Survey of the lands of Colchester Abbey, Egerton MS 2164, 1539-40 (ink on parchment)

Fragment (the first membrane of a parchment roll) of ‘the abstracte or brefe declaracion of all and singuler lordshippis, manners, landes’ belonging to the recently attainted monastery of Colchester, drawn up (c. 1540) by the royal commissioners Richard Pollard and Thomas Moyle after its confiscation in 1539. On the top left-hand corner is an image of King Henry VIII. In the top right-hand corner is a drawing of the judge riding out of the town after the trial for treason of the last abbot, Thomas Marshall (also known as the Blessed John Beche). His execution, which took place on l December 1539, is represented (on a very small scale) in the distance. The drawing of the judge is a copy of the biblical engraving The Triumph of Mordecai (1515) by the Dutch artist Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533). The greater part of this manuscript is in the Finch Hatton collection at Northamptonshire Record Office, FH 2945.