Mr. Waller, in his volume on Monumental Brasses, in describing that of William de Grenfeld, Archbishop of York, says:
"The arms of the two archiepiscopal sees were formerly the same, and continued to be so till the Reformation, when the pall surmounting a crozier was retained by Canterbury, and the cross keys and tiara (emblematic of St. Peter, to whom the minster is dedicated), which until then had been used only for the church of York, were adopted as the armorial bearings of the see."
To the word "tiara" he appends a note:
"Or rather at this period a regal crown, the tiara having been superseded in the reign of Henry VIII."
He gives no authority for the statement, but the note appears contradictory, and implies two changes in the first to the cross-keys and tiara, which may corroborate the notion of its having been adopted by Cardinal Wolsey; secondly, the substitution of the crown for the tiara. Can this be proved?
F. H.
Roger Wilbraham, Esq.'s, Cheshire Collection (Vol. viii., p. 270.).—It is probable these MSS. are still at the family seat of the Wilbrahams, Delamere Lodge, Northwitch. When Ormerod published his History of Cheshire, in 1819, they were in the custody of the family. He says (vol. iii. p. 232.):
"In the possession of the family is a curious series of journals commenced by Richard Wilbraham of Nantwich, who died in 1612, and continued regularly to the time of his great-great-grandson, who died in 1732. As a genealogical document, such a memorial is invaluable; and it contains many curious incidental notices of passing events, and of minute particulars relating to the town of Nantwich, of whose rights the Wilbrahams of Townsend were the never-failing and active guardians."
J. Yeowell.