HERALDRY, though etymologically denoting all the business of the herald, has long in practice been restricted to one part of it only, and may be defined as the art of blazoning or describing in proper terms armorial bearings. It treats also of their history, of the rules observed in their employment and transmission, of the manner in which by their means families and certain dignities are represented, and of their connexion with genealogies and titular rank.
Particular symbols have in all ages been assumed by the various families of mankind, civilized and uncivilized. Such were the lion of the tribe of Judah, the S. P. Q. R. upon the standards of ancient Rome and the eagle sur-mounting them, the tattoo marks of the savages of America and the Pacific, the Danish raven, and the white horse of Saxony, which still remains carved upon the chalk downs of western England.1 Heraldry, however, is a purely feudal institution, coeval with close armour, devised possibly in Germany, adopted and improved in France, Spain, and Italy, and imported into England by the Norman invaders and settlers. Its figures have little or nothing to do with the older symbols, though these have occasionally been incorporated into its charges, and an apparent connexion thus established between them. These symbols, as has been well said, were the precursors and not the ancestors of heraldic bearings. The supposed connexion, however, misled the credulous heraldic writers of the 16th and 17th centuries, and caused them to attribute coats of arms to the heroes of sacred and profane history, who were certainly as ignorant of heraldry as ever was Adam of genealogy.
"Arms" or "armories," so called because originally dis-played upon defensive armour, and "coats of arms" because formerly embroidered upon the surcoat or camise worn over the armour, are supposed to have been first used at the great German tournaments, and to have reached England, though to a very moderate extent, in the -time of Henry II. and Coeur de Lion. To "blazon," now meaning to describe a coat of arms, is the German "blasen," to blow as with the horn, because the style and arms of each knight were so proclaimed on public occasions. The terms employed in heraldry are, however, mostly French or of French origin. Though now matters of form and ceremonial, and subject to the smile which attaches to such in a utilitarian age, armorial bearings were once of real use and importance, and so continued as long as knights were eased in plate, and their features thus concealed. At that time leaders were recog-nized in the field by their insignia alone, and these—both figures and colours—became identified with their fame, from personal became hereditary, were subject to certain rules of descent, and to the laws of property and the less certain rules of honour.
Froissart mentions a case in which a knight of the Scrope family could with difficulty be restrained from putting to death a prisoner because he wore the same bearings with himself. The last De Clare owed his death on the field of Bannockburn to his having neglected to wear his cotte d’armes had he been recognized, his great value as a prisoner would have saved him. Also the loss of the battle of Barnet was in part attributed to the similarity between the royal cognizance of a sun and that of John
FOOTNOTE (page 683)
1 The subject of ancient and especially of Greek "heraldry" is discussed by Curtius in a learned and interesting paper "Wappenge-brauch und Wappenstyl im Alterthum" in the Abhandlungen der Königl. Akad. d. Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1874). See also article GEMS, vol. x. p. 136.
de Vere, a star with streamers,—Warwick charging Oxford by mistake for the king.
The best if riot the only absolutely safe evidence for the origin of armorial bearings is that afforded by seals. Seals were in common use both before and after the introduction of armorial bearings, and they are not so likely as rolls of arms or monumental effigies to be the work of a later age. There are said by Courcelles to be extant, appended to charters of 1030 and 1037 A.D., two seals of Adalbert, duke of Lorraine, which bear on a shield an eagle with wings closed. This however wants confirmation; but Anna Comnena, describing the shields of the French knights who visited Constantinople about 1100, gives their surfaces as of metal only, polished but plain; nor have any decided traces of arms been discovered among the early crusaders. Louis le Jeune, who seems first of the French kings to have used the fleur-de-lys, caused it to be repre-sented in gold over the azure mantle and chaussures worm by his son at his coronation. Also, in 1180, he seals with a fleur -de- lys, but it is placed in a circle, not upon a shield. Planché cites two seals of Philip, count of Flanders, one plain, in 1157, and another in 1161 charged with a lion, their subsequent bearing. Seton mentions the seal of John de Mundegumbri in 1170 as bearing a fleur-de-lys, which, like that of Louis, has two intermediate flower-stems, as seen on Florentine coins. He also gives the seal of Falconer (1170) as bearing a falcon; and that of Corbet bore two ravens perched upon a fleur-de-lys, while his brother bore them upon a tree. This indeed was at a period when fleurs-de-lys, stars, and various animals were commonly represented as mere ornaments on seals, but the peculiarity of the instances named is that the falcon and the raven, like the fleur-de-lys of France, were afterwards the heraldic bear-ings of those families. The seals of the close of the 12th century, though not generally heraldic, certainly betray many of the elements of heraldry. No doubt, when once introduced, armorial bearings were felt to supply a real and serious want, and came rapidly into use, but Wace, the poet of the reign of Henry II., although he tells us that
"N’i a riche home ne Baron,
Ki n’ait lez li son gonfanon,
U gonfanon u altre enseigne,"
can scarcely be seriously held to mention armorial bearings. It is uncertain at what period armorial bearings found their way into England. The Conqueror and his successors certainly did not use them; they do not appear upon their seals, nor are they shown upon the banners of the Bayeux tapestry. The monk of Marmoutier, probably a contemporary, describes Henry I., upon the marriage of his daughter to Geoffrey of Anjou in 1122, as hanging about the bridegroom’s neck a shield adorned with small golden lions, "leonculos aureos;" and, making mention of a combat in which Geoffrey was engaged, he describes him as "pictos leones praeferens in clypeo." It is true that the number, attitude, and position of these lions on the shield are not specified, but considering that not long afterwards two lions became the arms of Plantagenet, and so of England, this may fairly be taken as their introduction. Stephen is said to have used a centaur, Sagittarius, as an emblem, because he landed in England when the sun was in that sign, but on his great seal his shield is quite plain, save a ridge down the centre, evidently a part of its construction. On the seals of the Conqueror, Rufus, and Henry I., only the hollow or under side of the shield is shown ; so there probably was no design upon the front. There is no seal of Duke Robert, but William, earl of Flanders, his son, shows a plain shield on his seal. His monumental effigy (1128) bears a large pavesse shield, and upon it an escarbuncle, apparently a highly ornamented clamp. The seal of Henry II. also shows the hollow of the shield. The first great seal of Richard I. bears a lion rampant, who from his position may be inferred to be fighting with a similar lion upon the sinister and concealed half of the similar lion upon the sinister and concealed half of the shield, blazoned in a MS. cited by Mr Way s "two lions confrontés."
Up to this time the kings, though represented on horseback and in full armour, have the free uncovered, and therefore their persons would be known. The seal of Richard I. in 1189 shows a close helmet, and upon the shield two lions passant gardant in pale, "leones lopardés," as they were then or soon after called. On a later seal, after his return from captivity in 1194, Richard added a third lion. John, while earl of Mortained, sealed with two lions, but his seal as king bears three, and the coat has so remained. That the two lions were more than a mere ornament is evident from their having been adopted by John’s natural son, Richard de Warre, who seals with two lions passant regardant. The seals of the great barons show the growth of the practice. Richard, constable of Chester, contemporary with Stephen, bears a shield covered over with small plates, regulated, like his armour ; but Stephen, earl of Richmond, as early as 1137, seals with seven fleurs-de-lys, a very early heraldic seal. Waleran, earl of Meulan (died 1166), also used an heraldic seal. Duchesne gives a seal of Bouchard de Montmorenci (1182), a contemporary of Louis le Jeune, with a cross between four alerions on his shield, and another in which the cross is charged with roundels. Mathieu, his son, seals also with the cross and alerions, which had evidently becomes, as they remained, hereditary. In England, William, earl of Essex (died 1190). Seals with ht escarbuncle of his family. In 1187 Gervase Paganel, a great Anglo-Norman baron, seals, with two lions passant, which his family continued to bear.
With the 13th century arms came rapidly into use. The second seal of Mathieu de Montmorenci in 1209 has them introduced upon his horse furniture, but this practice does not appear upon the seals of the kings of England until the second seal of Edward I. Baldwin de Bethume, earl of Albemarle (died 1214), sealed with three martlets in chief, and may other early examples of regular heraldic seals occur at this period attached to extant charters. The earliest roll of arms is of the reign of Henry III. ; of a second of the same reign a copy is preserved in the Harleian collection ; and a third, in the next reign, is the roll of Caerlavrock, 1300 A.D. So that for the reign of Henry and his son the evidence for armorial bearing is copious and excellent. Other rolls exist carrying the practice through the 14th and 15th centuries, before the middle of which there is no known work on heraldry, nor any trace of heraldic regulations save what may be deduced from recorded practice.
Coats of arms were not at first strictly hereditary, nor even always permanent in the same person. Thus William de Ferrars, 6th earl of Derby (died 1246), seems to have borne "argent. 6 fers de cheval, or horse shoes, 3, 2, 1, sable." William, his son, in consequence of a match with Peveril, who bore "vair," changed his bearing to "vair, or and gules, on a border azure 8 horse shoes argent." Robert his son, 8th earl (died 1278), dropped the horse shoes, and bore "vair, or and gules."
"Ferrars his tabard with rich vair yspread."
After the match with Quincy, the Ferrarses laid aside their own coat and bore that of Quincy, "gules, 7 mascles conjoined 3, 3, 1, or." Their make heir through a younger branch,—Ferrers of Baddesley-Clinton,—commemorates these various changes by bearing "quarterly,—(1st) vair, or and gules ; (2d) sable, 6 horse shoes, 3, 2, 1, argent ; (3d) gules, 7 mascle, 3, 3, 1, or, a canton ermine." Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester (died 1101), is fabled to have borne a wolf’s head, and not improbably his surname arose from some such emblem. Richard, his son, is said to have borne "azure, semée of crosslets or, a wolf’s head erased argent." Ranulph Meschines, 3d earl (died 1128), was sister’s son to the first earl, and to him is assigned "or, a lion rampant gules." Hugh Cyfelioc, 5th earl (died 1180), certainly bore "azure 6 garb of wheat, 3, 2, 1, or;" and Ranulph Blondevile, his son, bore "azure, 3 garbs or." With him the line failed, but as the wheat-sheaf is a common Cheshire bearing, it is probably that arms came into general use in the palatinate in the time of the last two earls.
Sir Nicholas Carru (died 1283) seals with a tricorporate lion, but at a Caerlavrock in 1300 is found with a
"Banière et jaune bien passable,
O trois passans lyons de sable,"
the arms of the Carews of our day. The fess and label of Saher de Quincy, earl of Winchester, in 1170, were changed by Roger his son for the mascles by which they were best known, and which he repeats upon his housings. The fact is that, at the close of the 13th century, arms, though on the whole hereditary, had not quite acquired that fixed character belonged to them half a century later. That the changes were the exception rather than the rule is, however, clear from the roll of Henry III., and from the arms of the forty great barons which he caused to be painted on the walls of Westminster Abbey, almost all of which, so far as they are on record, are the same with those borne or quartered by their representatives. There exist also in England a few families of Norman origin, the period of whose arrival in England is known, and whose arms are the same with those of the present stock in the parent country. Such are Harcourt of Ankerwyke and D’ Aubigny, who therefore bore their arms before the separation from Normandy under Henry III.
Early bearings were usually very simple, the colours in strong contrast, and their from outine such as could readily be distinguished even in the dust and confusion of a battle. They are mostly composed of right lined figures known in heraldry as ordinaries. The favourite beast is the lion.
The earliest and most valuable records relating to English armorial bearings are undoubtedly the rolls of arms of the reigns of Henry III. and the first three Edwards, which have been well edited by Sir H. Nicolas. That of Henry III. known as Glover’s roll, drawn up between 1243 and 1246 describes or blazons 218 coats of arms, and therefore shows very sufficiently the heraldry of the period. Of these coats nearly one-half are composed solely of the ordinaries and subordinaries, and other simple lnes and figures. About two score of them exhibit lions, chiefly rampant, and leo-pardés, a form of the same animal. The only other beast is the "teste de sanglier" borne by Swinburne. Of birds there are but the eagle and the papagay, several martlets, and single examples of the raven, the cock, the heron, and the horiole. The luce or pike is the only fish. The cinquefoil and sexfoil, the fleur-de-lys, the rose, and the wheat-sheaf, used very sparingly, represent the vegetable world for the rest there are annulets, barnacles, crescents, estoiles, escallops, ferd de cheval, mullets, and water budgets. There is one ray of the sun, and one whirlpool.
