It is covered in crimson velvet, edged with gold cord, and having tassels of crimson silk and gold, the velvet projecting broadly over the edges. On each side are centre and corner bosses of silver, gilt and enamelled. The centre bosses bear the royal coat-of-arms wrought in high relief, with the supporters used by the king--the red dragon of his ancestor Cadwallader, and the white greyhound he used both by right of his wife through the Nevills and his own maternal ancestors the Earls of Somerset. The corner bosses bear the portcullis, the emblem of the castle of Beaufort in Anjou, the residence of Catherine Swinford, and where Henry's maternal grandfather was born. Each of these portcullises is borne upon a white and green ground, the livery colours of the Tudors, and it has been used as a royal badge from the time of Henry VII. until the present day. The book is held together by bands of gold braid, and fastened by beautiful clasps of richly-chased silver-gilt, with enamelled red roses. Appended to the boards are five impressions of the Great Seal, each in a silver box, with either a portcullis or a red rose upon it. The seals hang by plaited cords of green and gold. There are similar books of Henry VII.'s besides this one. A fine instance was shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Binding in 1891. It is a _Book of Penalties for non-performance of services in the Chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster_, and is bound in red velvet, with tassels and silver-gilt and enamelled bosses like those just described. It has silver clasps, and four silver boxes containing the seals of the parties to the indenture depend from the lower edge. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Indentures between Henry VII, and John Islippe, Abbot of Westminster, concerning the foundation of the Chantrey, etc., MS._] On one book, probably once the property of Henry VII., which somehow became separated from the rest, is found his coat-of-arms impressed on the gilt edges--a curious and early instance of decorative edge-work. A drawing of it was published in _Bibliographica_, vol. ii. p. 395. It is a Sarum Missal, Rouen, 1497, and was given to Cardinal Pole probably by Queen Mary, and eventually purchased by the British Museum. Henry VIII. apparently thought much of his library and its proper preservation and extension. He appointed John Leland, the antiquary, to be his library keeper, and gave him a special commission under the Broad Seal to travel and collect all kinds of antiquities and make records of them. Leland acquired, under these powers, many valuable manuscripts from the monasteries, then so ruthlessly being despoiled of their treasures; but, unfortunately, he does not seem to have been able to preserve any of the precious bindings in which many of them were doubtless encased.