A Complete Guide to Heraldry Part 49

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 661.--Palisado crown.]

Of _identically_ the same shape is what is known as the "Antique Coronet."

It has no particular meaning, and though no objection is made to granting it in Scotland and Ireland, it is not granted in England. Instances in which it occurs under such a description will be found in the cases of Lanigan O'Keefe and Matheson.

The Crown Vallary or Vallary Coronet (Fig. 660) and the Palisado Coronet (Fig. 661) were undoubtedly originally the same, but now the two forms in which it has been depicted are considered to be different coronets. Each has the rim, but the vallary coronet is now heightened only by pieces of the shape of vair, whilst the palisado coronet is formed by high "palisadoes" affixed to the rim. These two are the only forms of coronet granted to ordinary and undistinguished applicants in England.

The circlet from the crown of a king of arms has once at least been granted as a crest coronet, this being in the case of Rogers Harrison.

In a recent grant of arms to Gee, the crest has no wreath, but issues from "a circlet or, charged with a fleur-de-lis gules." The circlet is emblazoned as a plain gold band.

THE CHAPEAU

Some number of crests will be found to have been granted to be borne upon a "chapeau" in lieu of wreath or coronet. Other names for the chapeau, under which it is equally well known, are the "cap of maintenance" or "cap of dignity."

There can be very little doubt that the heraldic chapeau combines two distinct origins or earlier prototypes. The one is the real cap of dignity, and the other is the hat or "capelot" which covered the top of the helm before the mantling was introduced, but from which the {379} lambrequin developed. The curious evolution of the chapeau from the "capelot," which is so marked and usual in Germany, is the tall conical hat, often surmounted by a tuft or larger plume of feathers, and usually employed in German heraldry as an opportunity for the repet.i.tion of the livery colours, or a part of, and often the whole design of, the arms. But it should at the same time be noticed that this tall, conical hat is much more closely allied to the real cap of maintenance than our present crest "chapeau."

Exactly what purpose the real cap of maintenance served, or of what it was a symbol, remains to a certain extent a matter of mystery. The "Cap of Maintenance"--a part of the regalia borne before the sovereign at the State opening of Parliament (but _not_ at a coronation) by the Marquesses of Winchester, the hereditary bearers of the cap of maintenance--bears, in its shape, no relation to the heraldic chapeau. The only similarity is its crimson colour and its lining of ermine. It is a tall, conical cap and is carried on a short staff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 662.--The Crown of King Charles II.]

Whilst crest coronets in early days appear to have had little or no relation to t.i.tular rank, there is no doubt whatever that caps of dignity had. Long before, a coronet was a.s.signed to the rank of baron in the reign of Charles II.; all barons had their caps of dignity, of scarlet lined with white fur; and in the old pedigrees a scarlet cap with a gold tuft or ta.s.sel on top and a lining of fur will be found painted above the arms of a baron. This fact, the fact that until after Stuart days the chapeau does not appear to have been allowed or granted to others than peers, the fact that it is now reserved for the crests granted to peers, the fact that the velvet cap is a later addition both to the sovereign's crown and to the coronet of a peer, and finally the fact that the cap of maintenance is borne before the sovereign only in the precincts of Parliament, would seem to indubitably indicate that the cap of maintenance was inseparably connected with the lordship and overlordship of Parliament vested in peers and in the sovereign. In the crumpled and ta.s.selled top of the velvet cap, and in the ermine border visible below the rim, the high conical form of the cap of maintenance proper can be still traced in the cap of a peer's coronet, and that the velvet cap contained in {380} the crown of the sovereign and in the coronet of a peer is the survival of the old cap of dignity there can be no doubt. This is perhaps even more apparent in Fig.

662, which shows the crown of King Charles II., than in the representations of the Royal crown which we are more accustomed to see. The present form of a peer's coronet is undoubtedly the conjoining of two separate emblems of his rank. The cap of maintenance or dignity, however, as represented above the arms of a baron, as above referred to, was not of this high, conical shape. It was much flatter.

