The Curiosities of Heraldry Part 13

9. ROUNDLE. _Roundell_ does not bear this charge.

10. BARRY. Of the many families of this name some bear barry, bars and barulets; and BARR bears (int. al.) a _bar_.

11. PALY. Two families bear bends; but not one _paly_.

12. DELVES. The family of Delves bear these in several arrangements.

PALE, FESSE, CHIEF, BEND, QUARTER, and an infinity of the names of charges, do not occur as English surnames.

Of the etymology of the somewhat common name _Crown-in-shield_, I am entirely ignorant; nor do I find any arms a.s.signed to it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Rebus of De Aquila.)]

CHAPTER VII.

Crests, Supporters, Badges, etc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Gilderedge. Bourchier. Exmew.)]

Hitherto our attention has been princ.i.p.ally directed to the escocheon and its charges. It now remains to treat of those heraldric ornaments which surround the shield, as crests, helmets, wreaths, mantlings, supporters, scrolls, mottoes, and badges: and first, of crests, and their accompaniments.

Every one must have remarked that when the heraldric insignia of a family are represented in full, the shield or escocheon is surmounted with a helmet, the antient covering for the warrior's head. These helmets are drawn according to certain fixed rules. Although their general shapes are as various and fanciful as those of shields, their positions, &c. are regulated by the rank of the bearers: for instance, the sovereign's helmet is of gold, full faced, and open, with six bars; that of dukes is of steel, placed a little in profile, and defended with five gold bars; that of baronets and knights is of steel, full-faced, the visor up, and without bars; and that of esquires and gentlemen is also of steel with the visor down, ornamented with gold, and placed in profile. According to some authors, the helmets of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds should be turned to the sinister or left side, to denote their illegitimacy.[166]

Upon the top of the helmet is the _wreath_, which was originally a kind of chaplet surrounding the warrior's head. It was composed of two bands, or skeins of silk twisted together and tinctured of the princ.i.p.al metal and colour of the arms. The wreath is used in the majority of bearings, but occasionally a ducal coronet or a chapeau occurs instead.[167] From this ornament, whether wreath, chapeau, or coronet, rises the CREST.

The word crest appears to be derived from the Latin _crista_, the comb or tuft which grows upon the heads of many species of birds. The idea, as well as the name, was doubtless borrowed from this source. The crest was sometimes called a COGNIZANCE from cognosco, because by its means the wearer was _known_ or distinguished on the field of battle.

Crests were originally worn by military commanders upon the apices of their helmets as the proud distinction of their rank; and, by adding to their apparent stature, served to give them a formidable aspect. They also enabled their soldiers to rally round their persons, and to follow their movements in the confusion of the battle. The tall plumes of birds, human heads, and figures of animals in a rampant posture, seem to have been among the earliest devices made use of.

The antiquity of crests for the uses above referred to, is far greater than that of the introduction of heraldry. The helmets of the divinities and heroes of the cla.s.sical era are thus decorated. The owl on that of Minerva may be cited as an example. Jupiter Ammon is represented as having borne, as a crest, a ram's head, which Alexander the Great adopted in token of his pretended descent from that deity. The use of crests by antient warriors is alluded to by Phaedrus in his fable of the battle of the mice and weasels, where the generals of the former party are represented as wearing horns fastened to their heads:

"Ut conspicuum in praelio Haberent signum quod sequerentur milites."

_Fab. LIII._

In heraldry, the adoption of crests is modern compared with that of coat-armour,[168] and many families at the present time have no crests.

This is easily accounted for. We have seen that they were at first used exclusively by commanders. In time, however, the spirit of imitation led persons of inferior rank to a.s.sume those of their feudal superiors; and hence far less regularity is found in the heraldry of crests than in that of coat-armour. In many cases crests have been borrowed from one or other of the charges of the shield: hence if the coat contain a lion rampant, the crest is frequently a demi, or half lion, or a lion's head; and should three or six eagles occupy the shield, another eagle often serves as a crest.

With respect to the material of which the actual crests were composed, some a.s.sert that it was leather, or pasteboard stiffened and varnished, to preserve it from the wet; but the few that I have had an opportunity of inspecting are composed of more substantial materials. Thus the crest of one of the Echingham family, 'a demi-lion rampant,' on a helmet preserved in Echingham church, co. Suss.e.x, is of wood, and that of a knight of the Pelham family in Laughton church, in the same county, 'a peac.o.c.k in his pride,' is of iron.

The crests engraved at the head of this chapter have been selected on account of their singularity.[169]

The flourished ornament behind the crest, and which is often made to encompa.s.s the entire armorial insignia, was originally either a mantle of estate, worn when the warrior was not actually engaged in battle, and tinctured of the metal and colour of his arms,[170] or from the _lambrequin_, a small piece of cloth or silk employed to protect the helmet from rain, as well as to prevent the polished steel from dazzling the eyes of the spectator. The jags and flourishes are conjectured to represent the cuts which a valiant knight would receive in battle; and hence the extravagant fashion of painting these mantlings was probably intended as a compliment to the prowess of the bearer.

