A Complete Guide to Heraldry Part 70

After the death of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, Lord Collingwood took command, and though naval experts think that the action of Collingwood greatly minimised the number of prizes which would have resulted from the victory, Lord Collingwood received for an augmentation a chief wavy gules, thereon the lion of England, navally {593} crowned, with the word "Trafalgar" above the lion. He also received an additional crest, namely, the stern of his ship, the _Royal Sovereign_, between a wreath of oak on the one side and a wreath of laurel on the other.

The heroic story of the famous fight between the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_ has been often told. Captain Broke sent in a challenge to the _Chesapeake_ to come out and fight him, and, though a banquet was prepared by the Mayor of Boston for that evening "to meet the English officers,"

Captain Broke defeated the _Chesapeake_ in an engagement which only lasted a very short time. He was granted an additional crest, namely, an arm holding a trident and issuing from a naval crown, together with the motto, "Saevumque tridentem servamus."

General Ross fought and won the Battle of Bladensburg, and took the city of Washington, dying a few days afterwards. The story is that the family were offered their choice of a baronetcy or an augmentation, and they chose the latter. The augmentation (Plate II.), which was specially granted with permission for it to be placed upon the monument to the memory of General Ross, consists of the arm holding the flag of the United States with a broken flag-staff which will be seen both on the shield itself, and as an additional crest. The shield also shows the gold cross for previous services at Corunna and in the Peninsula. The family were also given the surname of "Ross-of-Bladensburg."

The capture of Curacoa by Admiral Sir Charles Brisbane, K.C.B., is commemorated by the representation of his ship pa.s.sing between the two Dutch forts; and by the additional crest of an arm in a naval officer's uniform grasping a cutla.s.s. Admiral Sir Robert Otway, for his distinguished services, was granted: "On a chief azure an anchor between two branches of oak or, and on the dexter side a demi-Neptune and on the sinister a mermaid proper," to add to his shield. Admiral Sir George Poc.o.c.k, who captured Havannah, was given for an augmentation: "On a chief wavy azure a sea-horse" (to typify his naval career), between two Eastern crowns (to typify his services in the East Indies), with the word "Havanna," the scene of his greatest victory.

Sir Edward Pellew, who was created Viscount Exmouth for bombarding and destroying the fort and a.r.s.enal of Algiers, was given upon a chief a representation of that fort, with an English man-of-war in front of it, to add to his arms. It is interesting to note that one of his supporters, though not a part of his augmentation, represents a Christian slave, in memory of those in captivity at Algiers when he captured the city.

There were several augmentations won at the Battle of Waterloo, {594} and the Waterloo medal figures upon many coats of arms of Waterloo officers.

Colonel Alexander Clark-Kennedy, with his own hand, captured the French Eagle of the 105th French Regiment. For this he bears a representation of it and a sword crossed upon a chief over his arms, and his crest of augmentation is a demi-dragoon holding the same flag. Of the mult.i.tude of honours which were showered upon the Duke of Wellington, not the least was his augmentation. This was a smaller shield to be superimposed upon his own, and charged with those crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St.

Patrick, which we term "the Union Jack." Sir Edward Kerrison, who distinguished himself so greatly in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, was granted a sword with a wreath of laurel and representations of his medals for Orthes and Waterloo, and, for an additional crest, an arm in armour holding a banner inscribed "Peninsula."

Sir Thomas Munro, who will be long remembered as the Governor of Madras, was rewarded for his capture of Badamy by a representation of that hill-fort in India. The augmentation of Lord Keane is very similar, being a representation of the Fortress of Ghuznee in Afghanistan, which he captured. Other instances of a similar character are to be found in the arms of c.o.c.kburn-Campbell and Hamilton-Grace.

The arms of Lord Gough are most remarkable, inasmuch as they show no less than two distinct and different augmentations both earned by the same man.