The coat of Mortimer "barrè, a chef palée, a corner gerennée d’or et d’azur, a ung escutcheon d’argent,"—or, in modern terms, "barry, a chief paly, its corners gyronny or and azure, an escutcheon argent" (fig. 63),—is the only one at all of a complex character, and this is composed of ordinaries and subordinaries; and though many of the ordinaries bear the smaller charges, or are placed between them, there are very few examples of an ordinary so charged also placed between charges, a common usage in later coats. An exception is Chandos, who bears three estoiles on a pile, which again is placed between six others ; but this stands alone.
The roll of Edward II. Blazons 957 coats of the bannerets of England, so that the use of arms had increased considerably. The lions have risen to 225, the eagles to 43 ; and there are 102 crosses of various kinds. Of new beasts, fabulous or real, there are the griffin, the wyvern, the stag, wolf, goat, and greyhound ; of new birds the falcon ; of fishes the dolphin. Of other objects the additions are the millrind, buckle, covered cup, chaplet, gauntlet, arrow, trumpet, hammer, battle-axe, palmer’s staff, pots, winnowing fans or vans, pens, cushions, and chessrocks. The character of the arms remains very simple, and the blazon employed agrees in the main with that still in use, and is in general perfectly intelligible. These rolls give various examples of changes of coats, either altogether or by the introduction of a difference to distinguish members of the same family ; and it is usually adhered to, as though it were considered undesirable to change them. Thus Gilbert de Segrave (died 1254) bore "sable, 3 garbs argent." Of his grandson John and Nicholas, John bore the paternal coast, but Nicholas, at Caerlavrock, had exchanged the garbs for a lion. This afterwards became the family bearing as "sable, a lion rampant argent, crowned or," the colours being retained.
No sooner had the great barons assumed arms for themselves than they began to grant them to their followers. Arms so granted commonly bore some resemblance to those of the grantor, and hence certain charges prevailed in certain districts. Thus the chevron of De Clare was common in South Wales, in the Honours of Gloucester and Clare, and about Tonbridge. The garb or wheat-sheaf was found in Cheshire ; the cinquefoils of the Bellomonts in Leicestershire ; the annulets of Vipont in Westmoreland ; the lion all over England, and the tressure in Scotland, both from the royal arms. Some of these grants remain ; others can with certaintly be inferred. Stephen Curzon, who held under the earls, of Derby, bore "vair, with a border of 8 popinjays argent," and Richard, his brother, bore "vair, on a fess 3 horse-shoes." Hubert, earl of Kent, bore "7 lozenges vair ;" and Anselm de Guise, on taking under him lands in Berks and Gloucester, assumed the same coat, with the addition of a canton or, charged with a mullet sable. In 1849 Robert Morle granted to Robert de Corby and his heirs the arms "d’ argent, ove un saltier engrailé de sable," which he himself had inherited from Baldwin de Manoirs. In 1356–7 William, baron of Greystock, who bore "barry of 6 argent and azure, 3 chaplets gules," granted to Adam de Blencowe and his heirs for ever "an escutcheon sable with a bend closeted [or barred] argent and azure, with 3 chapless gules," in 13 91 –2 Thomas Grendale granted to William Morgue his heirs and assign, "argent, on a cross azure 5 garbs or," which , as cousin and heir, he himself had inherited from John Beaumeys. Finally, in 1442 Humphrey, earl of Scofford, who bore "or, a chevron gules," granted to Robert Whitgreaves "un escue d’azure, à quatre points d’or, quarte chevrons de gules," to him and his heirs of lineage,—in modern terms "azure, a cross quarter-pierced or, on each limb a chevron gules." A coat of arms was not only heritable, subject to certain heraldic customs, but could be willed or granted away, whoolly or in part, like chattel property.
The crusades, by bringing together soldiers of different nations, tended to produced a certain assimilation in their heraldries, but their influence upon the arms themselves has been exaggerated. The stories as to bearings adopted to commemorate feats of arms in Palestine are mostly inventions. The cross no doubt was a crusading bearing, but it was so because it was the emblem of Christianity, and primarily popular as such. The stars, torteaux, water budgets, and other changes attributed to the crusaders, were of earlier date and of independent origin. There is no evidence that the crosses patée of the Berkeleys, or the crosslets of Beauchamp, Clinton, Windsor, and Howard, were added to their simpler bearings in token of services in the Holy Land. The star of De Vere, always attributed to an adventure there, was evidently a mark of cadency, adopted by Robert de Vere, brother of Alberic, 2d earl of Oxford. The fact appears to be that most of the additions to or alterations in the earlier coats of arms were made for some genealogical reason, to commemorate a match with some great family or to distinguish between the several branches from that parent tree. After, usually long after, the period of the crusades, arms were invented for "fabled knights in battles feigned," and but few of the Saracens’ heads with figure so formidably in many coats of arms are contemporary with any Saracenic war.
The diversion to promote the glorious of heraldry. On these occasions the presence of spectators, and especially of ladies, encouraged all sorts of heraldic display. At a tournament at Calais in 1381 Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, one of the most accomplished knights of the reigns of Richard II., and Henry V., suspended on three shields three several coats of arms, as representing three several knights who professed to be ready successively to meet all comers. Three French knights appeared to the challenged. Against the first the earl came forth as the green knight with a black quarter, bearing "silver, a maunch gules," the arms of De Tony, a maternal ancestor, and so overcome his adversary and retired unknown to his pavilion. On the second day he appeared as the green knight, and bearing "silver, two bars gules," the arms of Mauduit of Hanslape, another ancestor, he met a second knight with equal success. On the third day he appeared in his proper person bearing the arms of Guy of Warwick and Beauchamp on his shield, and those of De Tony and Mauduit on his caparisons, and thus with great honour won the third day also.
The shield, as the most obvious piece of the defensive armour, was that upon with arms were first displayed. The Norman shield was of wood covered with hide, and clamped and stiffened in a fashion which is thought to have given rise to the first simple bearings. It was 3 to 4 feet long, pointed below, and 18 inches broad. This shield is common on early monumental effigies armed in chain mail, and it is unusual to find it with armonial bearings. It was succeeded by the small triangular heater shield, and that, in the reign of Edward III., by a somewhat larger and full bottomed shield, which by degrees ceased to be used in war, and became more and more an architectural ornament. The arms were also displayed upon the breast-plate, and upon the camise of surcoat that covered the armour, and were repeated upon the housings of horses both before and behind the saddle. When the Comte d’Artois fell at Damietta, the Saracens showed in triumph his "cotte d’armes toute dorée et fleur-de lisée." The emperor Henry of Luxembourg is described in the Chronicle of Flanders as bearing "an aigle noir, sur un tornicle d’or qui pendoit jusq’ a mi-jambe." Sir Alexander Nevile appeared at Halidon Hill in a surcoat of hi own arms, the quarters filled up with the arms of his friends. The fine effigy of William de Valence at Westminster is decorated with small escutcheons of his arms on various parts of his dress and weapons. An actual remnant of the richly embroidered surcoat of William de Fortibus, earl of Albemarle (died 1261), is still preserved, and has been engraved in the Archaelogia. It was against the embroidery of the surcoat that the severe sumptuary enactments of Richard and Philip Augustus were mainly directed.
The importance attached to armorial bearings is strongly shown in the uses to which they were applied. A sovereign who wished to assert his claim to a kingdom placed its arms upon his shield. In 1479 when Alphonso of Portugal resigned his claim to Castile, he was required to lay aside its armorial ensigns. It appears that when Edward III. assumed the French lilies, he at first did so simply as representing his mother, who was an heiress, and placed her arms in his second quarter ; when, however, he claimed the kingdom of France in her right, he removed the lilies to the first quarter as representing the more important kingdom. A grant of arms at the hand of a sovereign had great value. Among the more solid bribes which Louis XI. bestowed upon the courtiers of Edward IV. occurs a grant of three fleurs-de-lys to a knight of the Croker family. Thus also when Juan de Orbieta Francis I. on the Ticino, he rewarded by a grant of arms from Charles V., though of so complex a character as to do little credit to Spanish heraldry. In later John Gibbon, the heraldic author, having a quarrel with two maiden ladies of his name, obtained a licence to convert the scallops in their common coat into the black balls called ogresses,—a most heraldic revenge.
Armorial bearings were largely painted, enamelled, and embroidered upon personal ornaments, furniture, and weapons. The sword of Edward, prince of Wales (died 1483), is a curious example of this ; it bears on its pommel the words "aves fortes" and five shields:—(1) England, (2) the duchy of Cornwall, (3) England and France with a label, (4) Mortimer quartering Ulster, (5) the earldom of Chester. In the middle is the cross of St George. The citizens of London were bound to provide their banner bearer, Lord Fitz Walter, with "a saddle with his arms," and the seal of one of that family, about 1300, shows the arms upon the back or rest of his war saddle. The seal of Sir Hugh le Despenser (1292) also so shows his arms. Various bequests of plate and furniture with arms occur in the 14th century. In 1368 William, Lod Ferrars of Groby, bequeathed his green bed "with his arms thereon, and his furniture bearing the arms of Ferrars and Ufford, impaled." In 1380 Edward Mortimer devised "à notre tres chier friere John Gilbert, evesque de Hereford, une plate de argent pour espices et enamillés ove has armes de Mortimer en la face."
Rirchard, earl of Arundel, in 1392, bequeathed a canopy of the arms of Arundel and Warren quarterly. In 1399 Eleanor Bohun, duchess of Gloucester, had a psalter with her father’s arms upon the clasps. In the Decorated and Perpendicular styles of architecture shields of arms are common ornaments. Those of benefactors were set up in church windows in glass, and those of a family in their houses. In the Scrope roll is a list of sixty-six churches in which the Scrope arms were set up, and the histories of Dugdale and Burton show us that nearly every church in Warwickshire and Leicestershire had a multitude of arms on its windows. Those still remaining in the east windows of Bristol cathedral are early and good examples of the arms of great barons, Berkeley, Clare, and Warren. They are also seen upon floor tiles of the same period.
As arms became hereditary, and their use ceased to be confine to the battle-field, but was largely extended to seals and ornaments, it was natural that some notice should be taken of the arms of females, and that the wife’s coat should be combined in some way with that of the husband, especially when she was the last of, and represented, her family. This seems first to have been managed by giving the wife a separate shield. The kings of France so bore the arms of Navarre after the marriage with the heiress of that kingdom. Another very early plan was to form a composite coat. Thus the old coat of Willinghby was fretty, but on their marriage with Bec of Eresby they adopted the coat of Bec, and Sir John Willoughby (13th Edward III.) bears the cross moline of Bec, but the wings of his crest are fretty for Willoughby, ad on either side is a buckle taken from the arms of Roscelin, his wife. Rose of Kilravock bore "or, 3 water budgets sable," but on a marriage with the heiress of Chisholm they added "a boar’s head couped gules" from her arms. So also Halyburton of Pitcur, who bore "or, on a bend azure 3 lozenges of the field," after a marriage with another Chisholm heiress, added to their coat "3 boars’s heads erased sable." Bohun, who bore "azure, a bend argent, cotised or, between 6 lioncels rampant of the third," is thought to have added the bend on the occasion of a marriage with Maun, daughter and heir of Milo, earl of Hereford. As this, however, led to complexity and indistinctness in the bearings, and the introduction of a second shield was obviously inconvenient, the method of impalement was devised, by which the sinister half of the shield was appropriated to the lady’s arms, at first under the process known as dimidiation. When, however, the lady was an heiress, a different plan was adopted which ultimately led to quartering or the marshalling of many coats in one shield, a practice, when pushed to any extent, quite inconsistent with the original use of coat armour. This also led to a corresponding alteration in the shape of the shield, which was expanded to contain the arms of each heiress who had married into the family, together with such other heiresses as her family had previously been allied with, so that when a Percy heiress married a Seymour, she added her heiress ancestors’ arms with her own arms to those of her husband, expanded in a similar fashion by the previous matches of his family. Thus the great shield of a family became a compendium of the family pedigree which, to those who could read its language, conveyed a considerable mass of semi-historical information. The defect of this system was that it only took account of heiresses, and did not provide for the purity of the whole descent, so that under it the children of a man of no birth who married a great heiress, would display all her quarterings, and no account would be taken of the absence of any on his side ; and further, if it happened, as was actually the case in the last century with the Rodneys of Rodney-stoke, that a family, though ancient, had never intermarried with an heiress, they could display no quarterings.
