7 squares 128 to 134 (smith's tools) are selected from Moxon's plates 1-3, while almost all of Chapter 8, squares 132 to 163 (carpenters, joiners and turners) come from plates 5 to 18. Plate 9, for example, matches the images in squares 146-8.

Mechanick Exercises, Plate 9	Chapter 8, squares 146-8

As a further illustration of the seventeenth century attitude to sources, it has been discovered that most of Moxon's illustrations of carpentry tools were themselves not original. Virtually all of the illustrations on his plate IV come from a French source, André Félibien (1676), Des principes de l'architecture, de la sculpture, de la peinture et des autres arts qui en dependent; compare, for example, Moxon's images of planes with Féibien's plate 31 and Holme's squares 132 and 134 (footnote 30).

Moxon, Plate IV	Des principes de l'architecture, plate 31	Academy Chapter 8,square 132(a, b) and 134(c)

Moxon's saws and the workbench on this plate come from Féibien's plate 29 and the chisels, gauges and square from plate 32. Thus, neither in Randle Holme nor Moxon can these specific images be relied on as showing English tools, though French examples may not have been dissimilar. It is worth noting that the Academy includes other planes and joiner's tools (Chapter 9 number 19), which are very likely to be English.
Volume II of Moxon's Mechanick Exercises (1683) deals in great detail with printing, the author's own craft; he includes the procedures and equipment for casting typefaces. Here, Randle Holme used both the text (Chapter 3) and the illustrations (Chapter 20). As an example, the Printer's Chapel (Chapter 3 item 56i) is hardly altered from Moxon, page 356-9. The printing press and casting mould drawings on Harleian Ms 2027, f. 404 and 409, are copied directly from Moxon's plates, rearranged on the page but otherwise unaltered.

Citations in the Academy of Armory (Bibliography of Cited Works)
Randle Holme cited nearly 200 different works that he had consulted: the Bible (23 different books, mostly Old Testament), 18 classical authors, and 155 more or less contemporary printed books. During the 1680s, he was still consulting works for the later chapters of Book III, such as Rawlins The Complete Soldier (1681), Blanckaert A Physical Dictionary (1684), The Soldiers Guide (1686), Taylor Thesarium Mathematicæ (1687) and John Smith (Captain J.S.) Fortifications and Military Discipline (1688). Consultation for the volume published in 1688 finished earlier. Apart from Mabillon De Re Diplomatica (1680) and Moxon Exercises (1677-83), (cited in Book III chapter 20, but not in chapter 3 nor for the sections in chapters 7 and 8 noted above), the latest citation is dated 1676, and the great majority were published before 1670. This observation adds weight to Holme's declaration that the text was ready for publication in the early 1680s. Overall about a third of his citations were for works published after the Restoration, with over a tenth from before 1600 (footnote 31) Although Wanley felt that Holme was a man of little learning, he used at least one work in Italian, several in French and over 30 in Latin, even apart from the classical texts.
It is instructive to analyse the sources which Holme acknowledged. It is only to be expected that he mentions many works on heraldry. Almost equally frequent are books on military and navigational matters and on medicine. He consulted standard works such as Meagar and Markham on agriculture and the garden, and Parkison and Rea on botany, all for Book II, but he seems to have found nothing beyond heraldry for the animal life in that book, though one might have expected him to use Topsell Historie of fovre-footed beastes, a large work that was republished several times. For much of Book III, Holme either found a serious dearth of sources, or else he felt no need to name them. He did not acknowledge the debt to Moxon Mechanick Exercises for the extensive information used on the metal trades and on carpentry and joinery; nor does he mention Moxon as the source for the section on printing in chapter 3, though he does in chapter 20.

