Document deed of purchase signed ("Edm Waller") by Waller, Edmund - 1655

[?Beaconsfield], 1655. Pen and ink on vellum membrane with two seal tags, signed by Edmund and Mary Waller at the foot, witnessed by George Etherege and five others on the verso. 455 x 700 mm. Folded, some tearing at folds, light soiling. In a custom brown cloth folding box. Pen and ink on vellum membrane with two seal tags, signed by Edmund and Mary Waller at the foot, witnessed by George Etherege and five others on the verso. 455 x 700 mm. Signed by Edmund Waller and George Etherege. A deed of purchase for Widgenden and Diffield between the poet and statesman Edmund Waller (1606-1687) and his second wife Mary on the one part, and attorney George Gosnold of Beaconsfield on the other. Waller, who had only just a few years before returned to England following his banishment for taking part in a Royalist plot, is selling Gosnold various lands around Beaconsfield, listed in detail in the deed, for £450. The indenture is witnessed by the playwright George Etherege (1636-1692), who, as a young man was apprenticed to Gosnold. CELM WaE 846. Provenance: Rev. F.B. Woodward (Puttick and Simpson, 13 May 1867, lot 1346); Sotheby's, 8 May 1868, lot 545, to "Waller"; Maggs Brothers (Catalogue 536 [1930], item 2401); Robert S Pirie (bookplate, acquired from Hoffman and Freeman)