In France and Germany and to some extent in Scotland a far more perfect system was pursued. There the genealogical escutcheon included the arms of every ancestor and ancestress, whether an heiress or not ; thus one generation gave two coats, two generations four coats, and so on. "Seize quartiers" gave evidence of pure blood for four generations, and thirty-two-quarters, the qualification for a canon of Strasburg, for five.
As the combinations out of which the early coats were formed were limited, it occasionally happened that two persons of the same nation bore the same arms, and this gave rise to disputes which, as matters connected with military discipline, came under the jurisdiction of the earl marshal. One of the earliest of these disputes is mentioned in the roll of Caerlavrock—
"Le been Bryan de Fitz Aleyne,
De courtesie, et de honneur pleyn,
Ivi o baniere barrée,
De or et la gouls bien parée,
Don’t le chalenge estoit le pointz,
Par entre lui et Hue Poyntz,
Ki portoit cel ni plus ni moins,
Don’t merveille avoit meinte et meins."
Cases of a similar character were decided between Harding and St Loo in 1312, Warburton and Gorges in 1321, and Stytsylt and Fakenham in 1333, when Sir William Fakenham disputed the arms, "le champ de dise barretz argent et azure, supportez de cinz escocheons sables, chargés ovesque tant de lyons primers rampant incensés gules." They were adjudged by a commission to Sytsylt. Hugh Maltby and Hamon Beckwith had a similar dispute in 1339. But by far the most celebrated dispute of this nature arose in 1384 between Sir Richard Scrope of Boltron and Sir Robert Grosvenor, for the right to bear the arms including John of Gaunt, gave testimony on one side or the other, and it was shown that each family, had used the coat beyond the memory of man. It was finally adjudged to Scrope, and Grosvenor was directed to bear "les ditz armes ove une pleyne border d’argent." Grosvenor, however, declined to accept the arms so differenced, and assumed "azure, a garb or," retaining his colours and marking his connexion with the old earls of Chester. It was proved, incidentally, that an ancestor of Grosvenor’s had granted his coat, with a difference, to William Coton of Coton. It is remarkable that both disputants are still represented in the male line, and continue the arms as then settle. Both families had previously had disputes with other parties, and the Scropes long afterwards had a quarrel with the Stanleys for the right to bear the arms of the Isle of Man. The matter was compromised by Edward IV. The Hastings and Grey de Ruthyn case, which rises to the rank of a tragedy, illustrates still more forcibly the value attached to a coat of arms. On the death, childless, in 1389, of John de Hastings, earl of Pembroke, a dispute arose for his heirship between Reginald Grey, his heir-general, and Edward Hastings, the heir male and of the name, but of the half-blood. A court military decided in favour of Grey. Pending the trial Hastings had ceased to difference his arms as a cadet, and assumed the unbroken. He was, however, ordered to bear them with a label, and for contumacy was imprisoned for sixteen years. A suit for arms was decided as lately as 1720 in Blount versus Blount, in the earl marshall’s court.
The same necessity that made it important to prevent the use of similar bearings by different families in the same country made it also necessary to distinguish between the bearings of different members of the same family, all of whom had a right to the paternal coat. As this right was strongest in the eldest he alone bore the paternal arms unaltered (in French heraldry "sans brisure") ; and the other sons were obliged to introduced some sufficient change, called in heraldry a "difference." This was at first managed by inverting the colours or substituting one ordinary or one inferior charge for another, as a bend for a fess, martlets for mullets, and the like ; and sometimes by the use of a coat compounded of the paternal bearing with that of an heiress. A multitude of these early difference occur in the rolls of Henry III. and Edward II., and in various early lists of arms. The family of Grey, always numerous, differenced their cadets in at least fourteen different ways, almost all preserving in some tangible form the paternal coat; and this was also the case with the very numerous family of Basset. Generally no rule is followed, save that on the whole some reference is retained either to the charges upon, or the colours of, the paternal coat. Very frequently, even in the earliest times, the eldest son differenced his occurs fifteen times, though not always as a difference. Gradually, however it came to be used almost entirely for that purpose, and finally a set of marks, called of cadency, were devised for each of the sons, the label being the mark of the eldest during his father’s life.
All these rules and alterations were, however, the growth of a later age, and came into use as bold and simple heraldry of the 13th and 14th centuries began to be overlaid with florid fancies. So long as heraldry represented a real want, its expressions were simple and intelligible, but as "villainous saltpetre" came into use and closed helmets were laid aside, and as skill and strategy rather than personal valour became the attribute of a leader, armorial bearings fell into disuse in war, an were no longer worn upon the person, or upon the horse trappings. But though armorial bearings ceased to be of actual use, they continued to be emblems of rank and family, and a mark of gentle blood. They became, however, exceedingly and often absurdly complex, partly because simplicity was no longer necessary, and partly because it was scarcely practicable, owing to the enormous increase in the number of the gentry, which produced a demand for new combinations. The glories of heraldry reached their zenith in the reign of Richard II, with "youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm" of the vessel of the state, but it was not till the reign of Richard II., with "youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm" of the vessel of the state, but it was not till the reign of Richard III. that it was thought necessary to place under specific control the whole heraldry of the kingdom ; and this, in close of the example of France, was done by the incorporation of the heralds into a college placed under the presidency of the earl marshall.
The office of the herald as the messenger of war or peace between sovereigns or between contending armies in the field is of far earlier date than the introduction of armorial bearings, but as these came into use they were gradually placed under his charge, and he took his specific name sometimes from that of the noble or leader who employed him, sometimes from one of his castles of titles of honour, and sometimes from one of his badges or cognizances, which the heard wore embroidered upon his dress and by which he was known. In the pages of Froissart and other chroniclers frequent mention is made of heralds-at-arms and their attendants the pursuivants, and we read of Somerset and York, Windsor, Chester, and Lancaster heralds, Clarencieux, Arundel, Fleur-de-Lys, and Leopard ; and of pursuivants, Antelope, Blanch Lion, Falcon, Portcullis, and many more. At an early period the principal heralds, and especially those attached to sovereigns, were called kings-at-arms, and as early as Edward I. an officer, called from his jurisdiction, Norroy, was placed in charge of the heraldries north of the Trent. It is probable that a herald was always attached to each other of chivalry, as Toison d’or to the Fleece, and Garter to the chief English order. Garter, however, was only officially appointed by Henry V., when he seems to have been recognized as the principal king-at-arms— "Principalis rex armorum Anglicanorum." At the institution of the college, or soon afterwards, it was decided that its officers should be Garter, principal king-at-arms ; Norrow and Clarencieux, provincial kings north and south of Trent ; six heralds, Windsor, Chester, Lancaster, Richmond, Somerset, and York ; and four pursuivants, Rough Croix, Blue Mantle, Rouge Dragon, and Portcullis ; who constitute the present establishment, though some special officers have been appointed, as a king-at-arms to the revived order of the Bath, and some other, not members of the college.
It became the duty of the new incorporation to take note of all existing arms, to allow none without authority, and to collect and combine the rules of blazoning into a system. To effect a supervision of the armorial bearings throughout the kingdom, it was necessary to visit the several countries. Such a commission of visitation seems to have been issued by Henry IV. as early as 1412, but the first regular commission acted upon was issued by Henry VIIII., 1528 –9, and the last early in the reign of James II. The visitations were taken about every thirty years, and for contemporary events are most valuable records. The provincial king, either personally or by deputy, visited the capital town of each county in his division, and summoned the surrounding gentry to record their pedigrees, and shows a title to their armorial bearings. The earl marshal’s court survived the fall of the house of Stuart, and a few causes relative to a right to particular arms were decided in the course of the last century, but its powers fell into disuse, and not long since it was finally abolished, and with it fell any pretence on the part of the college to regulate, by compulsory authority, the heraldry of the kingdom. At present, however, notwithstanding the democratic tendencies of the age, armorial bearings are in greater demand than ever in England, and more or less coveted in the United States, and a good deal of the proper business of heraldry is still transacted within the college of arms, and a good deal more, irregularly and improperly, outside it. A considerable number of persons still bear arms derived from an ancestor who bore them before the institution of the college ; others bear them under grants and patent from that body ; and others still more numerous, who or whose fathers have risen from obscurity, have assumed arms according to their fancy, or under the unistructed advice of some silversmith of finder of arms. The Smiths, said a distinguished member of the family, had no arms ; they sealed their letters with their thumbs. It is to be avoid so inconvenient a signet that the new men have recourse to the demi-lions and demi-griffins now so much in vogue, and possibly they are not aware the Garter and his colleagues are still willing to grant arms, crest, and motto, on terms within reach of almost every aspirant to chivalry.
There is no college or corporation of heralds in Scotland or Ireland ; but in Scotland heraldry has been the full as much considered, and at least as well regulated as in England. "Lyon-king at-arms," "Lyon rex armorum," or "Leo-fecialis," called from the lion on the royal shield, is the head of the office of arms in Scotland. When first the dignity was constituted is not known, but Lyon was a prominent figure in the coronation of Robert II. in 1371. The office was at first, as in England, attached to the earl marshal, but it has long been conferred by patent under the great seal, and is held direct from the crown. Lyon is also king-at-arms for the national order of the Thistle. He is styled "Lord Lyon." And the office has always been held by men of family, and frequently by a per. His powers have been declared by statute, and extend to fine and imprisonment. He is supreme in all matters of heraldry in Scotland. Besides the "Lyon depute," there are the Scottish heralds, Islay, Rothesay, Marchmount, Albany, Ross, and Snowdown, with precedence according to date of appointment ; and six pursuivants, kintyre, Dingwall, Carrick, Bute, Ormond, and Unicorn. Heralds, and pursuivants are appointed by Lyon.
In Ireland also there is but one king-at-arms, Ulster. The office was instituted by Edward VI. in 1553. The patent is given by Rymer, and refers to certain emoluments as "praedicto officio…ab antiquo spectantibus." The allusion is to an Ireland king-at-arms mentioned in the reign of Richard II. and superseded by Ulster. Ulster holds office by patent, during pleasure ; under him are two heralds. Cork and Dublin ; and four pursuivants, Atholone, and St Patrick Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Ulster is king-at-arms to the order of St Patrick. He held visitations in parts of Ireland from 1568 to 1620, and these and other records, including all grants of arms from the institution of the office, are kept in the Birmingham Tower, Dublin, under the charge of the present most courteous and learned Ulster, Sir B. Burke. The precedence of the three chiefs has been the subject of dispute, but is now generally arranged, Garter being followed by Lyon, and he by Ulster.
Heraldry should be studied with reference to the period in which it was a useful art, and in the simple examples of the 4th and 15th centuries. Before that period it was in a changing and elementary state ; after it, it became merely ornamental, and its examples are complicated and debased. In a general treatise on the subject notice must of course be taken of the later as well as the earlier conditions of the art, but the greater number of the illustrations in the following pass are taken from the earlier and best examples.
A curious evidence of the vitality of hereldry, and of the desire of all mankind of ancestral distinctions, is afforded by its extension among the republics of the New World. The United States boast some excellent genealogical societies, and a great and very general desire is shown by individuals to trace pedigrees to the stocks of the Old World, and to assumed the arms proper to their name. The national emblem of the stars and stripes, now so widely and honourably known throughout the world, has been traced back to the paternal coat of the first and greatest president, George Washington, whose English ancestors bore "argent, 2 bars gules, in chief 3 mullets of the second." In Canda, Australia, and other English colonies, the assumption of arms by individuals and by the community is not less general ; and the republics of South America of the Spanish origin, almost all have adopted coats of arms. The Peak of Teneriffe, the Beaver, the Red Indian, contribute to the list of charges, and the clear firmament of Chili is indicatted by a star. "Coupé d’azur sur gules, à une étoile en abîme."
DIVISIONS OF ARMS.
Armorial bearings may be conveniently divided into these of dominion, of a community, of office of concession, family or paternal arms, and arms of alliance. To these may perhaps be added arms of attribution. There is also another division, or rather peculiarity, called canting arms, of which many of the former divisions present examples.
1. Arms of Dominion are those of a kingdom or a feudal lordship. The origin of such arms is often obscure. Those of the Isle of Man are three legs conjoined in triangle at the thigh (fig. 116), probably borrowed from the emblem of Sicily, the ancient Trinacria, found upon Greek vases. The Irish harp is an emblem probably allusive to the instrument of Brian Boroimhe. The origin of the lion of Scotland is also obscure, and of the tressure equally so, though fabled to be
2.