5. Publishing the Academy (footnote 32)
The title page of the Academy makes the surprising statement that it was printed in Chester, despite the restrictions on printing outside London and the cities of Oxford and Cambridge that had been imposed in the sixteenth century and were renewed by Parliament after the Restoration (footnote 33). Some printing presses were set up in the provinces, though most were short lived and York seems to have been virtually the only provincial town with a long tradition of printing, though even there it was certainly not continuous (footnote 34). Despite a flourishing Stationers Company founded in 1534, no printer seems to have been at work in Chester before William Thorpe, 'a not very competent copper-plate engraver' in the city from the 1660s until his death in 1676 (footnote 35). For these reasons many scholars have questioned whether it would have been possible for Randle Holme to have printed and published the Academy himself (footnote 36).
Nuttall (1969) suggests that Holme may have acquired Thorpe's intaglio press when he died, but offers no evidence to support this suggestion. He also suggests that Holme may have worked with his father's former apprentice, Daniel King, who set up business in Chester for a while before moving to London and publishing the Vale Royal of England in 1656 (footnote 37). Certainly, shortly after the Restoration, King supported Holme in his attempts to rehabilitate the family fortune (footnote 38). The dedication to Book I chapter I of the Academy implies that Holme spent some time in London which could have been with King. However, since King cannot have learnt any advanced printing techniques as an apprentice and indeed never seems to have taken to printing, it seems that this would have benefited Holme little except, perhaps, to make contacts. A more probable source of expertize for Holme was the sprinkling of printers moving between London and Dublin, who would have passed through Chester; Thomas Tillier may have been one such. He was apparently in London in 1687 when he published a broadside, was certainly in Dublin in the 1690s, and apparently remained there until his death. Between London and Dublin he seem to have been in Chester (footnote 39). It seems probable that Holme acquired enough printing skills for him to decide to produce the Academy himself. How much expert help he had remains in doubt.
An elaborate title page bearing the date of 1682 was prepared, while the fragments of two letters, each dated 1683, suggest that Holme was then ready to start printing, though he had neither permission nor the necessary equipment. An unknown correspondent wrote the first letter to a recipient addressed only as 'Right Honourable'. The correspondent may have been the 'worthy friend' Mr Richard Brereton of Chester, whom Randle Holme thanked in the dedication to one of the chapters of the Academy, recalling that 'he had stood up for my cause, and put life into my fainting Spirits ... not as a Assistant, Co-helper or Subscriber, but as an Undertaker...' (footnote 40). The letter requested permission on Holme's behalf to print 'a very usefull Book of Herauldry' in Chester, Holme 'being unable to attend the Printing of ye same at London' on condition that 'ye Press shall be noe further employ'd than to that work only' (footnote 41). No answer has been located, so we do not know whether Holme did receive approval. It may be that he had an assurance that he took to be sufficient, although without the formal royal permission under Great Seal as the law required. Certainly, when it came to selling the Academy Randle Holme encountered resistance because 'our book sellers say it is not licensed' (footnote 42).
The second letter is from Holme himself and contains a request for assistance in acquiring a 'Presse & letters'. The recipient is uncertain but Holme signed himself 'Your Loveing friend, Randle Holme', suggesting that the two correspondents were known to each other (footnote 43). The letter refers to a meeting with the recipient's son-in-law (believed to be Thomas Tillier) as he passed through Chester on his way to Ireland (footnote 44). It is almost certain that Tillier played some part in the printing. Among the Commendations to the Academy are some verses by 'T. Tillier, Typog.', and Holme awarded him a heraldic coat; 'He beareth a Talaria or Mercuries shooe ... by the name of Tillier' (footnote 45). Although the records of the Stationers Company do not mention Tillier working in Chester, an undated 'Geographical Imprint', was printed by him there (footnote 46). The press which Holme acquired was probably set up in Bridge Street where Holme lived. Randle Holme IV wrote in his will, dated 1704, of a room there 'which room was formerly made use of as a printing house or place' (footnote 47).
A pica type (a size of about six lines to the inch) is used for the text of the Academy with an apparently unique face. Some of the large italic type in the chapter headings is identical with that used by Moxon who may have supplied it. He may also have provided some of the special printers' marks and astronomical and musical signs for which he is known to have made punches (footnote 48).
The task of producing the Academy must have been formidable. Nuttall calculates that the 1688 edition contains well over half a million words on over 1,100 pages, not to mention the 50 full size plates. This would have represented over 4,000 hours of work for a compositor and he further estimates that three or four craftsmen would have been engaged for at least a year in the work of the press. The minute books of the Stationers Company have no references to workmen employed by Holme, although a letter from Tillier to Holme sheds some light on the labour used. Tiller requested Holme to send him a 'good lusty youth about fifteen or sixteen years of age' such as 'Will the Welsh boy that was with your son Randle' (footnote 49). This lad would have been too young to have worked on the Academy itself, but perhaps Holme had used similar boys, old enough and strong enough to be apprenticed, but not actually bound, for some of the less skilled work. It seems unlikely that Holme himself was engaged full time on the printing whatever he claimed, as he was busy during the 1680s with the affairs of the Stationers Company (footnote 50).

