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The Trevelyon Miscellany

Thomas Trevelyon’s hand-drawn 1608 miscellany depicts a wide array of subjects, such as English and Scottish rulers, biblical stories, and embroidery patterns.

A three-quarters portrait of a woman with an ornate headpiece and large ruff, surrounded by a golden yellow border of interlocking figures. The page is labeled Queen Anne and a short biography is beneath the portrait, too small to read here.
A three-quarters portrait of a woman with an ornate headpiece and large ruff, surrounded by a golden yellow border of interlocking figures. The page is labeled Queen Anne and a short biography is beneath the portrait, too small to read here.
A three-quarters portrait of a woman with an ornate headpiece and large ruff, surrounded by a golden yellow border of interlocking figures. The page is labeled Queen Anne and a short biography is beneath the portrait, too small to read here.
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Two blue and gold circles with one circle containing a spiky drawing of the sun and the other containing a drawing of the moon with a face on it. The page is surrounded by a green and golden yellow border. A decorative pattern of various flowers and fruit in green, golden yellow, red, and a touch of blue. The page is surrounded by a green and gold border. A seated woman wrapped in black cloth is approached by a demonic looking figure. Two large toads sit near her right foot and a dragon-like creature rests on her right arm. The drawing is labeled Witch and the half-page of text below begins The alphabet A through M done in an ornate knotwork style. The letters are red and the page is surrounded by a green and red border. A page labeled “from patience cometh againe peace” with a portrait of a woman in a red toga over a blue dress holding her hands together in front of her in a pleading way. Below her portrait is a paragraph beginning “And I dame patience follow them, and make them entertaine faith, hope, and consolation” The sun surrounded by rolling clouds above water. Within the sun are Hebrew characters. Beneath this drawing is a paragraph of text beginning “In the beginning God created heaven and the earth”. Beneath the quote are three trees growing out of the ground.

These pages are among 290 double-sided folios in a bulky manuscript created in 1608 by Thomas Trevelyon, of whom little is known. The diverse images in Trevelyon’s unusual book serve today as a remarkable visual record, making it one of the items at the Folger for which photographs are most often requested.

Among the enormous variety of subjects covered in Trevelyon’s work are the kings and queens of Scotland and England; custom and folk wisdom; and designs that include calendars, alphabets and numbers, leaf and flower motifs, and more abstract ornamentation, including embroidery patterns. Other pages depict the relative sizes of the sun, the planets, and the earth; theologians, reformers, and the Lord Mayors of London; pagan, Jewish, and Christian heroes; the nine muses; and the seven deadly sins, among many other topics.

Astonishingly, this sprawling work is one of two by Trevelyon. Eight years after creating it at about the age of 60, he produced a second manuscript containing many of the same images; that work is now in the collection of the Wormsley Library in England.

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