A lengthy rectangular space, the width of a good half of the page and a little more than half its length, has been left blank, presumably for a depiction of the arms. The text has no heading but the page has been cropped at the top (by a later binder) and might well have had a heading. The scribe is the same as he who wrote the majority of the documents concerning Sir Martin Bowes: Ralph Robinson, then Clerk of the Company.

A modern (twentieth-century) typewritten sheet of flimsy paper has been inserted here and bears a transcript of this patent. It is given the heading “Justitia virtutum regina”, which became the motto of the Goldsmiths’ Company but is not mentioned in this grant of arms. This transcript is not from this text, as is evident from the many small differences of spelling and occasionally wording; it has several inexplicable variants, or more likely errors, all concerning numbers: “furtenth” rather than “sixtenth”, “fivte” rather than “sixte”, “tenth” rather than “thirtenth”. They can be dismissed as errors but are odd.

The Goldsmiths’ Company holds an illuminated Grant of Arms of 1571, signed, as Ralph Robinson states, by Robert Cooke, Clarencieux, and the copy in the Register has evidently been made directly from this, word for word accurately but with many variant spellings – “yeare” instead of “yere”, “mistere” instead of “mistery”, “a Tuche stone” (in the original grant) and “a Touche stone” in the copy, etc. – such variant spellings having no real importance. This illuminated document shows the motto “Justitia virtutum regina” written on scrolls and beneath the depiction of the arms.

The Grant of Arms, 8 November 1571

To all and singuler as well nobles and gentilmen as others to whome these presents shall come, Robert Cooke, esquier, alias Clarencieulx principall herehault and kinge of armes of the southe, east, and west partes of this realme of Englande, from the ryver of Trent southwardes, sendeth greetynge.