Book publication in late seventeenth century England
Publishing large books at the end of the seventeenth century could be problematic; historians have believed that it was impossible outside London. Before tracing the Academy through publication, it is instructive to consider the fortunes of two comparable contemporary works, which highlight the difficulties of publication at this date.
John Houghton Husbandry and trade improv'd was conceived as a running commentary on matters of industry, trade and agriculture ( footnote 51). It was published in the form of weekly letters sold for 2d each, from the end of 1692 until 1703, 583 in all, 'so that all that like may have after the same manner they have Gazetts'. He spread the net of readership as widely as he could, claiming that his letters would be of interest not only to the agricultural community and associated trades but also 'buyers of coals, hop- merchants, soap-boylers, tallow chandlers', and the like. With the resources of the Royal Society behind him, Houghton was able to include in one of his letters a Testimonial signed by fellow members and to advertise in other works published in London (footnote 52). To some degree, he had an overall plan, several letters together dealing with a topic like fish and fishing, while each letter was constructed quite cleverly, whetting the appetite of the reader for what was to come the next week. Nevertheless, it would appear that not all went smoothly; the day of publication was changed and a different format was tried. The individual letters were packaged up into volumes and indexed and presumably sold in this form as well. By 1703, when Houghton wrote his last letter, he was defensive. 'I have endeavoured', he wrote, 'to make it the best account of trade ... that has yet been published I could hear of' (Letter 583 dated 24 September 1703). When Richard Bradley re-issued the work in 1727, he declared one reason for so doing was the scarcity of copies, 'with not in all English Libraries ten compleat sets'. With so few copies surviving, it did not look as if it had ever sold well. As a skilled marketeer, Bradley angled his publicity more strongly towards estate management and land improvement - always good sellers - with not even a nod towards the trades that Houghton had emphasised, a reminder of a possible weakness in the promotion of the Academy.
Joseph Moxon, the second contemporary author of an ambitious work, with the same advantages as Houghton of a London base and membership of the Royal Society, also suffered serious difficulties with publication. The Preface to Moxon's Mechanick Exercises seems to suggest that the original plan was to cover all mechanical trades, in which case it would have rivalled Randle Holme's Academy in scope. As it is, what was completed is limited, though fuller than the Academy for the trades actually covered (see above). Like Houghton he started by publishing his work in instalments, monthly in his case and sold at '2d for each Printed Sheet And 2d for every Print taken off of Copper Cuts'. But he found that 'Some Trades are particularly affected by some Customers, (who desire not the next) and consequently soon sold off, which renders the remainder of the un-sold Exercises unperfect and therefore not acceptable to such as desire all: so that they remain as waste-paper on my hands'. He drew attention to the necessity of quick sales and castigated the customers who told him 'they will take them when all the Trades are finish't, which cannot reasonably be expected from me (my Years considered) in my life-time; which implies they will be customers when I'm dead, or perhaps by this time some of themselves (footnote 53). Moxon solved his problems in part by publishing two volumes incorporating all the separate instalments of Mechanick Exercises issued to date. These sold well and went into several editions. But he gave up the grand plan after covering only metal and wood working, and printing.
These two works highlight some of the challenges of publication in the late seventeenth century, particularly of works concerned with industry and trade: prejudice against crafts as a topic for an educated readership, the high costs of production, particularly where illustrations were concerned, the vagaries of the market and the difficulty of guessing correctly whether publication by instalment or in a single volume would be more advantageous. All these were to be issues that confronted Randle Holme.

