In the hall are a number of royal portraits, including pictures of Charles II. and James II. by Lely, and of George III. and George IV. by Sir Thomas Lawrence; and on the walls are also some Latin inscriptions, including one surmounted by the letters E.R. celebrating Queen Elizabeth, and another commemorating the Black Prince. Within recent years a new fireproof Muniment Room has been built downstairs, where is kept a most valuable and interesting series of documents. Earliest of these is a charter received from Ranulph, Earl of Chester, in the reign of Henry II. A similar document of Confirmation, granted in the reign of Charles II., has additional interest from the fact that it contains a fine miniature portrait of the King. In addition to more important documents relative to Coventry affairs are many most interesting and unique letters, some of them of a more or less private character. One in particular from Margaret, the mother of Henry VII., calling attention in peremptory language to a former and unanswered letter. There are two communications from Henry VIII., one bearing a written signature and the other stamped with a wooden stamp. Another exceedingly interesting letter is that received by the Mayor of Coventry in September 1534, dated the 12th of that month, from Ann Boleyn, announcing to him the birth of her daughter Elizabeth, afterwards Queen. There is also one from Elizabeth herself, dated thirty–six years later, relative to the arrival at Coventry of unhappy Mary Queen of Scots. A strange side light upon the custom of the times is thrown by an indenture dated Warwick, 1478, relating to some jewels which the impecunious Duke of Clarence had pledged to the city. There are other letters from royal personages, including Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII., James I., Charles II., James II., and from Archbishops Laud and Cranmer, and Richard Baxter. In addition to all these memorials of the past, valuable alike for their historical and antiquarian interest, is a remarkable miscellaneous collection of nearly twenty thousand documents, including deeds of gift, charters, grants, leases, etc., and a set of the trade–marks of Guild members impressed in wax, extending from the reign of Edward I. down to the latter half of the fifteenth century. At the rear of the Minstrel Gallery is a large room formerly used as the armoury, in which is hung a fine picture, the “Bacchanali,” by Luca Giordano, and at the back of these apartments is another room, traditionally supposed to have been that in which Mary Queen of Scots was confined when at Coventry.