John Guillim

, or Agilliams son of John Williams of Westbury in Glocestershire, received some Academical education in Oxon. but in what house I am uncertain. I find one of both his names, who was a student in Brasnose coll. in the year 1581. aged 16, and another of Glouc. hall 1598. aged 25. Both which were, according to the Matricula, born in Herefordshire, in which County the author of The worthies of England, places Jo. Guillim the Herald, (of whom we now speak) who afterwards retired to Minsterworth in Glocestershire, was soon after called thence, and made one of the Society of the coll. of Arms. commonly called the Heralds Office in London by the name of Portsmouth, and on (e)(e) Pat. 15. Jac. 1. p. 10. the 26 Feb. 1617. Rouge Croix Pursevant of Arms in Ordinary. He published,

The display of Heraldry. Lond. 1610. &c. fol. Written mostly (especially the scholastical part) by John Barcham of C. C. coll. in Oxon. In 1660. came out two editions of it in fol. with many insignificant, superfluous, and needless additions to it, purposely to gain money from those, whose coates of Arms the publishers added, without any consideration had to the spoyling of the method of the book. One of the said editions was put out by Alexander Nowers a Herald-painter, burned in his bed (to which he went drunk) in his house about Lothbury, behind the Exchange, within the City of London, by a fire that occasionally happened in those parts 25. July 1670. The other edition was put out by Rich. Bloome, then a kind of an Arms Painter (but originally a ruler of books and paper) who hath since practiced for divers years progging tricks in employing necessitous persons to write in several arts and to get contributions of Noble men to promote the work. What he hath done as to the Arms, Crests, and supporters of the Nobility is most egregiously erronious, and false also in the quarterings. In 1679. he set forth the said book again, (which is the 5 edition) with the pictures at large, of several of the Nobility, whereby the book is so much disguised, that I verily believe if the author, or authors of it, were living they could scarce know it. To the said edition is added Analogia honorum: or, a treatise of honour and nobility, &c. in two parts. Said by Bloome to have been written by Capt. John Logan of Idbury in Oxfordshire, but Qu. This person Bloome, is esteemed by the chiefest Heralds a most impudent person, and the late industrious Garter (Sir W. D.) hath told me that he gets a livelyhood by bold practices, and that he is the pretended author of a book called Britannia, Or, a Geographical description of the Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland, &c. Lond. 1673. fol. Scribled and transcribed from Camdens Britannia and Speeds Mapps, as also the publisher of Cosmography and Geography, in two parts, &c. As for Jo. Guillim the Herald, he died on the 7. of May sixteen hundred twenty one, but where buried unless at Minsterworth, 1621: I know not, for the register belonging to the Church of S. Bennet near to Pauls Wharff (in which parish the Heralds Office is situated) doth not mention any thing of his burial there.