In 1816, for his services in the Peninsula, he received a representation of the Spanish Order of Charles III., and on a chief the representation of the Fortress of Tarifa, with the crest of the arm holding the colours of his own regiment, the 87th, and a French eagle reversed and depressed. After his victories in the East, particularly at Goojerat, and for the subjugation and annexation of the Punjab, he was granted, in 1843, an additional quartering to add to his shield. This has the Lion of England holding up the Union Jack below the words "China" and "India." The third crest, which was then granted to him, shows a similar lion holding the Union Jack and a Chinese flag.

Sir George Pollock, "of the Khyber Pa.s.s," Bart., earned everlasting fame for himself in the first Afghan War, by forcing the Khyber Pa.s.s and by the capture of Cabul. For this he was given an Eastern crown and the word "Khyber" on a chief as well as three cannon upon a canton, and at the same time he was granted an additional crest--a lion holding an Afghan banner with the staff thereof broken. With him it seemed as if the practice of granting augmentations for military services had ceased. Lord Roberts has none, neither has Lord Wolseley. But recently the old practice was reverted to in favour of Lord Kitchener. His family arms were: "Azure, a chevron cottised {595} between three bustards," and in the centre chief point a bezant; with a stag's head for a crest; but for "smashing the Khalifa" he has been given the Union Jack and the Egyptian flag with the staves encircled by a coronet bearing the word "Khartoum," all on a pile superimposed over his family arms. He also received a second crest of an elephant's head holding a sword in its trunk issuing from a mural crown. At the conclusion of the South African War a second augmentation was granted to him, this taking the form of a chief.

Two other very interesting instances of augmentation of arms are worthy of mention.

Sir Ralph Abercromby, after a distinguished career, fought and won the Battle of Aboukir Bay, only to die a few days later on board H.M.S.

_Foudroyant_ of his wounds received in the battle. But long before he had fought and conquered the French at Valenciennes, and in 1795 had been made a Knight of the Bath. The arms which are upon his Stall plate in Westminster Abbey include his augmentation, which is an arm in armour encircled by a wreath of laurel supporting the French Standard.

Sir William Hoste gained the celebrated victory over the French fleet off the Island of Lissa in 1811, and the augmentation which was granted was a representation of his gold medal hanging from a naval crown, and an additional crest, an arm holding a flag inscribed with the word "Cattaro,"

the scene of another of his victories.

Peace has its victories no less than war, but there is generally very much less fuss made about them. Consequently, the augmentations to commemorate entirely pacific actions are considerably fewer in number. The Speke augmentation has been elsewhere referred to, and reference may be made to the Ross augmentation to commemorate the Arctic exploits of Sir John Ross.

It is a very common idea that arms were formerly to be obtained by conquest in battle. Like many other heraldic ideas, there is a certain amount of truth in the idea, from which very erroneous generalisations have been made. The old legend as to the acquisition of the plume of ostrich feathers by the Black Prince no doubt largely accounts for the idea. That legend, as has been already shown, lacks foundation. Territorial or sovereign arms doubtless would be subject to conquest, but I do not believe that because in battle or in a tournament _a outrance_ one person defeated another, he therefore became ent.i.tled to a.s.sume, of his own motion, the arms of the man he had vanquished. The proposition is too absurd. But there is no doubt that in some number of historic cases his Sovereign has subsequently conferred upon the victor an augmentation which has closely approximated to the arms of his victim. Such cases occur in the arms of the Clerkes, Barts., {596} of Hitcham, Bucks, who bear: "On a sinister canton azure, a demi-ram salient of the first, and in chief two fleurs-de-lis or, debruised by a baton," to commemorate the action of Sir John Clerke of Weston, who captured Louis D'Orleans, Duke of Longueville, at Borny, near Terouenne, 5 Henry VII. The augmentation conferred upon the Duke of Norfolk at the battle of Flodden has been already referred to, but the family of Lloyd of Stockton, co. Salop, carry a remarkable augmentation, inasmuch as they are permitted to bear the arms of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, to commemorate his recapture by their ancestor after Lord Cobham's escape from the Tower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 773.--Arms of Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland and Earl of Oxford: Quarterly, 1 and 4 (of augmentation), azure, three crowns or, within a bordure argent; 2 and 3, quarterly gules and or, in the first quarter a mullet argent.]