The high, conical, original shape is, however, preserved in many of the early heraldic representations of the chapeau, as will be noticed from an examination of the ancient Garter plates or from a reference to Fig. 271, which shows the helmet with its chapeau-borne crest of Edward the Black Prince.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 663.--The Chapeau.]

Of the chapeaux upon which crests are represented in the early Garter plates the following facts may be observed. They are twenty in number of the eighty-six plates reproduced in Mr. St. John Hope's book. It should be noticed that until the end of the reign of Henry VIII. the Royal crest of the sovereign was always depicted upon a chapeau gules, lined with ermine.

Of the twenty instances in which the chapeau appears, no less than twelve are representations of the Royal crest, borne by closely allied relatives of the sovereign, so that we have only eight examples from which to draw deductions. But of the twenty it should be pointed out that nineteen are peers, and the only remaining instance (Sir John Grey, K.G.) is that of the eldest son and heir apparent of a peer, both shield and crest being in this case boldly marked with the "label" of an eldest son. Consequently it is a safe deduction that whatever may have been the regulations and customs concerning the use of coronets, there can be no doubt that down to the end of the fifteenth century the use of a chapeau marked a crest as that of a peer. Of the eight non-Royal examples one has been repainted, and is valueless as a contemporary record. Of the remaining seven, four are of the conventional gules and ermine. One only has not the ermine lining, that being the crest of Lord Fanhope. It is plainly the Royal crest "differenced" (he being of Royal but illegitimate descent), and probably the argent in lieu of ermine lining is one of the intentional marks of distinction. The chapeau of Lord Beaumont is azure, seme-de-lis, lined ermine, and that of the Earl of Douglas is azure lined ermine, this being in each case in conformity with the mantling. Whilst the Beaumont family still use this curiously coloured chapeau with their crest, the Douglas crest is now borne (by {381} the Duke of Hamilton) upon one of ordinary tinctures. Chapeaux, other than of gules lined ermine, are but rarely met with, and unless specifically blazoned to the contrary a cap of maintenance is always presumed to be gules and ermine.

About the Stuart period the granting of crests upon chapeaux to others than peers became far from unusual, and the practice appears to have been frequently adopted prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some of these crest chapeaux, however, were not of gules. An instance of this kind will be found in the grant in 1667 to Sir Thomas Davies, then one of the sheriffs of the City of London, but afterwards (in 1677) Lord Mayor.

The crest granted was: "On a chapeau sable, turned up or, a demi-lion rampant of the last." The reason for the grant at that date of such a simple crest and the even more astonishingly simple coat of arms ["Or, a chevron between three mullets pierced sable"] has always been a mystery to me.

The arms of Lord Lurgan (granted or confirmed 1840) afford another instance of a chapeau of unusual colour, his crest being: "Upon a chapeau azure turned up ermine, a greyhound statant gules, collared or."

There are some number of cases in which peers whose ancestors originally bore their crests upon a wreath have subsequently placed them upon a chapeau. The Stanleys, Earls of Derby, are a case in point, as are also the Marquesses of Exeter. The latter case is curious, because although they have for long enough so depicted their crest, they only comparatively recently (within the last few years) obtained the necessary authorisation by the Crown.

At the present time the official form of the chapeau is as in Fig. 663, with the turn up split at the back into two tails. No such form can be found in any early representation, and most heraldic artists have now reverted to an earlier type.

Before leaving the subject of the cap of maintenance, reference should be made to another instance of a curious heraldic headgear often, but _quite incorrectly_, styled a "cap of maintenance." This is the fur cap invariably used over the shields of the cities of London, Dublin, and Norwich. There is no English official authority whatever for such an addition to the arms, but there does appear to be some little official recognition of it in Ulster's Office in the case of the city of Dublin. The late Ulster King of Arms, however, informed me that he would, in the case of Dublin, have no hesitation whatever in certifying the right of the city arms to be so displayed (Plate VII.).