Printing the Academy
The arrangement of the Academy of Armory in four books, and the packaging of his material into distinct chapters each with its own plate and its own sponsor, raises the suspicion that Holme originally intended to publish in instalments in the same way as Houghton and Moxon. Either by book or by chapter would have been practical possibilities. Some more concrete evidence on how Holme planned to publish the work comes from an undated printed prospectus (only part of which survives); it probably refers to the Academy, though unfortunately the title of the book in question is missing. Since several copies of the back side of the sheet have been preserved among Holme's papers, it is something of a mystery why no copies of the front face appears to exist. Nevertheless, the fragment does give valuable information about the format of the book, arrangements about financing the work and mechanisms of distribution.
The publisher promised the book would be 'finished by God's assistance by the 25th December next'. Assuming the publisher to be Randle Holme, and the work in question the Academy, this date could refer to the months leading up to the actual publication in 1688. It is more likely that it refers to 1682- 3, when Holme claimed the manuscript was ready, when he prepared a Title page dated 1682 and when he was procuring a press and permission to print. The prospectus claims that the plates and a table of Contents were printed ready to 'shew (such as desire)'. The date of 1682-3 would thus explain why the table of Contents was prepared well before the final text was settled. If this hypothesis is correct, it may explain why the description does not match what was finally published. The volume in question was said to contain 200 odd sheets and 'above 100 Copper Plates of half Sheet largeness all Printed in a Pica Letter on good Paper'. Although the final version of the Academy has fewer plates and many more sheets, in other respects the prospectus does fit. The price of the first volume was given as 30s for each part unbound, that is '15s present money' and the remainder on delivery 'which cannot be thought dear being not a Penny a sheet for both the Printing and Cutts' (footnote 54). This ambiguous prospectus suggests that Randle Holme planned to publish in parts, perhaps as each book became ready, though Book III would have been disproportionately large.
Holme was planning to rely heavily on special offers (buy ten copies and have another one free), a reduced price for subscribers who bought before the deadline, and distribution through booksellers. The area he planned to target was quite circumscribed. He lists only a dozen sellers, over half being resident in Cheshire (4) and Shropshire (3), the rest in the Midlands, east Wales and south Lancashire. He was apparently unable to tap potentially lucrative towns like York, Worcester and Birmingham and had no outlet in London. This marketing area is slightly less restricted than that from which he attracted sponsors and promoters who came almost exclusively from Cheshire and north Wales, with none from further north or from the Midlands. This limited area of influence, reflected in the lists of outlets and sponsors augured ill for large sales and for acceptance by the establishment.
Holme named only nine 'promoters' of the work and a further nine who had granted 'favours'. Apart from these, whose assistance was recognized in dedications to chapters in Book I and II, Holme named his 'Worthy Friend' Mr Richard Brereton of Chester as his chief supporter with a moving acknowledgement to his assistance in taking forward the publication of the Academy.
When I had finished the First and Second Books of My Academy of Armory, I then stood at a stay, to consider whether I was able to encounter with so great a Goliath as the remaining part was, for the vast Expense past, and the far greater to succeed, and having so few Allies, and never a Champion to appear for my present Assistance, caused me to Despair of Victory, or ever overcoming so Potent an Enemy; till you like a little David stood up for my Cause, and put life into my fainting Spirits, taking the Quarrel into your hands, and not as a Assistant, Co-helper or Subscriber, but as an Undertaker.' (footnote 55).
The implication here is that Book I and II were printed off, possibly even with some sold unbound as the prospectus had promised, but that now things were at a stand. By 1688, when Books I and II and the first 13 chapters of Book III were finally published as a single large volume, Holme was pessimistic about success.
Thus far have I with much Costs and Pains, caused to be Printed for the Publick benefit, What remains (and is nearly ready for the Press) is as followeth in the succeeding Contents, which if encouraged by Liberal and free Contributions, may appear in the World, else will sleep in the Bedd of its Conception, and never see the Glorious Light of the Sun.
He expands on this gloomy prognosis more fully in a second review of his work and its prospects, bound in at the end of some copies of the 1688 volume.
