Bertie papers

Persons Date Lot Nos.

Richard Bertie and Katherine duchess of Suffolk 1555-1581 10ANC/* Lot 313-318

Peregrine Lord Willoughby 1582-1589 10ANC/* Lot 317 (part of) 319-335

Robert, first earl of Lindsey, and his sons c. 1605-1635 10ANC/Lot 366 344 355/1 356 357 (part of)

Montagu, second earl of Lindsey and his sons c. 1639-1650 10ANC/* Lot 346-352 357 (part of)

John Pridgeon, steward 1649-1671 10ANC/* Lot 353-4, 357 (part of)

Robert third earl of Lindsey 1667-1671 10ANC/* Lot 355/2 357 (part of)

In the list which follows items are dealt with as follows:

1) Each lot in the Sale is included for the sake of completeness although where the Lincolnshire Archives Office has neither the original nor a photocopy, nothing more than the entry from Sotheby's Catalogue can be given by way of description. (reference is given thus: Sotheby p. )

2) Where possible the purchaser at the Sale and any subsequent purchaser and his or her whereabouts is given.

3) The list shows of the items now in the archivists' custody, those which have been purchased by or for the Committee and those which belong to Lord Ancaster.

4) Full descriptions are given of deposits of Lord Ancaster, purchases by the Lincolnshire Archives Committee and photocopies, arranged in the order of their lot numbers. If, as is possible, the Committee is able to make further purchases, the lot descriptions may be amended. It is not proposed to give more than the general group number 10 Ancaster, the lot number, and subdivisions of the lot, at the moment.

not all deposited - only items marked * were acquired by Lincolnshire Archives.

Sotheby's Sale, 23 June 1970

INTRODUCTION

Attention was drawn to the existence of these documents by Councillor B. Leslie Barker and copies of the Catalogue of Sotheby's Sale 22-23 June, 1970, were subsequently received. There were 59 lots of which 45 were manuscript and 14 printed. It was immediately clear from the Catalogue that these papers had once formed an integral part of the muniments at Grimsthorpe being particularly closely related to the twelve volumes of 16th and early 17th century papers deposited by Lord Ancaster during 1968-69 with the Lincolnshire Archives Committee and catalogued in Calender of Ancaster Manuscripts, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1907. It seems most probable that these papers come into the possession of Commander David Herber Percy and his forebears by a connection by marriage. Mary daughter of the second duke of Ancaster married Samuel Greathead of Guy's Cliff near Warwick. Their descendant and eventual heiress Anne Caroline Greathead married Charles Percy 8th son of Algernon Earl of Beverley in 1822 and had one daughter who died in 1891. Hugh Percy, elder brother of Charles, had a son Algernon who married Emily Heber and assumed the name Heber-Percy. The younger son of their son Algernon, by name Josceline, of Guy's Cliffe, was father of Commander David Heber-Percy. Mr. T.R.C. Goff sent Lord Ancaster an extract from Letters from and to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe ed. A. Allardyce, London 1888, vol. 2 p. 494 as follows: Letter from Lady Priscilla Willoughby daughter of the 3rd duke of Ancaster - "There were no papers in the Lodge ... except some letters of Vanburgh and a receipt of sir Joshua. This is easily accounted for by old Bertie Greathead in Duke Brownlow's time having ransacked the papers, when we know that he carried off the letter of Charles I to Lord Lindsey and we believe, one from Queen Elizabeth to Lord Willoughby, Charles Percy who married his granddaughter very unfairly retained them and an action cannot be brought against them as there is no legal proof. We are all very good friends, but I cannot understand his retaining them. Unless by Greathead's will, he has no power over the papers". Mr. Goff made the further suggestion that some of the papers might have come through the daughter of Brownlow 5th duke of Ancaster whose son Brownlow Charles died in Rome in 1819 leaving half his personal property to his first cousin once removed, Bertie Greathed of Guy's Cliffe, son of Lady Mary Greathead daughter of the 2nd duke of Ancaster.