In the utter absence of anything in the nature of a precedent, it is quite unlikely that the practice will be sanctioned in England. The {382} hat used is a flat-topped, brown fur hat of the shape depicted with the arms of the City of Dublin. It is merely (in London) a part of the official uniform or livery of the City sword-bearer. It does not even appear to have been a part of the costume of the Lord Mayor, and it must always remain a mystery why it was ever adopted for heraldic use. But then the chain of the Lord Mayor of London is generally called a Collar of SS. Besides this the City of London uses a Peer's helmet, a bogus modern crest, and even more modern bogus supporters, so a few other eccentricities need not in that particular instance cause surprise. {383}

CHAPTER XXIV

THE MANTLING OR LAMBREQUIN

The mantling is the ornamental design which in a representation of an armorial achievement depends from the helmet, falling away on either side of the escutcheon. Many authorities have considered it to have been no more than a fantastic series of flourishes, devised by artistic minds for the purpose of a.s.sisting ornamentation and affording an artistic opportunity of filling up unoccupied s.p.a.ces in a heraldic design. There is no doubt that its readily apparent advantages in that character have greatly led to the importance now attached to the mantling in heraldic art. But equally is it certain that its real origin is to be traced elsewhere.

The development of the heraldry of to-day was in the East during the period of the Crusades, and the burning heat of the Eastern sun upon the metal helmet led to the introduction and adoption of a textile covering, which would act in some way as a barrier between the two. It was simply in fact and effect a primeval prototype of the "puggaree" of Margate and Hindustan.

It is plain from all early representations that originally it was short, simply hanging from the apex of the helmet to the level of the shoulders, overlapping the textile tunic or "coat of arms," but probably enveloping a greater part of the helmet, neck, and shoulders than we are at present (judging from pictorial representations) inclined to believe.

Adopted first as a protection against the heat, and perhaps also the rust which would follow damp, the lambrequin soon made evident another of its advantages, an advantage to which we doubtless owe its perpetuation outside Eastern warfare in the more temperate climates of Northern Europe and England. Textile fabrics are peculiarly and remarkably deadening to a sword-cut, to which fact must be added the facility with which such a weapon would become entangled in the hanging folds of cloth. The hacking and hewing of battle would show itself plainly upon the lambrequin of one accustomed to a prominent position in the forefront of a fight, and the honourable record implied by a ragged and slashed lambrequin accounts for the fact that we find at an early period after their introduction into heraldic art, that mantlings {384} are depicted cut and "torn to ribbons."

This opportunity was quickly seized by the heraldic artist, who has always, from those very earliest times of absolute armorial freedom down to the point of greatest and most regularised control, been allowed an entire and absolute discretion in the design to be adopted for the mantling. Hence it is that we find so much importance is given to it by heraldic artists, for it is in the design of the mantling, and almost entirely in that opportunity, that the personal character and abilities of the artist have their greatest scope. Some authorities have, however, derived the mantling from the robe of estate, and there certainly has been a period in British armory when most lambrequins found in heraldic art are represented by an unmutilated cloth, suspended from and displayed behind the armorial bearings and tied at the upper corners. In all probability the robes of estate of the higher n.o.bility, no less than the then existing and peremptorily enforced sumptuary laws, may have led to the desire and to the attempt, at a period when the actual lambrequin was fast disappearing from general knowledge, to display arms upon something which should represent either the parliamentary robes of estate of a peer, or the garments of rich fabric which the sumptuary laws forbade to those of humble degree. To this period undoubtedly belongs the term "mantling," which is so much more frequently employed than the word lambrequin, which is really--from the armorial point of view--the older term.

The heraldic mantling was, of course, originally the representation of the actual "capeline" or textile covering worn upon the helmet, but many early heraldic representations are of mantlings which are of skin, fur, or feathers, being in such cases invariably a continuation of the crest drawn out and represented as the lambrequin. When the crest was a part of the human figure, the habit in which that figure was arrayed is almost invariably found to have been so employed. The Garter plate of Sir Ralph Ba.s.sett, one of the Founder Knights, shows the crest as a black boar's head, the skin being continued as the sable mantling.