Hitherto I have been through great Pains and Changes caused to Printed The Academy of Armory, the remaining part (according to the contents of the chapters mentioned in the beginning of the first Book) is all ready for the Press, and wants nothing but Encouragement for the Work, for I must acknowledge myself not at all presentable, or sufficient to carryon so great a Work without Assistance, for the Times are so Hard, Trading so Dead, Money scarce, Paper wanting (else at Double, of not Trebble Rates to that I first begun) Wages grear [sic] and daily layings out so much, and above all Gentlemens Coldness of Zeal in promoting the same, that amongst the many Thousands of Noble Families, and Rich Estates in our parts of the Kingdom, viz. Cheshire, Lancashire, and the Six Counties of North Wales, not above Twenty have advanced Money to the Work, whose Names I have Dedicated Chapters unto. Others I have mentioned, who have promised to have it when Published, but nothing to encourage it forwards, so that by reason of my own vast Layings out (above what Received, which is above six Hundred Pounds) I am resolved to go no further, but send Pen Feathered Birds into the World, to gather Crums to Nourish and Bring up the Rest, else they are like to die in the Nest, which if the Gentry suffer, it will be more their Loss than mine.' (footnote 56).
In his prospectus and his apologia, Holme gave the same reasons for his difficulties as Moxon a few years before: the high costs of production, the vagaries of the market and the difficulty of guessing correctly whether publication by instalment or in a single volume would be more advantageous. He seems in addition to have had particular difficulty in raising sponsorship, one suspects partly because of his lack of influence in the capital and in provincial England outside Cheshire and north Wales. It is as least possible that he was also looking towards the wrong market. On the edge of the heraldic establishment, he could have hoped for little support there, and there may have been too great a diversion into matters of the artisan to please the gentry.
Before his death, Randle Holme did attempt to fulfil his ambition to publish the rest of the work, or at least the remaining portions of the original Book III. Since books were often sold unbound in the seventeenth century, and that had been Holme's declared intention in the prospectus, it would not have been necessary to do more than print off the extra sheets and offer them for sale. Whether this was done, or whether those that were offered for sale were proofs, at least one copy did find its way onto the market. Grenville saw a set of sheets, and recalled the incident in a memorandum in the front of his copy of the Academy.
'The author informs the reader that tho' he has only given 13 chapters of the 3rd book, the remainder is already for the press. In truth that remainder was imperfectly printed - 6 additional chapters - 191 pages, followed by a 'Table of Names of Coats of Arms to the Volume in 6 leaves, but the first 2 pages of each chapter were wanting and rendered the book so imperfect I would not buy it.' (British Library, G1184).
The comment suggests that either there was a disastrous print run virtually contemporaneous with the 1688 Academy, or else someone acquired a partial set of proofs which he tried to sell. Since only one printed copy (incomplete) is known to have survived, the second hypothesis seems the most likely. This survival, in the Royal Library, Windsor could well be the very same set of pages seen by Greville (footnote 57).
By the early 1690s Holme had acquired the services of a London printer, though not a very good one, and a London bookseller. A re-issue of the first volume came out in London dated 1693, 'Printed for the Author, and ... sold by Richard Chiswell, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard'. It used the sheets as issued in 1688, including the engraved title page, but had a new printed title page, and an additional plate of abbreviations facing page 414. Possibly the anxieties already referred to as to whether the Academy was licensed, caused Randle Holme to go to London for this second edition. A further edition came out in 1701 shortly after Holme's death, published by 'The Bookseller of London and Westminster'. Both these editions were apparently short runs and are now very rare (footnote 58). The later has an altered full title, a Dedication inserted at the front to King William and Queen Mary with an address to the Reader on the back reiterating Randle Holme's promise saying he 'will, if encouraged, add a Second Part of the Third and Fourth Books, the Manuscripts being all ready', a promise from the grave which was not fulfilled for over two hundred years.
Apart from the Index of names of persons contained in The Academy of armory and blazon published in 1821, and sometimes bound into copies of the 1688 edition, no further editions were published until 1905 when the Roxburghe Club published the remaining chapters of Book III and what has survived of Book IV. The editor, J. H. Jeayes, used principally the original manuscript version, illustrated with the proof plates in Harleian Ms 5955, and those drawings directly associated with the manuscript text. Only in the present edition has it been possible to identify the illustrations for those chapters which lack proof plates (19b-21). Since 1905, a facsimile has been produced of the 1688 edition (1972), and it is also included on the Wing microfilms of Early English Books (reel 634, item 10); the sections of Book III concerned with printing have also been reprinted.

