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Vertue and Frederick Prince of Wales, who employed him in cataloguing the royal collections, and purchased many of his works. One of his latest undertakings was a set of ten plates of Charles I and the sufferers in his cause, each plate containing two portraits, with characters taken from Clarendon and other authors. Vertue died on 24 July 1756, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, where there is a mural tablet to his memory. His wife, Margaret Evans, to whom he was married in 1720, survived until 1776. His collections of coins, prints, &c., were sold by auction in May 1757. During the last forty years of his life Vertue was industriously gathering materials for a history of the fine arts in England; and the invaluable series of notebooks in which he set down all the information he could obtain respecting English artists of all periods, including his own, were purchased from his widow by Horace Walpole, who compiled from them his ‘Anecdotes of Painting in England.’ The volumes passed at the Strawberry Hill sale to Dawson Turner [q. v.], and are now in the British Museum.

Vertue published ‘A Description of the Works of Wenceslaus Hollar,’ 1745 (reprinted 1759); and ‘Medals, Coins, Great Seals, Impressions from the Works of Thomas Simon,’ 1753 (reprinted 1780). He transcribed and prepared for the press Vanderdoort's catalogue of the collection of Charles I, and that by Chiffinch of the collection of James II; these, together with his own catalogue of the works of art belonging to Queen Caroline at Kensington, were printed after his death, with prefaces by Walpole.

A portrait of Vertue, painted by Gibson, 1715, belongs to the Society of Antiquaries, to which it was presented by his widow; there is a scarce engraving of it by himself. Another, at the age of fifty, by Jonathan Richardson, now in the National Portrait Gallery, was engraved by Thomas Chambers for the first edition of Walpole's ‘Anecdotes.’ A profile head, drawn by Richardson, was engraved by Basire for Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes.’ A drawing by himself, showing him seated in a library, holding a miniature of the Earl of Oxford, was engraved by G. T. Doo for the 1849 edition of Walpole's ‘Anecdotes,’ and there is also a lithograph of it published in 1821. A drawing of Vertue and his wife, standing together, done by him on their wedding-day, has been etched by William Humphrey. Vertue had three brothers, one of whom, Peter, became a dancing master at Chelmsford; another, James, practised as an artist at Bath, and died about 1765. A view of the interior of Bath Abbey, drawn by him, was engraved by his brother George.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii. 246; Chester's Westminster Abbey Reg.; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers in Brit. Mus. (Addit. MS. 33406).] 

VERULAM, (1561-1626). [See .]

VESCI,. [See, first baron, 1455?-1523; , second baron, 1493-1542; , third baron, d. 1570.]

VESCY or VESCI, EUSTACE, (1170?–1216), son of William de Vesci and Burga de Stuteville, paid his relief on coming of age in 2 Richard I (1191–2). He was with the king in Palestine in 1195. On 13 Aug. 1199 he appeared as one of the guarantors of the treaty between John and Renaud, count of Boulogne (Charter Rolls, p. 30 b), and in the same year, probably later, he was sent to William the Lion of Scotland to promise him satisfaction of his rights in England, and witnessed his homage on 22 Nov. 1200 ( iv. 122). He witnessed charters frequently in the early years of John's reign, in 1209 was one of the guardians of the bishopric of Durham (Charter Rolls, passim; Patent Rolls, p. 91), and on 10 April of the same year he was sent to meet William the Lion on his visit to England (Patent Rolls, p. 91). He was serving the king in Ireland from June to August 1210 (Rotul. de Præstitis, pp. 182, 205, 222). Accused of conspiring against John in 1212, he fled to Scotland ( ii. 62). The tale of John's attempted seduction of his wife, and the trick played on him, which first appears in Walter of Hemingburgh (i. 247–249), and is copied in Knighton (i. 193–5), is scarcely credible, and bears in some of its main details a close resemblance to the story of Valentinian III and Petronius Maximus (, Bonn ed., i. 328). His lands were seized, but after John's submission to the pope he was forced to invite Vescy back (27 May 1213; Patent Rolls, p. 99), though orders were sent on the same day to Philip de Ulecot [q. v.] to cripple him by destroying his castle of Alnwick. On 18 July 1213 he was one of the recipients of John's pledge to abide by the decision of the pope concerning the things about which he had been excommunicated (Charter Rolls, p. 193 b), and