Note 420 — Part 8.

William Sheldon at his own expense brought workmen from Flanders, and employed them in weaving maps of the different counties of England. Of these, three large maps, the earliest specimens, were purchased by the Earl of Orford (Horace Walpole), by whom they were given to Earl Harcourt. He had them repaired and cleaned, and made as fresh as when out of the loom, and eventually gave them to Gough, the antiquary, who bequeathed them to the University of Oxford. The Armada tapestry, which is stated to have been designed by Henry Cornelius Vroom, the Dutch marine painter, and woven by Francis Spiering, appears to have been, in 1602, in the possession of Lord Howard, Lord High Admiral and the hero of the Armada. Fuller particulars are given in Walpole’s “Anecdotes,” i. p. 246, under the name of Vroom, Sandart being the principal authority. Part of them were in the House of Lords till 1834, when they perished in the fire. These had been engraved in 1739 by John Pine, but it appears that at that time there were in the royal wardrobe other pieces, now lost.