"First by Achaius borne."
Not unfrequently the arms of kingdoms were those of an early sovereign adopted by succeeding dynasties to the exclusion of their own coat. The lions of England were certainly personal to the Plantagenet kings, if not to Henry I.; but they have become national to the exclusion of the arms of the Tudor, Stuart, Brunswick, and Saxon dynasties, just as neither the arms of Baliol, Bruce, nor Stuart ever became the arms of Scotland. The lion rampant azure, crowned gules, so long borne by the head of the German empire, belonged originally to the house of Hapsburg, and was not used by such of the early emperors as were not members of it ; and the bend and alerions of Lorraine only became a part of the arms of the empire after the marriage of Francis of Lorraine with Maria Theresa. It seems indeed to have been the custom of elected sovereigns, as those of the empire and of Poland, to place there paternal arms on a shield of pretence over those of the dominion. Cromwell so placed his arms over those of the commonwealth and William of Nassau over those of England, but they disappeared with the individual who introduced them. On the other hand the arms of kingdoms and lordships are sometimes continued to be used as personal arms by the descendants of their former lords. The great shield of Mary of Burgundy quarters the arms of a number of duchies and provinces. Simon de Montfort thus used the arms of the Honour of Hinkley. Richard de Monthermer (who married the countess of Gloucester, and was, by courtesy, earl of that name) at Caerlavrock, while he bore on his shield his own arms, "or, an eagle displayed vert," on his banner "or, three chevrons gules" for the earldom. So also Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, (died 1146), used on one of his seals the three fusils of Montacute, because he held lands which belonged to that barony. The Book of St Albans says that, if the king grant a lordship to a yeoman entitling him to bear arms, he may take those of that lordship.
Under this head may be described the armorial shield of Great Britain (fig. 1). The arms, gules 3 lions passant in pale or, are for England, and are so borne by the kings of England till the reign of Edward III., who in 1340 quartered with them, in the first quarter, the arms of France, azure, semée of fleurs-de-lys or. Thus they continued till the latter part of the reign of Henry IV., when the fleurs-de-lys were reduced to three. No alteration occurred in the royal achievement during any of the succeeding reigns till the accession of James VI. of Scotland to the throne of England, when that sovereign introduced the royal arms of Scotland into the second quarter, and the arms of the Ireland into the third quarter. The royal arms were thus borne by all the monarchs of the house of Stewart till the reign of Anne, though William III. bore over the quarterings of the royal arms those of his Dutch dominions—the house of Nassan. In the reign of Anne a change again took place, occasioned by the union of England and Scotland ; and the arms of these kingdoms were impaled in the first and fourth quarters (England on the dexter, Scotland on the sinister) ; France was removed to the second ; and Ireland retained its former position. On the accessions of the house of Brunswick in 1714, the fourth quarter in the royal shield gave place to the arms of his Majesty’s German dominions, an arrangement which continued till 1st January 1801, when, upon the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, the arms of France were excluded, England occupied the first and fourth quarters, Scotland the second quarter, and Ireland its old position in the third quarter ; while over all, on an escutcheon of pretence, were placed the arms of Hanover, ensigned wit the electoral bonnet, in 1816 exchanged for the Hanoverian crown. On the detah of William IV. Hanover passed away, and its arms were withdrawn, and the present arrangement introduced. In Scotland, and in Scotch official documents, the Scottish coat is placed in the first quarter. It bears "or, a lion ràmpant, within a double tressure flory-conterflory, gules." There is no positive authority for any early coat of arms being used for Ireland, though the bearing "azure, 3 crowns in pale or" granted by Richard III. to De Vere has been so regarded. From the reign of Henry VII., "azure, a harp or, strings argent," has been regarded as the Irish coat, and as such is inserted into the imperial shield. There is no authority of any standing for a coat of arms for the whole of the principality of Wales, but the coat usually attributed to it is "quarterly azure and gules, 4 lions passant gardant, counterchanged." The ancient princes of Wales would scarcely have adopted the lions of England. Moreover, this coat was never used by any leading chief in either middle or south Wales.
In Scotland arms territorial are much recognized. The dukes of Athole quarter Man. The garbs are quartered by the Erskines for the earldom of Bute. When Archibald Douglas was created duke of Touraine, he placed the arms of that duchy, three fleur-de-lys, on this first quarter, before those of Douglas, Annandale, and Galloway. The dukes of Richmond bear three buckles of for the dukedom of Aubigny. "Paly of 6 argent and sable" are the reputed arms of the earldom of Athole, and "a saltire between 4 roses" those of that of Lennox.
To this head belong arms of pretension, where a sovereign claims de jure a possession which he no longer holds, and sometimes never held, de facto. Thus the kings of England from Edward III. to George III. bore the French lilies, and claimed to be kings of France, and the kings of Sardinia and Naples used the arms of Cyprus and Jerusalem. In fact, nearly all the older sovereigns of Europe used arms of this character. The armorial shield of the house of Austria at the dissolution of the empire affords a number of curious examples of arms of pretension. Besides Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia, it contained Aragon and Sicily, Brabant, Swabia, Antwerp, Flanders, Burgundy, Naples, Jerusalem, Lombardy, and Milan.
3. Arms of Communities are borne by corporations, religious houses, colleges, cities and boroughs,t he Cinque Ports, guilds, and inns of court, some of which were allowed arms from an early period. These are very generally adopted in honour of some founder, great benefactor, or early and distinguished member of the body. Thus Birmingham bears the arms of the barons, of that name, Manchester of the Byrons, Leicester of the Bellomonts Cardiff of the Byrons, Leicester of the Bellomonts, Cardiff of the De Clares. Of religious houses Atherstone bore the arms of Basset ; Garendon of the earls of Leicester ; Kirby-Bellers of Bellers. Of colleges, Balliol and All Souls at Oxford, and Pembroke and Clare at Cambridge, so commemorate Balliol, Chichele, Valence, and De Clare. The Cinque Ports all bears a part of the arms of England. The arms of the guilds and city companies usually contain some allusion to their trade ; those of the grocers are 9 cloves ; of the fishmongers, 3 dolphins ; of the blacksmiths 3 hammers. Of the inns of court, the Inner and Middle Temples bear badges of that order ; Lincoln’s Inn uses the purple lion of the De Lacys, earls of Lincoln ; Furnival’s Inn the bend and martlets of the Barons Furnival. A bishop, as a corporation sole, represents his see and bears its arms, but in Scotland they were early provided with arms, but in Scotland they were of very late introduction. Bishop before the 17th century seem.
4.
to have used their personal arms. Thus Gawain Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld,
"Who gave fair Scotland Virgil’s page,"
and Alexander Douglas, bishop of Moray in 1606, placed the Douglas arms upon their seals. Sometimes, however, this seems to have been combined with some ecclesiastical emblem, for the archbishops of St Andrews placed the cross of St Andrew on their seals, while below were their paternal arms, and the bishops of Glasgow so bore a figure of St Mungo.
5. Arms of Office are not uncommon. The electors and chief officers of the empire each bore some token of their office. The crossed swords so well known on Dresden china were borne by the electors of Saxony ; the sceptre by those of Brandenburg ; the crown of Charlemagne by the electors of Hanover as arch-treasurers. The ancestors of the dukes of Ormond were hereditary butlers of Ireland and bore three covered cups. The kings-at-arms of office. Garter, the principal king, bears "argent, a cross gules, on a chief azure of crown or encircled with a garter of the order buckled and nowed between a lion of England and lily of France," by no means such an example of heraldry as might be expected from the chief herald of England. The knights of St John of Jerusalem augmented their paternal arms with a chief gules, charged with a cross or. Several civic officers in France gave a right to bear arms. Ménage observed of a major of Angers who died upon his election, and was buried with his newly acquired arms—
6.
"Ill étoit de bonne nature,
Et ne fut armé qu’en peinture."
7. Arms of Concession were granted by a sovereign or some feudal superior, sometimes in memory of some great deed, but more frequently to indicate the connexion between the lord and his follower, when they are called arms of patronage. Of the former character was the heart in the arms of Douglas, first used by William I., earl of Douglas 1356, in memory of James Lord Douglas’s mission with Robert Bruce’s heart ; and to this a crown was added in the time of William II., earl of Angus, in 1617. Also the families of De la Warr, Pelham, Vane, and Fane bear arms in allusion to the share of the ancestors of each in the capture of John of France at Poitiers. Sir James a Audley, after Poiteirs, not only divided the Black Prince’s present between his four squires, but allowed them to bear portion of his coat armous, "gules, a fret or," in memory of which the family of Delves still bear "argent, a chevron gules, fretty or, between 3 billets sable" (fig 82) ; and that of Dutton, "quarterly, argent and gules, on the 2d and 3d quarters a fret or." It was probably in memory of the same event the John Touchet, Lord Audley, granted to John and Thomas Mackworth, for services performed by their ancestors and themselves to his ancestors and himself, to bear "party dentelle de sable et d’ hermines, un chevron de gules fretté d’or,"—arms still used by the Mackworths, with a slight addition, and now blazoned "per pale indented sable and ermine, on a chevron gules 5 crosses patée or." Among many similar instances may be mentioned Tatton of Cheshire, who bears "quarterly argent and gules," evidently derived from Massy. Harvey of Ickworth bears "gules, on a bend argent 3 trefoils slipped vert," derived from Foliot, who bore "gules, a bend argent." Staunton of Longbridge, who held by the service of repairing a tower of Belvoir Castle, bore "argent, 2 chevrons within a border engrailed sable," derived from Albini of Belvoir, who "or, 2 chevrons and a border gules." Lowther and Musgrave derived their annulets from Vipont. Moton of Peckleton, Brailsford, Astley of Hillmorton, Besington, bore "argent, a cinquefoil azure ;" "or, a cinquefoil sable ;"
8.
"azure, a cinquefoil ermine ;" and "azure, a cinquefoil or," all derived from the bearings of the Bellomonts, "gules, a cinquerfoil ermine." Hardness, who under De Clare at Tonbridge, bore "gules, a lion rampant debruised by a chevron or ;" and the lords of Avan, Welsh barons under De Clare, bore the three chevrons. Thus also Flamville and Wharton used the maunch of Hastings. "Ermine and checquefoil or," all derived from the bearing of the Bellomonts, "gules, a cinquefoil ermine." Hardness, who held under De Ciare at Tonbridge, bore "gules, a lion rampant debruised by a chevron or;" and the lords of Avan, Welsh barons under De Clare, bore the three chevrons. Thus also Flamville and Wharton used the maunch of Hastings. "Ermine and checquy," from the Newburgh earls, were common in Warwickshire, and the "canton" in Westmoreland, derived from the Lancasters, barons of Kendal. In Douglasdale the "stars" of Douglas preponderate, and in Annandale the "saltire" of Johnstone.
Arms also passed from one friend to another by deep or will, even when three was no blood relationship. Henry de Lacy, the last earl of Lincoln, bequeathed to his friend and executor Sir H. Scrope a lion passant purpure, in augmentation of his coat, and Sir Henry were it accordingly, though for life only. Maud, heiress of her brother Anthony Lord Lucy of Cockermouth, married Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, 1414. She dieds childless, but bequeathed her lands to the Percys on condition they bore her arms, "gules 3 luces," quarterly with Percy, which they continued to do, and indeed, though without any right, often styled Barons Lucy. To this class also belong arms augmentation, sometimes called additions of honour. Thus Richard II. chose to impale with his own the impute arms of the Confessor, "gules, a cross patone between 5 martlets or," and he granted to Thomas Holland, duke of Surrey, to impale them within a border argent with his own arms. Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, was also allowed to impale the entire arms of the Confessor, a fatal gift, as it was one f the charges brought against his ambitious descendant Henry Howard. Richard also allowed De Vere, duke or Ireland, t bear for life "azure, 3 golden crowns within a bordure," which seems then to have been regarded as the arms of Ireland. They are found on tiles marshalled quarterly with De Vere. After the victory of Flodden, Henry VIII. granted to the earl of Surrey to augment his arms with a "demi-lion gules through the mouth with an arrow, within a double tressure flowered of the same," to be placed on the Howard bend. Henry used both the pile and the flaunch in his augmentations to the families of his English wives. Seymour bore "quarterly, 1 and 4, or, on a pile gules between 6 fleurs-de-lys azure 3 lions of England ; 2 and 3, Seymour." The augmentation to Howard includes 2 flaunches, that to Catherine Parr a pale. Manners of Belvoir bore "or, 2 bars argent, a chief quarterly azure and gules, in the 1st and 4th quarterly 2 fleurs-de-lys, in the 2d and 3d a lion of Englan, or." The bars were no doubt taken from the Muschamps. The chief and its contents were an augmentation from Henry VIII.