6. References and Bibliography
Primary sources
British Library Harleian Mss 1920-2180, particularly 2026-2035, the manuscript copy of the Academy of Armory.

Editions of the Academy of Armory
(1688), The Academy of Armory, or, a storehouse of armory and blazon, containing the several variety of created beings, and how born in coats of arms, both foreign and domestick. With the instruments used in all trades and sciences, together with their terms of art. Also the etymologies, definitions, and historical observations on the same, explicated and explained according to our modern language. Very useful for all gentlemen, scholars, divines, and all such as desire any knowledge in arts and sciences, volume 1, printed for [on one title page by] the author, Chester.

(1693), The Academy of Armory, or, a storehouse of armory ..., printed for the author, London, and sold by Richard Chiswell. [A re-issue of the sheets of the 1688 edition, including the engraved title page but with a new printed title page and an additional plate of alphabets facing p. 414].

(1701), The Academy of Armory, or, a display of heraldry. Being a more easy way to attain the knowledge thereof, than hath been hitherto published by any, containing the several variety of created beings, and how born in coats of arms, both foreign and domestick. With the instruments used in all trades and sciences, together with their terms of art, printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster.

(1821), Index of names of persons contained in The Academy of armory and blazon, London.

(1905), The Academy of Armory, or, a storehouse of armory and blazon ..., volume 2, edited by J.H. Jeayes, Roxburghe Club, London.

(1972), The Academy of Armory, or, a storehouse of armory and blazon, ... , facsimile reprint of the first edition of volume 1, Scolar press, Menson.

(1972), The Academy of Armory, a reprint of the part of Book III concerning the art of printing and typefounding, edited by D Nuttall and M. R. Perkin, Scolar press, Menson, for private distribution to members of the Printing Historical Society.

Other references

Barbette, Paul (1676), Thesaurus Chirugiae: the chirugical and anatomical works ... The third edition. To which is added the Surgeon's Chest furnished both with instruments and medicines .., London: Printed and are to be sold by Moses Pitt.

Coles, Elisha (1676), An English Dictionary explaining the difficult terms that are used in divinity, husbandry, physick, philosophy, law, navigation, mathematicks, and other arts and sciences, Samuel Crouch: London

Earwaker, J.P. (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes of Chester, Antiquaries, Heralds, and Genealogists, c. 1571 to 1707', J. Chester. Arch. Soc., vol. 4, pp. 113-70.

Félibien, André (1676), Des principes de l'architecture, de la sculpture, de la peinture et des autres arts qui en dependent: avec un dictionnaire des terms propres à chacun de ces arts, Paris [Facsimile of 3rd edition (1699), Gregg Press, Farnborough, Hants, 1966]

Herdman, William Gawin (1843), Pictorial relicts of ancient Liverpool accompanied with descriptions of the antique buildings compiled from original evidences, H. Grave & Co., London. (Another edition privately printed in Liverpool in 1856).

Houghton, John (1727), Husbandry and trade improv'd: being a collection of many valuable materials relating to corn, cattle, coal, hops, wool, &c., revised by Richard Bradley, three volumes, printed for Woodman and Lyon, London, [containing the weekly letters published by John Houghton from 1692 to 1703].

Johnson, Samuel (1755), A dictionary of the English language: in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar, London

Moxon, Joseph (1683-4), Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-Works, begun January 1 1677 And intended to be continued. By Joseph, Moxon, Member of the Royal Society, and Hydrographer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty, London printed for Joseph Moxon.

Moxon, Joseph (1978), Mechanic Exercises on the whole Art of Printing, edited by Herbert Davis and Harry Carter, London, OUP (1968) and republished New York, Dover.

Nuttall, Derek (1967), A History of printing in Chester from 1688 to 1965, published by the author, Chester.

Topsell, Edward (1607), The historie of fovre footed beastes: Describing the true and liuely figure of euery beast, with a discourse of their seuerall names, conditions, kindes, vertues (both naturall and medicinall) countries of their breed, their loue and hate to mankinde, and the wonderfull worke of God in their creation, preseruation, and destruction ... wherein are declared diuers Hyeroglyphicks, emblems, epigrams, and other good histories ..., printed by William Iaggard, London.

Woodall, John (1617), The Surgions Mate, or a treatise discovering ... the due contents of the Surgions chest ... , London, E. Griffin for L. Lisle [Facsimile, Kingsmead Press, Bath, Somerset, 1978, including plate from 1639 edition].
Woodall, John (1639), The Surgeons Mate or military and domestique surgery. Discovering ye method and order of ye surgeons chest..., London: Printed by Rob. Young for Nicholas Bourne.