Augmentations which have no other basis than mere favour of kings, or consanguinity to the Royal Family, are not uncommon. Richard II., who himself adopted the arms of St. Edward the Confessor, bestowed the right to bear them also upon Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk (Fig. 675). No difference was added to them in his case, which is the more remarkable as they were borne by the Duke impaled with the arms of England. In 1397 the King conferred the same arms upon John de Holland, Duke of Exeter, differenced by a label argent, and upon Thomas de Holland, Duke of Surrey, within a bordure ermine. Richard II. seems to have been inclined to the granting of augmentations, for in 1386, when he created the Earl of Oxford (Robert de Vere) Duke of Ireland, he granted him as an augmentation the arms of Ireland ("Azure, three crowns or") within a bordure argent (Fig.

773). The Manners family, who were of Royal descent, but who, not being descended from an heiress, had no right to quarter the Royal Arms, received the grant of a chief "quarterly azure and gules, in the first and fourth quarters two fleurs-de-lis, and in the second and third a lion pa.s.sant guardant or." This precedent might well be followed at the present day in the case of the daughters of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Fife. It was adopted in the case of Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain. The Waller family, of Groombridge, co. Kent, one of whom, Richard Waller, captured Charles, Duke of Orleans, at the battle of Agincourt, received as an augmentation the right to suspend from the crest ("On a mount a walnut-tree proper") an escutcheon of the arms of that Prince, viz.: "Azure, three fleurs-de-lis or, a label of three points argent." Lord Polwarth bears one of the few augmentations granted by William III., viz.: "An inescutcheon azure charged with an orange ensigned with an Imperial crown {597} all proper," whilst the t.i.tular King James III. and VIII. granted to John Graeme, Earl of Alford, a coat of augmentation, viz.: "The Royal Arms of Scotland on the field and cross of St. Andrew counterchanged," the date of the grant being 20th January 1734. Sir John Keith, Earl of Kintore, Knight Marischal of Scotland, saved the regalia of Scotland from falling into the hands of Cromwell, and in return the Keith arms (now quartered by Lord Kintore) were augmented with "an inescutcheon gules, a sword in bend sinister surmounted by a sceptre in bend dexter, in chief an Imperial crown, the whole within an orle of eight thistles."

The well-known augmentation of the Seymour family: "Or, on a pile gules, between six fleurs-de-lis azure," is borne to commemorate the marriage of Jane Seymour to Henry VIII., who granted augmentations to all his wives except Catharine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves. The Seymour family is, however, the only one in which the use of the augmentation has been continued. The same practice was followed by granting the arms of England to the Consort of the Princess Caroline and to the late Prince Consort. See page 499.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 774.--Device from the chief of the "Prussian Sword n.o.bility."]

The frequent grant of the Royal tressure in Scotland, probably usually as an augmentation, has been already referred to. King Charles I. granted to the Earl of Kinnoull as a quartering of augmentation: "Azure, a unicorn salient argent, armed, maned, and unguled or, within a bordure of the last charged with thistles of Scotland and roses gules of England dimidiated."

