Queen Mary’s Manual, of which we shall have more to say later, seems to have been the source from which Burnet transcribed the Office. In his time it was in the library of R. Smith, titular Bishop of Chalcedon.
Numerous allusions in the records of the De Lisle family bear testimony to the popularity of cramp-rings in the reign of Henry VIII.[248] Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and afterwards Duke of Somerset, writes to Lady Lisle, in 1537:
‘Hussey told me you were very desirous to have some cramp-rings against the time that you should be brought a bedd.... I send by the present messenger 18 cramp-rings, which you should have had long ago.’[249]
John Husee writes from London on April 17, 1535, to his mistress, Lady Lisle: ‘I send you by Mr. Degory Gramefilld 59 cramp rings of silver, that Christofer Morys giveth you, and one of gold’;[250] and again, on May 2, 1538: ‘Cramp-rings I can get none out of the jewel-house. Mr. Wyllms says the King had the most part of gold, but has promised me twelve silver.’[251]
In a letter of May 13, 1536, John Husee combines denunciation of Anne Boleyn with a promise of cramp-rings to Lady Lisle:
‘Madam, I think verily that if all the books and cronycles were totally revolved and to the uttermost proscuted and tried, which against wymen hath been pennyd, contryvyd, and wryten, syns Adam and Eve, these same were I think verily nothing in comparison with that which hath been done and committed by Anne the Queen.... I think not the contrary but she and all they shall suffre. John Williams hath promised me some cramp rings for your Ladyship’;[252]
and again, six days after:
‘Your ladyship shall receive of this berer 9 cramp-rings of silver. John Williams says he never had so few of gold as this year. The king had the most part himself: but next year he will make you amends.’[253]
This day, May 19, 1536, was the day of Anne Boleyn’s execution.
Margaret Mylynton, in 1516, bequeaths to ‘my dame Croche my best gown and a kercheve, and my cramp-ring’.[254] There is nothing, however, to show that it had received the royal benediction.