The
Anthony Roll is a visual record of ships of the
Tudor Royal Navy, named after its creator Anthony Anthony.
Anthony Anthony, a clerk in the Ordnance Office who was the son of a Flemish brewer who supplied beer to Henry VIII's armies, compiled an illustrated survey of
Henry VIII's Navy. Paintings of fifty-eight ships on three rolls of
vellum were presented to the king in
1546. Later,
Charles II gave two of the rolls to
Samuel Pepys, who had them cut, and made into a book, which is now in the
Pepys Library at
Magdalene College, Cambridge. The third roll remained in its original form and was sold to the
British Museum by
Lady Mary Fox, thus passing into the
British Library.
Images from the Anthony Roll