Some Sclavonic families have mantlings of fur only, that of the Hungarian family of Chorinski is a bear skin, and countless other instances can be found of the use by German families of a continuation of the crest for a mantling. This practice affords instances of many curious mantlings, this in one case in the Zurich _Wappenrolle_ being the scaly skin of a salmon.

The mane of the lion, the crest of Mertz, and the hair and beard of the crests of Bohn and Landschaden, are similarly continued to do duty for the mantling. This practice has never found great favour in England, the cases amongst the early Garter plates where it has been followed standing almost alone. In a {385} ma.n.u.script (M. 3, 67_b_) of the reign of Henry VII., now in the College of Arms, probably dating from about 1506, an instance of this character can be found, however. It is a representation of the crest of Stourton (Fig. 664) as it was borne at that date, and was a black Benedictine demi-monk proper holding erect in his dexter hand a scourge.

Here the proper black Benedictine habit (it has of later years been corrupted into the russet habit of a friar) is continued to form the mantling.

PLATE VII.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 664.--The Crest of Stourton.]

By what rules the colours of the mantlings were decided in early times it is impossible to say. No rules have been handed down to us--the old heraldic books are silent on the point--and it seems equally hopeless to attempt to deduce any from ancient armorial examples. The one fact that can be stated with certainty is that the rules of early days, if there were any, are not the rules presently observed. Some hold that the colours of the mantling were decided by the colours of the actual livery in use as distinct from the "livery colours" of the arms. It is difficult to check this rule, because our knowledge of the liveries in use in early days is so meagre and limited; but in the few instances of which we now have knowledge we look in vain for a repet.i.tion of the colours worn by the retainers as liveries in the mantlings used. The fact that the livery colours are represented in the background of some of the early Garter plates, and that in such instances in no single case do they agree with the colours of the mantling, must certainly dissipate once and for all any such supposition as far as it relates to that period.

A careful study and a.n.a.lysis of early heraldic emblazonment, however, reveals one point as a dominating characteristic. That is, that where the crest, by its nature, lent itself to a continuation into the mantling it generally was so continued. This practice, which was almost universal upon the Continent, and is particularly to be met with {386} in German heraldry, though seldom adopted in England, certainly had some weight in English heraldry. In the recently published reproductions of the Plantagenet Garter plates eighty-seven armorial achievements are included. Of these, in ten instances the mantlings are plainly continuations of the crests, being "feathered" or in unison. Fifteen of the mantlings have both the outside and the inside of the princ.i.p.al colour and of the princ.i.p.al metal of the arms they accompany, though in a few cases, contrary to the present practice, the metal is outside, the lining being of the colour. Nineteen more of the mantlings are of the princ.i.p.al colour of the arms, the majority (eighteen) of these being lined with ermine. No less than forty-nine are of some colour lined with ermine, but thirty-four of these are of gules lined ermine, and in the large majority of cases in these thirty-four instances neither the gules nor the ermine are in conformity with the princ.i.p.al colour and metal (what we now term the "livery colours") of the arms. In some cases the colours of the mantling agree with the colours of the crest, a rule which will usually be found to hold good in German heraldry. The constant occurrence of gules and ermine incline one much to believe that the colours of the mantling were not decided by haphazard fancy, but that there was some law--possibly in some way connected with the sumptuary laws of the period--which governed the matter, or, at any rate, which greatly limited the range of selection. Of the eighty-seven mantlings, excluding those which are gules lined ermine, there are four only the colours of which apparently bear no relation whatever to the colours of the arms or the crests appearing upon the same Stall plate. In some number of the plates the colours certainly are taken from a quartering other than the first one, and in one at least of the four exceptions the mantling (one of the most curious examples) is plainly derived from a quartering inherited by the knight in question though not shown upon the Stall plate. Probably a closer examination of the remaining three instances would reveal a similar reason in each case. That any law concerning the colours of their mantlings was enforced upon those concerned would be an unwarrantable deduction not justified by the instances under examination, but one is clearly justified in drawing from these cases some deductions as to the practice pursued. It is evident that unless one was authorised by the rule or reason governing the matter--whatever such rule or reason may have been--in using a mantling of gules and ermine, the dominating colour (not as a rule the metal) of the coat of arms (or of one of the quarterings), or sometimes of the crest if the tinctures of arms and crest were not in unison, decided the colour of the mantling. That there was some meaning behind the mantlings of gules lined with ermine there can be little doubt, for it is noticeable that in a case in {387} which the colours of the arms themselves are gules and ermine, the mantling is of gules and argent, as by the way in this particular case is the chapeau upon which the crest is placed. But probably the reason which governed these mantlings of gules lined with ermine, as also the ermine linings of other mantlings, must be sought outside the strict limits of armory. That the colours of mantlings are repeated in different generations, and in the plates of members of the same family, clearly demonstrates that selection was not haphazard.