The well-known augmentation of the Medicis family, viz.: "A roundle azure, charged with three fleurs-de-lis or," was granted by Louis XII. to Pietro de Medicis. The Prussian Officers, enn.o.bled on the 18th of January 1896, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the new German Empire, bear as a device a chief purpure, and thereupon the Prussian sceptre and a sword in saltire interlaced by two oak-branches vert (Fig. 774). The late Right Hon. Sir Thomas Thornton, G.C.B., received a Royal Licence to accept the Portuguese t.i.tle of Conde de Ca.s.silhas and an augmentation. This was an inescutcheon (ensigned by his coronet as a Conde) "or, thereon an arm embowed vested azure, the cuff gold, the hand supporting a flagstaff therefrom flowing the Royal Standard of Portugal." The same device issuing from his coronet was also granted to him as a crest of augmentation. Sir Woodbine Parish, K.C.H., by legislative act of the Argentine Republic received in 1839 a grant of {598} the arms of that country, which was subsequently incorporated in the arms granted to him and registered in the Heralds' College in this country. He had been Consul-General and Charge d'Affaires at Buenos Ayres, 1823-1832; he was appointed in 1824 Plenipotentiary, and concluded the first treaty by which the Argentine Republic was formally recognised. Reference has been already made (page 420) to the frequent grant of supporters as augmentations, and perhaps mention should also be made of the inescutcheons for the Dukedom of Aubigny, borne by the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, and for the Duchy of Chatelherault, borne by the Duke of Abercorn. Possibly these should more properly be ranked as territorial arms and not as augmentations. A similar coat is the inescutcheon borne by the Earl of Mar and Kellie for his Earldom of Kellie. This, however, is stated by Woodward to be an augmentation granted by James VI. to Sir Thomas Erskine, one of several granted by that King to commemorate the frustration of the Gowrie Plot in 1600.

The Marquess of Westminster, for some utterly inexplicable reason, was granted as an augmentation the right to bear the arms of the city of Westminster in the first quarter of his arms. Those who have rendered very great personal service to the Crown have been sometimes so favoured. The Halford and Gull (see page 250) augmentations commemorate medical services to the Royal Family, and augmentations have been conferred upon Sir Frederick Treves and Sir Francis Laking in connection with His Majesty's illness at the time of the Coronation.

The badges of Ulster and Nova Scotia borne as such upon their shields by Baronets are, of course, augmentations.

Two cases are known of augmentations to the arms of towns. The arms of Derry were augmented by the arms of the city of London in chief, when, after its fearful siege, the name of Derry was changed to Londonderry to commemorate the help given by the city of London. The arms of the city of Hereford had an azure bordure seme of saltires couped argent added to its arms after it had successfully withstood its Scottish siege, and this, by the way, is a striking example of colour upon colour, the field of the coat being gules.

There are many grants in the later part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries recorded in Lyon Register which at first sight appear to be augmentations. Perhaps they are rightly so termed, but as the additions usually appear to be granted by the Lyon without specific Royal Warrants, they are hardly equivalent to the English ones issued during the same period. Many ordinary grants made in England which have borne direct reference to particular achievements of the grantee have been (by the grantees and their {599} descendants) wrongly termed augmentations. A rough and ready (though not a certain) test is to imagine the coat if the augmentation be removed, and see whether it remains a properly balanced design. Few of such coats will survive the test. The additions made to a coat to make it a different design, when a new grant is founded upon arms improperly used theretofore, are not augmentations, although spoken departures from the truth on this detail are by no means rare. {600}

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

ECCLESIASTICAL HERALDRY

Ecclesiastical heraldry has nothing like the importance in British armory that it possesses elsewhere. It may be said to consist in this country exclusively of the official arms a.s.signed to and recorded for the archiepiscopal and episcopal sees, and the mitres and crosiers which are added to the shields, and a certain number of ecclesiastical symbols which occur as charges. In Pre-Reformation days there were, of course, the many religious houses which used armorial emblems, but with the suppression of the monasteries these vanished. The cardinal's hat was recognised in former days, and would still be officially certified in England as admittedly correctly displayed above the arms of a Roman cardinal. But the curious and intricate development of other varieties of the ecclesiastical hat which will be found in use in all other European countries is not known to British armory. Nor has the English College of Arms recognised the impersonal arms of the Catholic communities. Those arms, with and without the ecclesiastical hats, play a conspicuous part in Continental heraldry.

It is difficult to a.s.sign a proper value or a definite status to the arms of the abbeys and other religious houses in this country in Pre-Reformation times. The princ.i.p.al, in fact the only important sources of information concerning them are the impressions of seals which have come down to us.