Footnotes


1. A few illustrations taken from the section on the household are used in Steer, F. W. (1950), Farm and Cottage inventories of Mid-Essex, Essex County Council; Thornton, Peter (1978), Seventeenth-century interior decoration in England, France and Holland, Yale University Press for the Paul Mellor Centre for studies in British art, New Haven and London; Chinnery, Victor (1979), Oak furniture, the British tradition: a history of early furniture in the British Isles and New England, Antique Collectors Club, Woodbridge; Bristow, Ian C. (1996), Architectural colour in British interiors, 1615-1840, Yale UP, New Haven and London; the sections on printing have been reprinted in Nuttall, D and Perkin, M. R. (1972), The Academy of Armory, a reprint of the part of Book III. concerning the art of printing and typefounding, Scolar Press, Menson.

2. The existence of these drawings was known to a few scholars and they have been used in some of the works cited in the preceding footnote. They seem never to have been discussed in print, and their number seems not to have been fully realised.

3. The information in this section comes largely from the Dictionary of National Biography, and from Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes'.

4. We thank Philip Knowles for giving us access to material that will appear in his Leicester University Ph. D. thesis, 'Civic cultures and urban identity, c1660-c1750'.

5. Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', pp. 124-25.

6. Many of the letters and other papers relating to this mayoralty were preserved by the Holmes, and are now in Harleian Ms 2002.

7. John Souch (1594-1644) was apprenticed to Randle Holme I from 1606 to 1616; J S Turner (ed.) Grove Dictionary of Art, vol. 29, p. 90.

8. Nuttall (1967), History of printing in Chester, p. 6.

9. Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', pp. 137-38. D.N.B. states that Holme was reduced to a mere innkeeper at Barnet at this date, referring to State Papers, Dom. Charles II; however it is clear from the Calendar for 1663-4 (HMSO, 1862) that D.N.B. has confused him with a Captain Randolph Holme of Barnet.

10. Harleian Ms 2022 folios 129 verso and 183b; a transcription of the latter is in Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', p. 140. The 'gentleman sewers' had the duty of serving dishes at the royal table.

11. D.N.B. The Visitation lasted until 1670.

12. Sir William Dugdale's Heraldic Collections, volume 1, British Library Add. Ms 38140.

13. Dugdale seems to have been successful, since Holme recorded, for example, that the 'Chester Goldsmiths did beare of old, the same coate' [as the London Goldsmiths], while that of the 'Taylors in Chester in the yeare 1593' closely resembled that of the Londoners, Holme (1905), Academy of Armory, Book IV, pp. 402-11.

14. Dugdale's Autobiography, p. 35, quoted by Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', pp. 141-42.

15. Given the evidence of Holme's presence in Chester at this period, it seems unlikely that he was the Randle Holme said to be serving as a tapster at the Golden Talbot in Liverpool in 1694; Herdman, Ancient Liverpool, p. 58. However, this identification, coupled with D.N.B's assertion about his presence in Barnet in the 1660s (Footnote 9), has led historians to question Randle Holme's respectability at this period.

16. Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', pp. 157-58

17. Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', p. 153.

18. The will of Randle Holme IV, dated 2 June 1704 survives; see Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', pp. 158-59.

19. Philip Knowles, private communication. The material at Chester is largely of antiquarian interest and is not part of the Academy sources.

20. Philip Knowles, private communication.

21. Harleian Ms Calendar, entry for Ms 2126.

22. Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', p. 151, considers Holme's suggestions about the 'proper mode of blazoning God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit' to be blasphemous.

23. Johnson wrote 'Of the laborious and mercantile part of the people, the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable: many of its terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and though current in certain times and places, are in others utterly unknown.' Johnson (1755), Dictionary, preface. He did not include such terms in his dictionary.

24. Moxon (1683), Mechanick Exercises, Preface.

25. Harleian Ms 2026, f.105v and 106; Ms 2027, f.240 and Ms 2026, f.46v; Ms 2027 f.243v and 256v.

26. For example, the section entitled 'Instruments belonging to a Gardiner' in chapter 6 on folio 262 has been deleted, but it is listed in the table of Contents, suggesting alteration after that was compiled.

