This Book of Hours is among the finest manuscripts written and illuminated in Paris c. 1430. Three leading artists and their associates collaborated on it: the Master of the Bedford Hours (active c.1410-40), the Master of Sir John Fastolf (active c.1410-50), and the Master of the Munich Golden Legend (active c.1420-60). One of the Bedford Master’s miniatures (fol. 162v) depicts St Margaret with the lady for whom the manuscript was made and whose identity remains the subject of debate. She has been tentatively identified as Marguerite of Brittany (1412-21) or her sister Isabelle of Brittany (1411–c.1444), grandchildren of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria.

At the end of the seventeenth century, the manuscript belonged to Jan Sobieski, King of Poland, and by the marriage of his granddaughter Clementina to James II’s son, James Stuart (the Old Pretender), it passed into the Stuart family. The younger son of James and Clementina, Henry Benedict, became a Cardinal, and was from 1788 acknowledged by Jacobite sympathisers as Henry IX. After his death in 1807 and following his instructions, the manuscript was left to the Prince of Wales (later George IV). In 1814/15 after the establishment of peace on the continent, the manuscript arrived in England to form part of the Royal Collection.

Binding information

Bound in red velvet, with gold foliate corner-pieces and clasps on fore-edge, gold oval plaque to centre with crowned JRP (Johannes Rex Poloniorum, John King of Poland) monogram.