Many of these seals show the effigies of saints or patrons, some show the impersonal arms of the religious order to whose rule the community conformed, some the personal arms of the official of the moment, others the personal arms of the founder. In other cases arms presumably those of the particular foundation or community occur, but in such cases the variations in design are so marked, and so often we find that two, three, or more devices are used indifferently and indiscriminately, that one is forced to arrive at the conclusion that a large proportion of the devices in use, though armorial in character, had no greater status than a temporary existence as seal designs. They distinctly lack the unchanging continuity one a.s.sociates with armorial bearings. But whatever their status may {601} once have been, they have now completely pa.s.sed out of being and may well be allowed to rest in the uncertainty which exists concerning them. The interest attaching to them can never be more than academic in character and limited in extent. The larger abbeys, the abbots of which were anciently summoned to Parliament as Lords of Parliament, appear to have adhered rather more consistently to a fixed device in each case, though the variations of design are very noticeable even in these instances. A list of them will be found in the _Genealogical Magazine_ (vol. ii. p. 3).

The suppression of the monasteries in this country was so thorough and so ruthless, that the contemporary instances of abbatical arms remaining to us from which deduction as to armorial rules and precedents can be made are singularly few in number, but it would appear that the abbot impaled the arms of his abbey on the dexter side of his personal arms, and placed his mitre above the shield.

The mitre of an abbot differed from that of a bishop, inasmuch as it had no labels--or _infulae_--depending from within it. The Abbot used a crosier, which doubtless was correctly added to his armorial bearings, but it is found in pale behind the shield, in bend, and also two in saltire, and it is difficult to a.s.sert which was the most correct form.

The crosier of an abbot was also represented with the crook at its head curved inwards, the terminal point of the crook being entirely contained within the hook. The point of a bishop's, on the other hand, was turned outwards at the bottom of the crook. The difference is said to typify the distinction between the confined jurisdiction of the abbot--which was limited to the abbey and the community under his charge--and the more open and wider jurisdiction of the bishop. Although this distinction has been much disputed as regards its recognition for the actual crosiers employed, there can be no doubt that it is very generally adhered to in heraldic representations, though one hesitates to a.s.sert it as an absolute rule. The official arms for the archiepiscopal and episcopal sees are of some interest. With the single exception of York, the archiepiscopal coats of arms all have, in some form or another, the pallium which forms part of an archbishop's vestments or insignia of rank, but it is now very generally recognised and conceded that the pallium is not merely a charge in the official coat for any specified jurisdiction, but is itself the sign of the rank of an archbishop of the same character and status as is the mitre, the pallium being displayed upon a shield as a matter of convenience for artistic representation. This view of the case has been much strengthened by the discovery that in ancient instances of the archiepiscopal arms of York the pallium is found, and not the more modern coat of the crown and keys; but whether the pallium is {602} to be still so considered, or whether under English armorial law it must now be merely ranked as a charge in an ordinary coat of arms, in general practice it is accepted as the latter; but it nevertheless remains a point of very considerable interest (which has not yet been elucidated) why the pallium should have been discarded for York, and another coat of arms subst.i.tuted.

The various coats used by the archbishops of England and Ireland are as follows:--

_Canterbury._--Azure, an episcopal staff in pale or, and ensigned with a cross patee argent surmounted of a pall of the last, charged with four crosses formee fitchee sable, edged and fringed or.

_York._--Gules, two keys in saltire argent, in chief a Royal crown or.

_Armagh._--Azure, an episcopal staff argent, ensigned with a cross patee or, surmounted by a pallium of the second, edged and fringed or, charged with four crosses formee fitchee sable.

_Dublin._--The arms of this archbishopric are the same as those of Armagh, only with five crosses charged on the pallium instead of four.

The arms of the episcopal sees have no attribute at all similar to the charge of the pallium in the coat of an archbishop, and are merely so many different coats of arms. The shield of every bishop and archbishop is surmounted by his mitre, and it is now customary to admit the use of the mitre by all persons holding the t.i.tle of bishop who are recognised as bishops by the English law.