In Scotland an early Lord Seton had a concession from Robert Bruce of a sword supporting a crown, and is blazing star of 8 points within a double tressure or."
Most of the earlier grants or concessions seems intended to commemorate some territorial or genealogical concession, those of the later date some connexion with royalty, or some deed of arms in the field. This Sir Cloudesly Shovel received 2 fleurs-de-lys in chief and a crescent in base in memory of two victories over the French and one over the Turks, and Nelson and other raval commanders received additions rather to be described as sea pieces than as heraldic augmentations.
5. Family and Paternal Arms and arms of succession are such as descend by custom to the male heir. The descendants of females, heiresses, save by special license, can only quarterly their arms. This rule has indeed been much abused, and on every side are seen good maternal names and arms adopted to the exclusion of those less distinguished on the paternal side. Paternal arms are of very various dates and origin. There seem, however, always to have existed certain recognized ruels which the earl marshall had power to enforce. One of the most important of these was that no two persons in the same kingdom should bear the same arms, a practice clearly subversive of the main use of such insignia. Many were the dispute and challenges that arose out of this regulation, of which two of the most remarkable have already been mentioned.
6. Arms of Alliance or heirship were used when those of a great heiress were allowed to supersede the paternal coat. Thus the heiress of Mandeville, earl of Essex, married Say, and their heiress, Beatrice de Say, married Geoffrey Fitz Piers. Geoffrey (died 14 John) became earl of Essex, and their descendants took the name and bore the arms of Mandeville exclusively. William II., earl Warren (died 1148), left a daughter and heiress Isabel, who married Hamelin, natural son of Geoffrey of Anjou and brother to Henry II. He became earl of Surrey, and bore the name and arms and continued the line of Warren. The De la Bisse family, who claimed to descend from the male stock of the De Clares, bore the 3 chevrons differenced with a label of 3 points, though when , in the reign of Richard II. They intermarried with the Staffords, they laid this aside, and adopted "a chevron between three roses." When Gilbert Talbot (died 1274) married Gwenllian, or Gwendoline, the heiress of the Welsh prince Rhys ap Griffith, he laid aside his paternal coat, "bendy of 10 pieces, argent and gules," and adopted that of the lady, "gules, a lion rampant or, within a border engrailed of the field," as still used by the earls of Shrewsbury.
7. Arms of Attribution are altogether fictitious, and such as the heralds of the 15th and 16th centuries indulged in to an absurd extent, proving every hero of antiquity with a coat of arms. The same age that represented the Virgin Mary as versed in the canon law declared that Solomon, as the wisest of men, must have been a good herald, and described the armonial bearings of Achilles and Hector. Perhaps the most extravagant example of this fashion is contained in the work of Dame Juliana Berners, who says: "Of the offspring fo the gentielman Japhet, comes Habreham, Moyses, Aron, and the profetys, and also the kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom the gentilman Jhesus was borne, very God and man ;after his manhole King of the londe of Jude, and of Jues, gentilman by is modre Mary prynce of coat armure ;" and again, "The four doctors of holy chirch, Seynt Jeromy, Ambrose, Augustyn, and Gregori, was gentilmen of blode and of cotarmures." At and earlier period, in the reign of Richard II., it was believed that many of the bearings in use had been borne ever since the Conquest, as appears from the evidence in the Scrope and Grosvenor controversy. Almost all the older genealogists attribute coats of arms to ancestors long before they were in use. On the tomb of Queen Elizabeth are emblazoned the arms of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, and of Henry I. and Matilda of Scotland, and of course pure inventions. It is only of very late years, since a critical spirit has found its way even into heraldry, that these absurdities have been exposed.
8. Canting Arms, the "armies parlantes" of French heraldry, are common to all the preceding classes of arms, and most common in those of the earliest date. Such were the castle and lion for Castile and Leon, the fers de cheval of Ferrars, the lion (löwe) of Louvaine, the luces of Lucy, the sharp-pointed row of fusils of Montacute, the corbeau or raven of Corbet, the herons of Heron, the falcon of Falconer, the greyhounds (levriers) of Mauleverer, the barnacles’ of Bernak, the castle of Chastil, the swine’s head of Swinbourne, the penfeathers of Coupenne , the hirondelles of Arundel, the storm-finches of Tempest, the hammers of Hamerton, the tyrwhits of Tyrwhitt, the hanks of cotton of Cotton, the fusils of Trefusis, the oxen of Oxenden, the fer de Moline of Molyneux, the haxel leaves of Hazlerigge, the Danish axes of Hakluyt, the bazons or bird bolts of Boltesham and Bozon, the bend wavy of Wallop, or Well-hope, the whelk-shell of Shelley, and many more mostly early coats, and borne by considerable persons and families. In fact the practice was introduced whenever the name admitted of it and sometimes when the allusion is very far fetched indeed, as in the boar pig "verses," the crest of DeVere, and the cock for Law, alluding to his cry, cock-a-leary-law! Canting arms were equally common in other countries. In Italy the Colonne, Frangipani, and Ursini families bore a column, a piece of broken, and a bear. They were also common in France, Spain, and Germany.
TINCTURES.
Tinctures (in French, émaux) include metals, colours and fur. The Metal are—
Or Yello Topas Sol.
Argen White Pearl Luna.
The Colours—
Azure Blue, azure Sapphire Jupiter.
Gules Red, gueules Ruby Mars.
Purpure Purple pourepre Amethyst Mercury.
Sable Black, sable Diamond Saturn.
Vert Gree, sinople Emerald Venus.
The Furs—
Ermine, Ermines, or Conter-ermine.
Erminois, Erminites, Pean, Vair-en-point, Counter-vair, Potentconter-potent.
Gules is thought to come from the Persian gul, "a rose," but more probably from gula, "the throat." The other terms are French. To the older colours have been added "sanguine" and "tenné" or tawny, a compound of red and yellow. They are almost unknown in English heraldry, and are symbolized, the one by sardonyx and dragon’s tail, and the other by jacinth and dragon’s head. The blazoning by precious stones and planets, and even by the virtues, was a foolish fancy of the heraldic writers of the 16th century, and applied to the arms of peers and princess. Gwillim condescends to use it.
A shield is rarely of one tincture only. In the roll of Caerlavrock, however, Sir Eurmenious de la Brette
"La banière eut toute rougeate."
The original bearing of the Gournays of Norfolk seems to have been sable. De Barge of Lorraine bore "azure." The Captal de Buch, who figures in Froissart as a Guyenne knight, bore "or," and Boguet, a Norman knight, bore "argent."
The furs (fig.2) are all supposed to formed of the skins of small animals fastened together. Ermine and vair were long the only furs acknowledge, and even now the rest are not common. Ermine (a) represents the skin of the animal of that name, and is white powdered with black spots.
In vair (b) the skins in shape resemble small escutcheons, the wings representing the forelegs and the point the tail. The fur is that of a sort of squirrel, bluish-grey on the back and white on the belly, and thence called "varus." The skin are arranged alternately argent and azure ; and if of other colours they must be specified. There are varieties of vairs, as vair-en point, where the point of one escutcheon is placed opposite to the base of that below ; counter-vair (h), where those of the same colour are placed base to and point and point. At first the vair was drawn bell shaped (e).
In ermines (c) the field is sable and the spots white, in erminois (d) the field or and the spots sable ; pean (f) is the resembles ermine, save that the two lateral hairs of each spot are red. This fur, however, is seldom if every used in English heraldry. Guillim in blazoning a fur prefixed the word "purfled."
Potent (i) is a variety of vair, and often blazoned as "vair-point." There is also a form of it called "potent-counter-point" (g). Manchester, of the county of Stafford, bore "potent-counter-point, argent and sable, a bend gules." The escutcheons or skins are T-shaped, and resemble a "potence," that is a gallows or a crutch head.
Ermine and vair are used almost to the exclusion of all other furs. Even erminois is very rare.
The dukes of Britanny, earls of Richmond, bore "ermine" (this was the coat of John de Montfort, duke of Britanny, whose widow married Henry IV.) ; Lattin, "per pale argent and sable, a saltire engrailed ermines and ermine ;" Beauchamp (old), "vair, a label gules;" Gresley of Drakelow, vair, ermine and gules ;" Calvert, "play of 6 erminois and pean, a bend engrailed counterchanged."
Of the colours, gules, azure, and sable are by far the most common in early bearings. They contrasted strongly with each other and with the metals. To preserve this contrast, arose the very early and general rule not to place metal upon metal, or colour upon colour. Scott takes the licence of a poet to break this rule in Marmion, whose falcon
"Soar’d sable on an azure field,"
and in Ivanhoe, where the black knight bears "a fetter lock and shakle bolt azure, on a field sable." He pleasantly defended himself by quoting the arms of the kingdom of Jerusalem "argent, a cross potent between four crosses, all or," which thus violates this fundamental canon. The French call such coats "armés à engueris." There are a few other less illustrious but early instances.
Venour, warden of the Fleet, 1480, bore gules on a fess sable, five escallops or, 2, 2, 1.
Leycester of De Tabley ; azure, a fess gules between three fleurs-de-lys or.
Sir Richard de Rokesle, temp. Edward II.: "d’azure, a six lioncels d’argent, a une fesse de gules."
When an object is given of its natural colour it is blazoned as "proper." Thus in the insignia of the order of St George and St Michael we have "the archangel encourtering Satan, all proper;" though the German family of Teufel displays a teufel or devil gules. A very striking contrast of colour is produced by a process called "counterchanging," where a shield is divided between two-colours, and a charge placed over the dividing line is also divided between the same colours transposed.
Chetwode of Chetwode : quarterly, argent and gules, four crosses patée counterchanged.
Peyto of Chesterton: barry of six party per pale dancette, argent and gules counterchanged.
A very convenient practice of representing the tinctures by certain marks and lines arose in the 16th century, and is attributed to Padre Silvestre de Patro Sancto, an Italian. It was devised to allow of the representation of armorial bearings in drawings or engravings where it was inconvenient to colour them. Planché states the earliest known instance of the use of this method in England to be in an engraving of the seals of the regicides attached to the death warrant of Charles I. Sir E. Bysshe in Upton, 1654, gives a representation of these marks. Or (fig. 3) is represented by hatched points ; silver is plain ; azure is represented by horizontal lines, gules by vertical lines ; those for purpose are drawn diagonally from sinister to dexter, and those for vent from dexter to sinister. For sable, the lines are vertical and horizontal ; for sanguine, diagonal, or in saltire, from right to left and left to right, a compound of purpure and vert; and for tenné, diagonal from sinister to dexter, and horizontal, a compound of purpure and azure.
Parts Of Arms.
These are (1) the escutcheon ; (2) the ordinaries ; (3) partition lines ; (4) charges.
The Escutcheon.
The Escutcheon, écu, or shield, called in blazon the field, upon which all lines are drawn and charges delineated, represents the shield borne in war upon which the arms of the knight were displayed. The figure of the shield varied in heraldry as in war. First came the long-pointed, kite-shaped or "pavesse," slightly convex, and used with chain armour. As late as the reign of Richard I. and John such may be seen on early effigies, commonly but by no means always without armorial bearings, which were not then generally in use (fig. 4). Varieties of this are the heart-shaped or pear shaped shields (fig. 5), and sometimes s shield representing a third part of a cylinder with square top and bottom, much used in siege operations. Early in the 13th century was introduced the small heater-shaped shield, also triangular but narrow, short, and somewhat lancet-shaped. This was in the use in the reign of Henry III., and in the Early English period of architecture (fig. 6). The three water budgets of Ros appear on a shield of similar form of the date of Edward I. in a Temple (fig. 7). As coats of arms were then simple, this shield was large enough to contain them without crowding, and therefore with sufficient distinctness. When drawn or carved in architecture it is suspended by its "guiges" or shield straps, either upright or by the upper sinister angle, when it is said to be "couché." Fig. 8 is from the great seal of Thomas de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and shows the form of shield in use during most of the Edwardian period.
