Beschreibung:

A hand scrivened and illuminated vellum grant of arms dated 2nd July 1720, to Richard Lambourn of Greenvile, Oxon.: Arms of the sovereign flanked by ... those of the Duke of Norfolk as Earl Marshal and the 4th Earl of Berkshire (1687-1757) as deputy Earl Marshal and signed by John Anstis the elder, Garter (served as Garter King of Arms 1718-17745) and Sir John Vanburgh, (1664-1728) Clarenceux; seals, 56cm square, framed Sir John Vanburgh, a well-connected rich London merchant's son, began his life as a Whig agitator, was arrested in France as a spy, and as a member of the Kit-Kat Club, remembered for his 'colossal geniality, his great good humour, his easy-going temperament.' His fame came later, first as the author of six plays, the most memorable being the comedies: The Relapse (1696) and The Provok'd Wife (1697), and secondly as an architect of genius responsible for an important group of eclectically Baroque country houses, ranging from his own town residence, Goose-Pie House Whitehall, and his semi-Gothic Greenwich home, Vanburgh Castle, to the epic Castle Howard, Grimsthorpe Castle, Seaton Delaval and his chef d'oeuvre, Blenheim. He was appointed Clarenceux King of Arms (the chief herald responsible for England south of the Trent) at the College of Arms in 1704 and remained in office until his death 'of an asthma' in 1726. The grantee was later of Caversham, was married and had a family living in the 1720s. Read more