This, of course, includes Colonial and Suffragan bishops, retired bishops, and bishops of the Episcopal Churches in Scotland and in Ireland. It is a moot point whether the bishops of the Episcopal Churches in Ireland and in Scotland are ent.i.tled to make use of the official arms formerly a.s.signed to their sees at a period when those Churches were State-established; but, looking at the matter from a strictly official point of view, it would not appear that they are any longer ent.i.tled to make use of them.

The mitres of an archbishop and of a bishop--in spite of many statements to the contrary--are exactly identical, and the mistaken idea which has of late years (the practice is really quite a modern one) encircled the rim of an archbishop's mitre with the circlet of a coronet is absolutely incorrect.

There are several forms of mitre which, when looked upon as an ecclesiastical ornament, can be said to exist; but from the heraldic point of view only one mitre is recognised, and that is of gold, the labels being of the same colour. The jewelled variety is incorrect in armorial representations, though the science of armory does not appear to have enforced any particular _shape_ of mitre.

The "several forms" of the mitre--to which allusion has just been {603} made--refer to the use in actual practice which prevailed in Pre-Reformation England, and still holds amongst Roman Catholic bishops at the present day. These are three in number, _i.e._ the "precious"

(_pretiosa_), the gold (_auriferata_), and the simple (_simplex_). The two former are both employed at a Pontifical Ma.s.s (being alternately a.s.sumed at different parts of the service); the second only is worn at such rites as Confirmation, &c.; while the third (which is purely of white linen) is confined to Services for the Dead, and on Good Friday. As its name implies, the first of these is of cloth of gold, ornamented to a greater or less degree with jewels, while the second--though likewise of cloth of gold--is without any design or ornament. The short Gothic mitre of Norman days has now given place to the modern Roman one, an alteration which, with its great height and arched sides, can hardly perhaps be considered an artistic improvement. Some individual Roman Catholic bishops at the present day, however (in England at any rate), wear mitres more allied to the Norman and Gothic shape.

The past fifteen or so years have seen a revival--though in a purely eclectic and unofficial manner--of the _wearing_ of the mitre by Church of England bishops. Where this has been (and is being) done, the older form of mitre has been adhered to, though from the informal and unofficial nature of the revival no rules as to its use have been followed, but only individual choice.

At the recent Coronation, mitres were _not_ worn; which they undoubtedly would have been had this revival now alluded to been made authoritatively.

All bishops and archbishops are ent.i.tled to place two crosiers in saltire behind their shields. Archbishops of the Roman Catholic Church have continuously placed in pale behind their shields what is known as the archbishop's cross. In actual practice, the cross carried before an archbishop is an ordinary one with one transverse piece, but the heraldic archiepiscopal cross is always represented as a double cross, _i.e._ having two transverse pieces one above the other. In the Established Church of England the archiepiscopal cross--as in the Roman Catholic Church--is the plain two-armed variety, and though the cross is never officially recognised as an armorial attribute and is not very frequently met with in heraldic representations, there can be no doubt that if this cross is used to typify archiepiscopal rank, it should be heraldically represented with the double arms. The actual cross borne before archbishops is termed the provincial cross, and it may be of interest to here state that the Bishops of Rochester are the official cross-bearers to the Archbishops of Canterbury.

To the foregoing rules there is one notable exception, _i.e._ the Bishop {604} of Durham. The Bishopric of Durham, until the earlier part of the nineteenth century, was a Palatinate, and in earlier times the Bishops of Durham, who had their own parliament and Barons of the Palatinate, exercised a jurisdiction and regality, limited in extent certainly, but little short in fact or effect of the power of the Crown. If ever any ecclesiastic can be correctly said to have enjoyed temporal power, the Bishops of Durham can be so described. The Prince-Bishops of the Continent had no such attributes of regality vested in themselves as were enjoyed by the Bishops of Durham. These were in truth kings within their bishoprics, and even to the present day--though modern geographies and modern social legislation have divided the bishopric into other divisions--one still hears the term employed of "within" or "without" the bishopric.