27. For example, folios 111 and 173 (1645), and folio 178 (1643).

28. The plate numbers for these two added sections have been altered at some stage, with the '2' changed to '1' or vice versa.

29. The 'Address to the Reader' found at the start of some copies of the Academy of Armory as published in 1688 states that 'the Author ... will, if encouraged, add a Second Part of the Third and Fourth Books, the Manuscripts being all ready'.

30. These parallels were first noted by J. E. Sanford, Chronicle of Early American Industries Association, II(18), September 1941, 150, and W. L. Goodman, The History of Woodworking Tools, 1964, pp.68-9.

31. The dates of publication cited in the Bibliography are generally for the first editions. Holme may well have used later editions, as many of his citations were to popular works which remained in print for a long time.

32. Nuttall (1969) History of printing in Chester is the principal source for this section.

33. 13 & 14 CAR II c. 33 (1662), An act for preventing seditious, treasonable and unlicensed books and pamphlets, and for regulating of printing and printing presses. The act still allowed the King to make grants to individuals under the great seal. The act was extended in 1 JAC II c. 17 (1685). An act for reviving and continuance of several acts of Parliament.

34. Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, pp. 2-4.

35. Berry and Poole (1966), Annals of printing, p. 139; Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, pp. 4-5.

36. See, for example, Harleian Ms 2035 folios 143, 318v and 327v.

37. Smith, William (1656), The vale-royall of England ... published by Mr Daniel King, printed by John Streater, London. King was bound apprentice in 1630. In London, among other editorial activities, he was the author of The Cathedrall and Coventuall Churches of England and Wales orthographically delineated by D. K[ing], London, 1656, but there is no evidence that he ever involved himself in printing.

38. Harleian Ms 202, folio 301b.

39. Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, pp.10-11.

40. Holme (1688), Academy of Armory, Book III, chapter 2.

41. Harleian 'volume XXIV' (presumably Ms 1944), f. 318v, f. 327v, quoted by Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, p. 7.

42. The letter accompanying the gift of a copy of the Academy to the College of Heralds, now preserved in Harleian Ms 6944 and quoted by Earwaker (1892), 'The four Randle Holmes', p. 147.

43. Harleian Ms 2035, folio 143.

44. Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, p. 7.

45. Holme (1688), Academy of Armory, Book III, chapter 13, number 151; Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, pp. 10-11.

46. Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, p. 10. He states there is a copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, but gives no fuller reference.

47. Quoted by by Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, p. 13.

48. Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, p. 8; Nuttall and Perkin (1972), A Reprint of part of Book III, Introduction; Moxon (1962 ed.), Mechanick Exercises, p. xxxv. The editors of Moxon do not suggest that Holme acquired these punches, though the similarity of the typefaces is marked.

49. Harleian Ms 7568 folio 51.

50. Nuttall (1969), History of printing in Chester, p. 10.

51. Houghton (1727 edition) Husbandry and trade improv'd.

52. Letter 1 dated 30 March 1692; The testimonial itself was dated 11 November 1691; Moxon (1683-4), Mechanick Exercises, pp. 44, 133, where Houghton advertised a similar and earlier collection.

53. Moxon (1683-4), Mechanick Exercises, volume II, folio 1 verso.

54. Harleian Ms 2032 folio 260 verso. The recto side is used for part of the Academy of Armory, Book III. Notice how the defence of the price matches what Moxon had to say.

55. Academy of Armory (1688), Book III, dedication to chapter 2.

56. Academy of Armory (1688), Book III, p. 498 in some copies (British Library, RB31 c320), p. 502 in others (British Library 137.f.7). The apologia is not found in all copies.

57. The first page of each chapter would have included the dedication and the first one or two numbered entries. On the back would have been the plate. These 191 pages at Windsor are bound in with a copy of the 1688 edition and with the Index published in 1821; i.e. the three parts must have been put together at a late date. It seems doubtful that a full print run of the last six chapters of Book III was ever made. We thank the Librarian of the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, for information about the copy there.

58. Liverpool University Library has a copy of the former and the Library at Winterthur, NJ, USA the latter (call number CR19H 74 F). Neither of the editors has seen this copy, but its pagination suggests that it is identical with the 1688 edition with an altered front section. We thank the Librarian at Winterthur, for supplying additional details.