As fluted and fancy plate armour came into fashion, the shield also altered its figure and became four-sided, and concave in the top and side edges, with a central point below ; a notch also was cut in the upper dexter corner to allow the lance to reach its rest, which projected from the breastplate, as in the shields upon the tower of the chapel of the Babingtons at Dethick, and on their tombhouse at Kingston (fig. 9). Such shields were called "chancre," or "à la bouche." They are frequently carved as an ornament in the Perpendicular style of architecture. As the shield ceased to be used in war, and was only known as a representation upon tombs or in pedigrees, it was altered to suit the fashionable practice of introducing large numbers of quartered coats, frequently twenty or thirty, and sometimes a hundred, as in an escutcheon of the earls of Huntingdon in Burnham church.
In the construction of the shield, while actually used in war, great strength had to be combined with as much lightness as possible, and this was attained by the use of cuirbouilli and plates of horn stretched upon a wooden frame. The cramps and cross pieces employed to stiffen the whole are sometimes seen upon early shields, and are supposed, with much reason, to have been painted or gilded as ornaments, and to the bars or ordinaries which predominate in the first simple coats. Our acquaintance with the forms and fashions of the earlier shields is chiefly derived from their representations on tombs but the actual shield of John of Gaunt was long preserved in old St Paul’s and that of the Black Prince still hangs above his tomb at Canterbury, as do those of his father and of Henry V. at Westminster. An unmarried woman did not place her arms upon an escutcheon, but, whether maiden or widow, upon a lozenge, an early practice in allusion probably to a fusil or distaff. When married she shared the shield of her husband.1 The lozenges is an ancient usage, being found in the seals of English ladies of the middle of the 14th century, and in Scotland a century later. In modern heraldry the shields of knights of an order a usually oval or circular, called "cartouche" shields, and enriched with a ribbon bearing the motto of the order. When married the knight’s arms are blazoned alone within the ribbon, and again represented with those of his wife in a second shield encircled with a plain ribbon, and placed on the sinister side of the other. The dexter side of the escutcheon is that on the proper right of the bearer and therefore on the left of the spectator.
To secure due precision in blazoning, nine points, indicated by as many names, are taken on the surface of the shield. Those (represented by the letters in fig. 10) are—at the top in a horizontal line three, the middle, dexter, and sinister chief ; at the base three, also horizontal, the middle, dexter, and sinister base ; and in the central or vertical axis also three, of which the upper is the honour point, the lower the nombril point, and the middle the fess point—the central point of the shield. The last three are of course in a line with the chief and base middle points.
Before passing to the ordinaries, it will be convenient here to mention a species of decoration applied to the shield, which, though not strictly heraldic, is often used in early heraldry and called "diaper." A shield "diapered," "bracteatus," is covered with a ground pattern usually in squares or lozenges with a flower or scroll work in each
FOOTNOTE (p. 693)
1 When an eminent geologist and proprietor of a well-known patent lozenge left his for the militia, and after a short time returned to civil life, it was said—
"So maidens who to Hymen yield
Exchange the lozenge for the shield.
But, when they lose the best of men,
Return to lozenges again."
Compartment. The Idea is said to be copied and named from the linen cloths of Ypres. An often-quoted example of diaper, an a very good one, is the shield of Robert of de Vere upon his tomb at Earls Colne (fig. 4). Also the shield of William de Valence upon his effigy in Westminster Abbey is a very fine example of diaper. There the ground is divided into small squares, and contains a pattern. The row f shields in the tabernacle work of the old chapel of St Stephen’s Westminster, exhibits some fine specimens of diapered work in squares, lozenges, and circles. The shield of Earl Warren at Castle Acre Priory is a good example of diaper, as is the counterseal of Thomas le Despenser affixed to a Kenfig charter in 1397 (fig. 11).
The Ordinaries, or, as they are called in most heraldic books, "the honourable ordinaries," have been supposed to represent the clamps or fastenings f the shield, converted into ornaments by painting or gilding. They may be regarded as nine in number—the chief, the pale, the fess, the chevron, the bend, the cross, the saltire, the pile, and the quarter. When charged they are drawn somewhat broader than when black, and each has one or more diminutives. All were more or less in use in the earliest times of heraldry, and they were then drawn more boldly and narrower than is now the custom. When such of the ordinaries as admit of it are cut short so as not to reach to the margin of the field, they are said to be humettée or coupée.
Partition Lines, closely allied to the ordinaries named from them, and the lines by which shield may be divided, and which vary both in direction and pattern. It will be convenient to notice these before proceeding to a detailed account of the ordinaries, as the partition lines will be constantly referred t in the examples. When the field is divided in the direction of an ordinary it is said to be "party per" ordinary, as party per fess or per bend. Party per chief is rare, party per pile or per quarter unknown; party per cross is called quarterly un known ; party per cross is called quarterly ; party per cross and per saltire is gyronny. When the partition line is mentioned without qualification, it is a straight line, but it may be broken in a variety of ways, as indented, dancette, engrailed, invected, undy, nebuly, embattled, dove-tailed, and raguly. These partition lines in some cases if not in all, have arisen from the outline of a change or bearing. Thus Charnels of Snareston at first bore eleven lozenges conjoined in cross, which at a later date became a cross engrailed, and fusils, in the same way became converted into dancette. In English heraldry the partition lines are per pale, per fess, per chevron, per bend dexter and sinister, quarterly, per saltire, and gyronny.
The annexed shield (fig. 12) represents these partition lines. It may be blazoned—quarterly of nine coats : 1. Butler: or, a chief indented azure ; 2.Fleetwood: party per pale nebuly, azure and or, six martlets counterchanged; 3. Vavasour: or, a fess dancette sable; 4.—or, a chevron invected azure ; 5. Boyle :party per bend embattled, argent and gules ; 6. Trevor : party per band sinister , ermine and ermines, a lion rampant or ; 7. Lawrence: argent, a cross raguly gules ; 8. Bottetourt: or, a saltire engrailed sable; 9.—Party per fess dovetailed, or and sable. A good example of a cross raguly, not an armorial bearing, is found upon a 12th century tomb in the church of Llanfihangel-yn-Gwynfa in Powysland.
The French use parti and coupé for per pale and per fess ; they do not part per chevron, but per bend and per bend sinister are tranché and taillé ; quarterly is écartelé, and per saltire écartelé en sautoir ; gyronny is gironé. Besides these the french have a number of other divisions, as "tierce," when the shield is divided into three parts, as "tierce en pal, tierce en fasce, &c. Tierce en pal is convenient when the coats of two wives are to be marshalled on the husband’s shield.
Formerly such broken lines are were used not mere margins, but affected the whole ordinary ; a fess indented was a zigzag and called a daunce or danette. This practice is still preserved with the line undy. A bend undy or wavy is not a mere bend with a wavy edge, but the whole bend is in waves, whereas a bend nebuly or raguly has merely a particular kind of edge.
Returning to the ordinaries, it may be remarked that very many both of these and of the subordinaries in heraldry are very frequent constittuents in mouldings in the Norman style of architecture. The chevron and the billet are amongst the most common. The roundel forms the hood moulding of a door at Peterborough, and is inserted in a moulding in the intersecting arches of St Augustin’s Canterbury. The fret, the billet, and the roundel or pellet are largely used in the oldest parts of Malmesbury, and Lincoln tower is a good example of undy,—and this before the regular employment of heraldic bearings.
2.The Chief, chef, caput, is the upper part or head of the shield, covering one-third or it, and parted off by a horizontal line. It is found in the earliest examples of arms. In the roll of Henry III. it occurs fourteen times, in that of Edward II. twenty-one times.
De Vivonne : ermine, a chief gules (fig. 13).
Butler (see fig. 12).
Aston: argent, a chief undy (fig. 14)
St John of Melchobourne: argent, on a chief gules, two mullets pierced or (fig. 15).
Cromwell of Tattershall : party per chief, gules and argent, a bend azure; which might also be blazoned as gules, a chief and a bend azure (fig. 16).
Heraldic writers give the fillet as a diminutive of the chief. It was a narrow strip laid upon the chief, a little above its lower margin. Guillim mentions, but gives no examples of it.
2. The Pale, pal, palus, is a vertical strip set upright in the middle line of the shield, and one-third of its breadth. One of its earliest examples, if indeed it be not a mere gilt ornament, is ascribed to Graintmaisnel, baron of Hinkloy, who is reported to have borne gules, pale or ; but the banner of the barons, of Hinkley carried by Simon de Montfort was per pale indented, gules and or. The "sable pale of Mar" well-known bearing of Erskine, argent, a pale sable (fig. 17), but when it was introduced into Scotland is not clear. In the roll of Henry III. there occurs no pale, but there are three examples of paly. Party per pale is also there found. In the roll or Edward II. there is also no pale. But party per pale occurs thirteen times. The latter is called simply "party:—Pluys, party d’or et goules."
The diminutives of the pale are the pallet, one-fourth, and the endorse, one-eighth, of the breadth of the pale, both unknown anciently. The pallet may be used singly, endorse only in pairs, one of each side of the pale.
Waldgrave : per pale or an gules.
Marshall, Earl Marshal and of Pembroke : party per pale or and vert, a lion rampant gules.
Fleetwood (see fig. 12).
When the pale is repeated, it is blazoned as "paly," and the number of pieces specified.
Kingdom of Aragon: paly of ten argent and gules (fig. 18).
Gurney: or, two pallets azure.
Wykes of Dursley: argent, on a pale endorsed sable three greyhounds heads erased or, collared gules (fig. 190.
Daniel or Cheshire :argent, a pale fusilly sable.
Lightford ; azure, a pale reyonée or (fig. 20).
3.The Fess, fesse, fascia, is a strip placed horizontally across the middle f the field. It occurs about twenty-five times in the roll of Henry III., and its diminutives about twenty-three times, or forty-eight times in all, against ninety in the roll of Edward II.
Hampsburg : gules, a fess argent (fig. 21.)
Charlotte, queen of George III. on her shield of Mecklenburg-Strelitz placed a scutcheon of pretence party per fess, gules and, or for Stargard.
Vavasour (see fig. 12).
Henry de Percy, ancient blazon, azure, a fess engrailed or (fig. 220. This is a way of describing what is better known azure, five fusils cojoined in fess or.
The seal of Walter son of Alan, steward of Scotland, 1190, gives a fess checquy. Probably the earliest trace of the Stewart coat.
Weld of Lulworth :azure, a fess nebuly between three crescents ermine (fig. 23).
De le Plaunch :argent, a fess embattled gules.
Paramour : azure, a fess embattled ounter-embattled, between three estoiles or.
The Temple banner "Beauseant" was party per fess sable and argent.
Nicholas de Criol : per fess or and gules.
Swinburne (modern) party per fess gules and argent, three cinquefoils counter changed.
Pearston :argent, a fess quarterly, sable and or (fig. 24).
The diminutives of the fess are the bar, covering one-fifth of the field ; the barrulet, one-half, and the closet, one-quarter of the bar. The closet is used in pairs only, usually called gemelles, and these are sometimes quadrupled, two pairs on each side, and sometimes are used without the bend between them. The bar is rarely used singly, the number must be specified if above four, when the coat is "barry" of the given number. The term fessy is not used.
Harcourt of Ankerwyke: gules, two bars or.
Basset of Tehidy: r, three bars wavy gules.
Blount: barry nebuly of eight pieces, or and sable.
Fitz Alan of Bedale : barry of six, argent and azure.
Dabridgecourt: ermine, three bars humetty gules, fesswise in pale.
Badlesmere : argent, a fess gemelled gules (fig. 25). This is from the roll of Caerlavorock, but the more used blazon is—argent, a fess and two bars gemelles gules, whih might be given—a fess closeted.
Fairfax of Denton ; argent, three bars gemelles gules, surmounted by a lion rampant sable, crowned or.
Huntercombe : ermine, two pair of gemelles gules.
Edmondson and some other writers described the gemelles as cotises.