Certain of these early Garter plates exhibit interesting curiosities in the mantlings:--

1. Sir William Latimer, Lord Latimer, K.G., c. 1361-1381. Arms: gules a cross patonce or. Crest: a plume of feathers sable, the tips or. Mantling gules with silver vertical stripes, lined with ermine.

2. Sir Bermond Arnaud de Presac, Soudan de la Tran, K.G., 1380-_post_ 1384.

Arms: or, a lion rampant double-queued gules. Crest: a Midas' head argent.

Mantling sable, lined gules, the latter veined or.

3. Sir Simon Felbrigge, K.G., 1397-1442. Arms: or, a lion rampant gules.

Crest: out of a coronet gules, a plume of feathers ermine. Mantling ermine, lined gules (evidently a continuation of the crest).

4. Sir Reginald Cobham, Lord Cobham, K.G., 1352-1361. Arms: gules, on a chevron or, three estoiles sable. Crest: a soldan's head sable, the brow encircled by a torse or. Mantling sable (evidently a continuation of the crest), lined gules.

5. Sir Edward Cherleton, Lord Cherleton of Powis, K.G., 1406-7 to 1420-1.

Arms: or, a lion rampant gules. Crest: on a wreath gules and sable, two lions' gambs also gules, each adorned on the exterior side with three demi-fleurs-de-lis issuing argent, the centres thereof or. Mantling: on the dexter side, sable; on the sinister side, gules; both lined ermine.

6. Sir Hertong von Clux, K.G., 1421-1445 or 6. Arms: argent, a vine branch couped at either end in bend sable. Crest: out of a coronet or, a plume of feathers sable and argent. Mantling: on the dexter side, azure; on the sinister, gules; both lined ermine.

7. Sir Miles Stapleton, K.G. (Founder Knight, died 1364). Arms: argent, a lion rampant sable. Crest: a soldan's head sable, around the temples a torse azure, tied in a knot, the ends flowing. Mantling sable (probably a continuation of the crest), lined gules.

8. Sir Walter Hungerford, Lord Hungerford and Heytesbury, K.G., 1421-1449.

Arms: sable, two bars argent, and in chief three plates. Crest: out of a coronet azure a garb or, enclosed by two sickles argent. Mantling (within and without): dexter, barry of six {388} ermine and gules; sinister, barry of six gules and ermine. (The reason of this is plain. The mother of Lord Hungerford was a daughter and coheir of Hussey. The arms of Hussey are variously given: "Barry of six ermine and gules," or "Ermine, three bars gules.")

9. Sir Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Stafford, 1429-1460. Arms: or, a chevron gules. Crest: out of a coronet gules, a swan's head and neck proper, beaked gules, between two wings also proper. Mantling: the dexter side, sable; the sinister side, gules; both lined ermine. Black and gules, it may be noted, were the livery colours of Buckingham, an earldom which had devolved upon the Earls of Stafford.

10. Sir John Grey of Ruthin, K.G., 1436-1439. Arms: quarterly, 1 and 4, barry of six argent and azure, in chief three torteaux; 2 and 3, quarterly i. and iiii., or, a maunch gules; ii. and iii., barry of eight argent and azure, an orle of ten martlets gules; over all a label of three points argent. Crest: on a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, a wyvern or, gorged with a label argent. Mantling or, lined ermine.