Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/56

 acted as censor of the accounts published of the proceedings (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1600-1 pp. 323, 553, 606, 1661-2 p. 350; Ashmolean MS. 857). As head of the heralds' college he had schemes for the re-organisation of that body, the increase of his own authority, and the better regulation of the method of granting arms (ib. 1133; Historical Discourses, p. 312). These involved him in a long-continued quarrel with Clarenceux and Norroy, which ended in the temporary suspension of provincial visitations (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1663–4, pp. 201, 212; Ashmolean MS. 840, ff. 777, 797). From 1673 to 1676 he was engaged in a similar quarrel with the earl marshal, who, he complained, ‘was prevailed upon to gratify the covetousness of Andrew Hay, his secretary, and the implacable and revengeful humour of Thomas Lee, Chester herald, and others,’ by depriving Garter of several rights never questioned before (Ashmolean MS. 1133, f. 55).

Walker died on 19 Feb. 1676–7, and was buried in the church of Stratford-on-Avon. His epitaph was written by Dugdale (, Life of Dugdale, p. 402). He married, about Easter 1644, Agneta, daughter of John Reeve, D.D., of ‘Bookern’ (? Bookham) in Surrey. By her he had only one daughter, Barbara, who married Sir John Clopton of Clopton House, near Stratford-on-Avon (, Pedigrees of Knights, p. 159).

It was for the benefit of her eldest son, Edward Clopton, that Walker in 1664 collected his ‘Historical Discourses,’ which were finally published by her second son, Hugh Clopton, in 1705 (a later edition was published in 1707 with the title of ‘Historical Collections’). This contains a portrait of Charles I on horseback, and a picture of the king dictating his orders to Walker, who is represented as writing on the head of a drum. The most important of these is a narrative of the campaign of 1644, entitled ‘His Majesty's Happy Progress and Success from the 30 March to the 23 November 1644.’ It was written at the king's request, based on notes taken by Walker officially during the campaign and corrected by the king, to whom it was presented in April 1645. The original was captured by the parliamentarians at Naseby, restored to the king at Hampton Court in 1647, and finally returned to Walker. It was then sent to Clarendon, who made great use of it in the eighth book of his ‘History of the Rebellion.’ A manuscript of it is in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, and another is Harleian MS. 4229 (Discourses, p. 228;, Anglia Rediviva, ed. 1854, p. 50; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 317, 382; Rebellion, x. 120; , History of England, vi. 16).

The briefer narrative called ‘Brief Memorials of the Unfortunate Success of His Majesty's Army and Affairs in the Year 1645’ was written at Paris, at the request of Lord Colepeper, about January 1647 (ib. p. 153 and table of contents). It was intended for the use of Clarendon (see, Life of Clarendon, iii. 39).

The third paper is ‘A Journal of several Actions performed in the Kingdom of Scotland, etc., from 24 June 1650 to the end of October following’ (cf. Clarendon State Papers, ii. 85, and Nicholas Papers, i. 200). The others are (4) a life of Walker's patron, Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, written in 1651; (5) an answer to William Lilley's pamphlet against Charles I (‘Monarchy or No Monarchy in England’); (6) ‘Observations upon the Inconveniencies that have attended the frequent promotions to Titles of Honour since King James came to the Crown of England’ (see Rawlinson MS. C. 557); (7) ‘Observations on Hammond L'Estrange's “Annals of the Reign of Charles I,”’ 1655; (8) ‘Copies of the Letters, Proposals, etc., that passed in the Treaty at Newport’ (see Rawlinson MS. A. 114). This simply contains the official papers exchanged and the votes of parliament; a fuller and more detailed account of the proceedings is contained in the notes of Walker's secretary, Nicholas Oudart, which are printed in Peck's ‘Desiderata Curiosa.’

Walker was also the author of (9) ‘A Circumstantial Account of the Preparations for the Coronation of Charles II, with a minute detail of that splendid ceremony,’ 1820, 8vo; (10) ‘The Order of the Ceremonies used at the Celebration of St. George's Feast at Windsor, when the Sovereign of the most noble Order of the Garter is present,’ 1671 and 1674, 4to.

A number of Walker's unpublished manuscripts on different ceremonial and heraldic questions are in different collections: ‘On the Necessaries for the Installation of a Knight of the Garter,’ Rawlinson MS. B. 110, 3; ‘Remarks on the Arms borne by Younger Sons of the Kings of England,’ Cal. Clarendon MSS. ii. 85; ‘The Acts of the Knights of the Garter during the Civil War,’ Ashmolean MS. 1110, f. 155 (see Institution of the Order of the Garter, p. 200); ‘A New Model of Statutes for the Order of the Garter,’ Ashmolean MS. 1112, f. 204. A large number of papers concerning the history of the order of the Garter