4.The Chevron, cheveron, canterius, frm whatever source derived, seems to have been named from its resemblance to the main rafters or principals of a roof, a familiar sight in early buildings. It is common to find orders on the royal foresters for so many pairs of chevrons. Mr Planché points out that in the earliest English examples of this ordinary, in the seal of Gilbert, earl of Pembroke, in the reign of Stephen, the upper edge of the shield is pointed lik a ridge roof, and the chevrons are parallel to it, and divide the shield into thirteen spaces. He regards as a part of the structure of the shield these chevrons, afterwards reduced to three and used as a part of the structure of the shield these chevrons, afterwards reduced to three and used as a regular heraldic bearing, by the house of Clare. The chevron occurs six times in the roll of Henry III., and the chevrons, its diminutive, nine times. The two occur ninety-two times in the roll of the Edward II. In breadth it is one-fifth of the shield. Its diminutives are the chevronel or étage, of half, and the couple-close, of a quarter its breadth. The latter is borne in pairs and below the chevron. When the chevron is repeated up to three they may be chevrons or chevronels. If exceeding that number the bearing is chevronny, unless the number be specified. The chevron is still used to denote the rank of the non-commissioned officers of the British army, but of late years has been borne by them inverted.
Stafford: or, a chevron gules (fig. 26).
Marler : argent, a chevron purpure, in dexter canton an escallop sable.
Fettiplace : gules, two chevrons argent.
Clare : or, three chevrons gules (fig.6).
Wyvill of Constable-Burton, derived from Fitz Hugh: gules, three chevronels brazed varir, and a chief or (fig. 27). [Brazed is interlaced.]
Kniveton : gules, a chevron party per chevron nebuly, argent and sable (fig. 28).
Fitz Walter : or, a fess between two chevrons gules (fig. 29).
Hungerford : per pale indented gules and vert, a chevron or (fig. 30).
Hotot: azure, a chevron couple-closed or, between three crescents argent (fig. 31).
Newport on Usk commemorates the Staffords, its ancient lords, by bearing a chevron reversed (fig. 32).
5.The Bend, bande, balteum, is a strip extended upon the shield from the dexter chief to sinister base, and in breadth one-fifth of the field. The diminutive are the bendlet, half the bend, and the cotise, or cost, a fourth part, borne in pairs, flanking the bend ; and the ribbon, one-eighth of the bend. The ribbon is used as a difference, and is sometimes couped or cut short, when it becomes a bâton, and is the French barre. The bâton, often marks illegitimacy. The term bâton, however, is also applied to the ribbon.
Scope of Danby : azure, a bend or ; a very celebrated example of the bend (fig. 33).
Culpepper : argent, a bend engrailed gules.
Wallop of Farleigh0Wallop : argent, a bend wavy sable (fig. 34).
Fortescue of Castle-Hill : azure, a bend engrailed argent, cotised or.
Clopton: sable, a bend between two cotises dancette or (fig. 35).
Boyle : party per bend embattled.1 argent and gules (see fig. 12.).
Byron of Rochdale : argent, three bendlets enhanced gules (fig. 36).
Montford : bendy of ten, or and azure.
Chaucer : per pale argent and gules, a bend counterchanged (fig. 37).
Fitz Herbert of Norbury ; argent, a chief vair, or and gules, over all a bend sable.
Widdrington : quarterly, argent and gules a ribbon sable (fig. 38).
Sir Hugh Baden : argent, on a bend double cotised sable three eagles displayed palewise or.
Keck of Stoughton : sable, a bend ermine between two cotises, flory counter-flory, or.
The Bend Sinister is a variety of the bend drawn from the sinister chief of the dexter base. Its diminutives are the scrape or scarpa half the breadth, and the ribbon or bâton sinister. A bend sinister
FOOTNOTE (p.695)
1 This is called also crenellated, and in French bretassé, from the bretasche or wooden gallery attached to the battlements of castle walls. When embattled on both faces the place is said to be "embattled counter-embattled." the notch in a parapet is an embrazure, the intermediate piece of masonry a merlon. When a second and a smaller merlon is placed on the first, the battlemnt is said to be stopped.
Is a rare bearing, and, with its diminutives, is frequently used to express illegitimacy, especially the bâton, though sometimes as a difference only.
Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham : party per bend sinister, or and azure, a bend counterchanged (fig. 39).
Trevor (see fig. 12).
The dukes of Orleans: azure, three fleurs-de-lys, a bâton argent (fig. 40).
6. The Cross, croix, crux, needs no description save that in heraldry it is usually the Greek cross, or that of equal arms. The breadth is one-third of the shield. It is an early and very common bearing, and whatever its origin it speedily became identified with the emblem of Christianity, and was popular throughout Christendom—
"Crux mihi certa salus, crux est quam semper adoro,
Crux domini mecum, crux mihi refugium.
Per crucis hoc signum fugiat procul omne malignum."
When plain it is blazoned only as "a cross." Thus the cross of St George is "argent, a cross gules," and the statutes of the Temple direct each knight to wear a red cross upon his "cotte d’armes," on breast and back. As a plain cross it occurs six times in the roll of Henry III., and in its varieties eleven times, and in the roll of Edward II. these numbers have risen from 17 to 102, when it was the most popular of the ordinaries.
De Burgh of Ireland : or, a cross gules (fig. 41).
Duckenfield of Duckenfield : argent, a cross pointed wavy sable, voided,
Ufford : sable, a cross engrailed or (fig. 42).
A seal of John de Ufford, probably about 1360, bears on a heater shield what would now be described as eight fusils conjoined in cross, and which is an early form of the Ufford coat. There is also a mullet in dexter canton, possibly to mark a younger branch.
Colley : argent, a cross wavy, voided, sable (fig. 43.).
Skirlaw, bishop of Durham: argent, six willow wands interlaced in cross sable, in allusion to his father, who was a basket-maker (fig. 44).
Lawrence (see fig. 12).
Party per cross or quarterly is an early and popular bearing.
Say: quarterly, or and gules (fig. 45).
Lacy : quarterly, or and gules, a bend sable.
Fitz Warin: quarterly, per fess indented, argent and gules.
Atkins of Saperton : argent, a cross sable, bordered with half fleurs-de-lys, between four mullets, sable.
Loraine of Kirkharle: quarterly, sable and argent a counter-quartered of the field.
When the central square of the cross is removed, it is said to be quarter-pierced, a cross quarter-pierced.
The varieties of the cross are almost innumerable. Edmondson gives 107 of them, and there are many more. Of these it will be sufficient to notice those comparatively few that are older and in general use; as the cross botany, the cross crosslet, the cross flory, Moline, patée, patonce, potent, recercelée, and voided. None of these varieties extended to the margin of the field. When a plain cross does not so extend it is blazoned as couped or humetty.
The cross botany, treflée, or modulate has each limb capped by a trefoil, or sort of button.
Northcote of Pynes: argent, three crosses botany sable, palewise in bend (fig. 46).
The cross crosslet has its extremities crossed. It is usually borne as a change in numbers, but not always.
Wasterley: argent, a cross crosslet sable.
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick: gules, a fess between six cross crosslets or (fig. 8).
When the lower limb is uncrossed and pointed it is "fitchy."
Belgrave: argent, a cross patée fitchy sable (fig. 47).
The cross patée was the emblem of the Knights of St John, and is known as the "Croix de Malthe." The cross patonce has expanded ends like the cross patée, but each terminates in three points. Patée and patonce were not always distinguished. At Caerlavrock Latimer is described as bearing a cross patée, whereas the regular coat of the family was gules, a cross patonce or.
Wm. de Fortibus, before 1241,: gules, a cross patonce vair (fig. 48).
The cross flory or fleurettée is capped in a similar way by fleurs-de-lys.
Lamplugh of Lamplugh: argent, a cross flory sable (fig. 49).
Richard Suwalt or Siward at Caerlavrock bore sable, a cross flory argent.
The cross moline is so called from the fer de moline, or millrind, the iron clamp of the upper millstone. When the millrind itself is borne it is pierced, but the cross moline is not necessarily so. Its extremities are split, curved outwards, and cut off square. It is an early bearing. When pierced this must be specified.
Bec of Eresby: gules, a cross moline argent.
Molyneux of Sefton: azure, a cross moline quarter-pierced or (fig. 50).
The cross potent, potence, or crutch or gibbet headed, has its extremities T-shaped.
An early example is seen in the arms of Jerusalem, argent, a cross potent between four crosslets or (fig. 51). Originally, however, the arms of the cross ended in knobs like the handles of a pilgrim’s staff, thence called "bourdonnée."
The cross recercelée has the ends split and curled outwards, but differs from the cross moline in having them pointed. The two bearings were occasionally confounded, and while the Baron Bec bore a cross moline, Bishop Antony Bec, his brother, is described as bearing a cross recercelée.
The cross voided is the outline only, called by the French "un croix faux;" the field is seen through it. The cross recercelée is usually also voided.
The lords of Crevecoeur bore "d’or, ung faux crois de goules, recercelée" (fig. 52). Basing, temp. Edward III.: azure, a cross recercelée and voided or.
The cross formée is, peculiar among these varieties, inasmuch as its extremities reach the edge of the field. In other respects it resembles the cross patée.
Lawley of Spoonhill: argent, a cross formée checquy, or and sable.
Among the other, later, and but little used varieties of the cross may be mentioned the avellane, ending in filbert husks ; the cross anchored, of which the limbs terminate in anchors ; the cross of the crucifixion or of Calvary, mounted on steps. A cross with a narrow border of another colour is "fimbriated" ; a cross pointed is where the ends are so cut.
7. The Saltire, saltier, or sautoir, is known as the cross of St Andrew, and is a common constituent in Scottish coats of arms. The origin is said to be a sort of stirrup or crossed loop suspended from the saddle by the aid of which the knight leaped into his seat. Such a stirrup certainly appears on the steed of Patrick, earl of March, on his seal, and on the seal of am early Despenser, and this is the only suggestion that accounts for the name. The saltire is in breadth one-third of the field.
The Scottish emblem is azure, a saltire argent; that of St Patrick, argent, a saltire gules. Neville bore
"A silver saltive upon martial red,"
that is, gules, a saltire argent (fig. 53).
Bottetourt: or, a saltire engrailed sable (fig. 12).
Gage : party per saltire, argent and azure, a saltire gules (fig. 54).
Glanville of Catchfrench: azure, three saltires humetty or (fig. 55).
Bruce: or, a saltire and chief gules.
Common charges placed upon a horizontal or vertical ordinary, as a fess or chief or cross, are placed upright ; if on an inclined ordinary, as a bend or saltire, their position should be specified ; if upright, they are palewise; if inclined, bendwise or saltirewise. On the chevron they are upright unless otherwise specified.
Dalrymple: or, on a saltire azure nine lozenges of the first (fig. 56).
Here the charges slope with the limbs of the saltire, that in the centre being upright. The deanery of Hengham, dedicated to St Andrew, bore on its seal a saltire raguly. The saltire has no regular liminutives, but when several are borne they are couped.
8. The Pile, pieu, pila, is a triangular strip, its base one-third of the breadth of the shield, and usually applied to its upper margin, the point coinciding with the lower point of the shield. It has been derived from the Roman pilum, a military weapon, and from the pile of the engineer. The origin is obscure, but it is a very early bearing. It has no diminutive.
Sir John Chandos, as Froissart often tells us, bore "d’argent, a ung peel de goules, e un label d’azure "(fig. 57), and his ancestor Robert, temp. Henry III., bore or, on a pile gules three estoiles, between six of the same, counterchanged, an unusually complicated bearing for that age.
Waterhouse: or, a pile engralled sable.
Frequently more piles than one were used, generally three, when they are to be blazoned as meeting in base.
Holles: ermine, three piles sable meeting in base (fig. 58).
Hulse: argent, three piles sable, one issuant from the chief between two from the base.
When the base of the pile is applied to any other part of the shield than the chief it must be specified. The pile was used by Henry VIII. as a vehicle for some of his grants of augmentation.
9. The Quarter or franc-quartier covers the upper dexter quarter of the shield. If placed in the sinister quarter, this must be specified. Its diminutive is the canton, of two-thirds its area. Both are early bearings, but in the roll of Henry III. the quarter appears in several coats which in later rolls are blazoned with the canton. Both are frequently charged. When either occurs in conjunction with another ordinary or subordinary, they are placed above it, and therefore blazoned after it, as further from the field. Both are used as early differences, as in the families of Zouch and Basset, and both are always borne with straight edges. A canton is also called a corner, and a cross between 4 crosses is said to be cantoned of them.
De Clare (old): or, a quarter gules (fig. 59).
Shirley of Eatington: paly of six or and azure, a quarter ermine.
Sutton of Norwood : argent, a canton sable.
Samuel Clark, the martyrologist: gules, a fleur-de-lys or, a canton ermine (fig. 60).
Subordinate Ordinaries.—These are the border, the inescutcheon, the orle, the tressure, the fret, the gyron, the flasque, the lozenge, the fusil, the mascle, the rustre, the roundel, guttes or drops, the billet, and checquy.
The Border, bordure, fimbria, or limbus, though a very old and independent bearing, was frequently used as a difference, and occa-sionally as a mark of illegitimacy. It is what its name expresses, and its breadth is one-fifth of the field. When used in an impaled coat the border is not continued round the inner side ; in fact it is dimidiated. In old examples this was not always attended to. In a quartered coat the border is borne complete.
Sir Perdicas d’Albret, temp. Edward III.,
"Who guly shield about his neck did fling,
Wrought with dent bordure, silver shining,"
bore "gules, a border indented argent."
Rondell: ermine, a border compony, or and sable (fig. 61).
Hamelin, illegitimate brother of Henry II., seems to have borne around his arms, on a border gules, eight lioncels passant or. This was before quartering came into use. The augmentation granted by Henry VIII. to Courtenay, marquis of Exeter, was a border quarterly of England and France, the fleurs-de-lys and lions enurmy, or in orle (fig. 62).
The Inescutcheon, or écusson, is a small shield borne within and upon the greater one. It occurs in the earliest coats, and when voided becomes an orle.
Mortimer: barry of 6 or and azure, an inescutcheon argent, a chief of the first paly of the second between two gyrons of the same (fig. 63).
Rokeley : ermine, an inescutcheon azure
Allestree of Allestree: argent, a chief azure, on a bend gules three inescutch-eons party per chief, vert and argent (fig. 64).
The arms of Maxwell, Lord Herries and earl of Nithsdale, afford a good example of this subordinary. They are, argent, ail eagle displayed sable, beaked and membered gules, surmounted with an inescutcheon of the first, charged with a saltire of the second, surcharged with a hedgehog or, for Herries.
The Orle is the edge or hem, ourlet, of the inescutcheon, voided, and is therefore blazoned by the French as a false escutcheon.
John de Baliol: "De goules, ove ung faux escochon d’argent," that is, "gules, an orle argent" (fig. 65).
Winnington of Stanford: argent, an inescutcheon voided, within an orle of martlets sable (fig. 66).
The Tressure is in fact a narrow orle, almost always borne double, and usually flowered. It is a favourite Scottish bearing, and is set with fleurs-de-lys placed alternately, the upper and the lower half on each face of the tressure, when it is blazoned "flory-counter-flory." This, in the Scottish royal arms, is said to denote the early alliance between that country and France. The bearing is, or, a lion rampant within a double tressure, flory-counterflory, gules (fig. 67). The tressure was a common grant of augmentation from the crown for services or in memory of an alliance. Scott of Thirlstane had it from James V. and bore or, a bend azure, charged with a mullet pierced, between two crescents of the first, the whole within a double tressure flory-counterflory of the second—
"The tressured fleurs-de-lys he claims
To wreath his shield."
The Fret was originally borne fretty, representing a trellis. The single fret is very rare in ancient arm, but many of those families who at first bore fretty afterwards bore a fret. Fretty is usually composed of eight pieces.
Maltravers: sable, fretty or, which soon became and continued sable, a fret or
(fig. 68).
When nailed at the joints it is said to be clouée.
Trussel: gules, a trellis (fretty) clouée or.
Harrington: sable, a fret argent, called also a Harrington knot (fig. 69).
Vernon of Sudbury: argent, a fret sable.
The Gyron, also an old bearing, is the lower half of a quarter divided diagonally. It is a Spanish ordinary, and said to come from "giron," a gusset. It is seldom borne singly, and usually is gyronny, when the shield is divided per pale, per fess, per bend dexter, and per bend sinister into eight sections. If more, the number must be specified. In the earliest examples the divisions are twelve.
Bassingbourne: gyronny of twelve, or and azure.
Campbell: gyronny, or and sable (fig. 70).
The Flasque, or flaunch, is the segment of a circle taken out of the two sides or flanks of the shield, the margin of which forms the chord. They are always used in pairs, one on each side. This bearing is not of great antiquity.
The Voider, the diminutive of the flasque, has a flatter curve. The voider in defensive armour was a gusset-piece either of plate or of mail, used to cover a void or unprotected space at the elbow or knee joints.
Frere: gules, two pards’ faces between as many flasques or (fig. 71), alluded to in Whistlecraft by Mr Hookham Frere—-
"Two leopards’ faces were the arms he bore."
When the bearer was asked to give some verses descriptive of his arms to be placed at the head of a history of the family, his answer was:—
"The flanches, on our field of gules,
Denote, by known heraldic rules,
A race contented and obscure,
In mediocrity secure,
By sober Parsimony thriving,
For their retired existence striving,
By well-judged purchases and matches,
Far from ambition and debauches.
Stich was the life our fathers led;
Their homely lesson, deep inbred
In our whole moral composition
Confines us to a like condition."
The lozenge, the mascle, and the rustre are all derived from the fret or fretty, and. do not appear originally to have been used singly.
The Lozenge is a square, set up diagonally like the diamond in playing cards. It is seldom used alone, and when the shield is covered with it, it is called lozengy. Fitzwilliam: lozengy, argent and gules (fig. 72).
De Burgh: gules, seven lozenges vair conjoined 3,3,1.
The Mascle, or rather masculy, for originally it was so used, is said to represent a net.
Rokele Of Suffolk: masculy, gules and ermine.
Poges of Stoke-Poges: masculy, argent and gules.
De Quincy, earl of Winchester: "gueles, six mascles d’or, voydés du champ; and afterwards, gules, seven mascles or, conjoined 3,3,1 (fig. 74).
The Rustre is of later introduction, and is not a common bearing. It is a lozenge pierced in its centre by a round hole.
Custance: or, a rustre sable (fig. 73).
The Fusil is an elongated lozenge, from the French fuseau, a spindle, and is supposed to represent a distaff charged with yarn. A very early example of its use is
Montacute: "d’argent avec ung fess engralé de geules de trois pièces," which speedily became "argent, three fusils conjoined in fess gules" (fig. 75).
William of Waynflete and Wilson-Patten: fusilly, ermine and sable, a canton or (fig. 76).
It has been suggested that the Percys derived their fusils from their lordship of Spindleton.
Trefusis of Trefusis: argent, a chevron between three spindles sable.
The Roundel, if of metal, is a simple disk ; if of colour, it is convex, half a globe. It is seldom borne singly, and is named specially from its colour.
If Or, a Bezant.
Argent, a Plate.
"Azure, a Hurt.
"Gules, a Torteau.
"Sable, a Pellet, Gunstone, or Ogress.
If Vert, a Pompey.
Tenny, an Orange.
"Sanguine, a Gaze.
"Purpure, a Golpe.
The last four are almost unknown in English heraldry. Akin to these is the fountam, a disk barred wavy, argent and azure, to represent water. Although bezants, plates, hurts, and torteaux are given in early rolls of arms, their names do not always carry their colours. They are blazoned as roundels d’or, pelottes d’argent, torteaux de goules. The torteau is sometimes called a séruse. The pellet often stands for the roundel, and the bezant is called a talent, from a coin of that name current with the bezant in the East.
Alan La Zouch: Gales, bezanty. This was afterwards reduced to ten bezants, 4,3,2,1, with a quarter and sometimes a canton of Britanny, that is, "ermine" (fig. 77).
Camoys: or, on a chief gules three plates (fig. 78).
Wellesley: gules, a cross argent between twenty plates, 5,5,5,5.
Baskerville of Old Withrington: argent, a chevron between three hurts (fig. 79). Hurting: argent, ten hurts, 4,3,2,1.
Courtenay: or, three torteaux (fig. 62).
Babington: argent, ten torteaux, 4,3,2,1, a label azure (fig. 9).
Fulkyn: sable, on a cross between twelve billets argent three golpes.
Greville: sable, on a cross engrailed or five pellets.
Bridgeman: argent, ten ogresses, on a chief a lion rampant of the second.
Stourton of Stourhead: sable, a bend or between three fountains (fig. 81).
In early lists the annulet is blazoned as a false roundel; thus Vipont is said to bear gules, six false roundels or.
Guttes or drops are represented pear-shaped with a tail like a Rupert’s drop, or the tears on funeral draperies. They are not found in the earliest coats. They, like roundels, are named from their colour, thus : or—gutté d’ or gules—gutté de sang; argent—gutté d’eau. ; sable—gutté de poix ; azure—gutté de larmes ; very—gutté d’huile.
Malory: argent, a cross cable. gutté d’or.
Winterbottem: azure, gutté d’eau.
Kington: argent, gutté de larmes; on a chief azure three barons’ coronets or (fig. 80).
Fitz of Fitzford: argent, gutté de sang, a cross of the same.
Chichester city: argent, gutté de poix, on a chief indented gules a lion of England.
Marshal: argent, on a fess gules three drops ermine.
The Billet or delve is a small parallelogram usually borne in numbers and set up on one end.
Coudray: gules, billetty or.
Delves. argent, a chevron gules, fretty or, between three delves sable (fig. 82.).
Somewhat akin to these subordinaries is a division of the field known as checquy, where the field is divided into small squares like a chess-board. Their number is not specified, but usually is made up of seven squares in a line, and in depth according to the length of the shield. Hugh, earl of Vermandois, is said to have borne checquy, or and azure, and as his daughter married Warren, it is possible that the earls of Surrey thence derived their well-known coat.
Warren: checquy, or and azure (fig. 83).
Tateshal: checquy, or and gules, a chief ermine.
Checquy was not confined to the field, but was also applied to the charges upon it.
Stuart: or, a fess checquy, argent and azure.
Where there is but one row of squares, the bearing is called gobonny or compony, if of two rows, counter-compony.
Gray: barry of six, argent and azure, a bend compony of the first and gules (fig. 84).
Fitz Roy: gules, a border quarterly, ermine and counter-compony, or and azure.
Common Charges.
Next to the purely heraldic figures connected with the shield and their diminutives and subordinaries, come those imported into heraldry as charges from all quarters, in-cluding an immense variety of objects, natural and artificial, beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles and insects, flowers, and the fruits of the field, chimaeras, astronomical and celestial figures, man and his parts, arms and armour, implements of war and the chase, ships, articles of dress, and a mis-cellaneous budget far too heavy to enumerate.
The rules for the placing of these charges are simple. If single, they stand in the centre of the shield; if two, in pale, or one over the other; if three, 2 and 1 ; if the number is longer the order must be specified (see fig. 85). The French carry the unexpressed understanding much further. With them, four pieces are placed 2 and 2 five pieces, in saltire; six are 3,2,1 ; seven are 3,3,1 ; eight are in orle ; and nine are 3,3,3.
ANIMALS.
The following rules are applicable to the blazoning of animals. Generally, unless otherwise specified, they are shown in profile, looking towards the dexter side ; when to the sinister, the word counter is prefixed, "a lion counter-passant." Animals back to back are "addorsed" ; face to face, "confrontée" ; facing the spectator, "gardant," or " affrontée" looking back, "regardant" ; when rising out of the edge of an ordinary, "issuant ;" when out of the middle of it, "naissant." When the claws, horns, tongues, hoofs, or mane are shown of a special colour, the animal is "armed," "corned," "langued" or "lampassé," "ungued," or "crined." Sometimes he is crowned royally or ducally, sometimes "collared," "gorged," or "accollée." When wounded he is "vulned."
When of its natural colour an animal is "proper," but it may be of any metal, colour, or fur, and divided by any partition lines. When a head or member is torn off it is "erased." When cut off "couped." When men are clothed, they are "habited" ; when nude, they are "salvage."
QUADRUPEDS.—Of these the Lion is by far the most popular, nor is his popularity confined to England. He appears not only in the British arms, but in those of Spain, Holland, Denmark, Bohemia, and Saxony, and many lesser states. Of Edward II.’s 918 bannerets, 225 bear lions in some form or other. The favourite attitude is rampant, but he may be passant, saliant, statant, sejant, couchant, or dormant. About thirty varieties of attitude are enumerated by writers ; but most are rarely if ever used, and indeed it is seldom the lion is other than rampant or passant. Sometimes he is borne "demi," especially as a crest. His paws or jambs are also borne, and his tail. In one or two well-known instan