SUPPORTERS are those figures which stand on each side of the escocheon, and appear to support, or hold it up. In Latin blazon they are termed Talamones and Atlantes, and in French _supports_ or _tenans_. As crests are more recent than coat-armour, so supporters are of later date than crests.

Menestrier, the great cla.s.sic of French heraldric literature, deduces the origin of supporters from the antient tournaments, at which it was customary for the knights who engaged in those chivalrous exercises to have shields of their arms adorned with helmets, mantlings, wreaths, crests, and other ornamental appendages suspended near the lists. These were guarded by pages and armour-bearers fantastically attired as Saracens, Moors, Giants, and Mermaids, or disguised with skins to resemble lions, bears, and other animals. The figures adopted in this kind of masquerade became afterwards the supporters of the family achievement.

As I have not had the good fortune to read Menestrier's work, and only know it through quotations, I am unable to ascertain by what arguments and proofs his hypothesis is strengthened; but I may be allowed to express my doubts as to this picturesque origin of supporters. The account of it given by Anstis, in his Aspilogia, appears to me to be far more probable:

"As to supporters, they were (I take it) _the invention of the graver_, who, in cutting, on seals, shields of arms, which were in a triangular form and placed on a circle, finding a vacant place at each side and also at the top of the shield, thought it an ornament to fill up the s.p.a.ces with vine branches, garbs, trees, flowers, plants, ears of corn, feathers, fretwork, lions, wiverns, or some other animals, according to their fancy.[171]

"If supporters had been esteemed formerly (as at this time) the marks and ensigns of n.o.bility, there could be no doubt but there would have been then, as now, particular supporters appropriated to each n.o.bleman, exclusive of all others; whereas, in the seals of n.o.blemen affixed to a paper wrote to the Pope, in the year 1300, the shields of arms of twenty-seven of them are in the same manner supported (if that term may be used) on each side by a wivern, and seven of the others by lions; that of John de Hastings hath the same wivern on each side of his shield of arms, and also on the s.p.a.ce over it; in the manner as is the lion in the seals of Hache, Beauchamp, and De Malolacu. The seals of Despencer, Ba.s.set, and Baddlesmere, pendent to the same instrument, have each two wiverns, or dragons, for supporters; and that of Gilbert de Clare, three lions, placed in the form above mentioned. The promiscuous usage of wiverns to fill the blank in the seals is obvious to all who are concerned in these matters.

"But what is a stronger argument is, that the same sort of supporters as those here mentioned is placed in the seals of divers persons whose families were never advanced to the peerage, and who, not styling themselves knights, doubtless were not bannerets; persons of which degree (if I mistake not) now claim supporters during their lives, as well as knights of the Garter, and some great officers of state. Instances of this kind are often met with; nay, the engraver hath frequently indulged his fancy so far as to insert figures which do not seem proper, according to the present notion of supporters to arms; as two swords on each side the arms of Sir John de Harcla; and St. George fighting with the Dragon on one side, and the Virgin with Our Saviour in her arms on the other side, of a seal affixed to a deed executed by Lord Ferrers, whose arms, on the impress of a seal pendent to a deed, dated 17th May, 9{o} Henry VI, have not any supporters. This, as well as many other omissions of supporters, by many n.o.blemen, in their old seals, seems likely to imply that they were not the right of the n.o.bility exclusive of others.

"When supporters were first a.s.sumed, if there were two on one seal, they were generally the same; but sometimes there was only one, and sometimes three, as may be seen on various seals.

"The manner of placing these supporters was also very different; as sometimes, when the shield lay on the side, the supporters have been placed so as to seem to be supporting the crest, as appears in the seal of the Earl of Arundel, in which seal there is not any coronet. Some were placed all standing one way; and, if but one, it was placed sometimes on one side of the shield of arms, and sometimes on the other: sometimes, again, it was placed at the bottom, and the arms set on it; and sometimes behind, with the arms against it, and the head above the shield, and in a helmet, as in the seal of William, Lord Fitz-Hugh, 12th Henry VI."

From a MS. of Wingfeld, York Herald, deposited in the College of Arms, it appears that many families below the rank of n.o.bility antiently used supporters, and it is a.s.serted that the descendants of persons who used them have a right to perpetuate them, however they were acquired. Many examples are cited of commoners having used supporters from an early period: some in virtue of high offices, as those of Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports; Comptrollers of the Household, &c.; others without any such qualification, as, for instance, the Coverts of Suss.e.x, the St. Legers of Kent, the Carews of Surrey, the Savages of Cheshire, the Pastons of Norfolk, &c. In the hall at Firle Place, co. Suss.e.x, are the arms of Sir John Gage, Comptroller of the Household to Queen Mary, supported by two greyhounds. The descendants of that gentleman, long afterwards elevated to the peerage by the t.i.tle of Viscount Gage, continue to use the same supporters. A few other instances of such resumption occur.

By a singular anomaly the Baronets of Nova Scotia are allowed by their patents of creation to carry supporters, while the English Baronets, their superiors both in dignity and antiquity, have not that privilege. Some of these, however, as well as distinguished naval and military commanders, have, at various times, received the royal license to use them.

I have attempted, in vain, to collect an authentic list of the supporters of the royal arms of England from the time of Edward III, when, according to some authors, they were first a.s.sumed. There are discrepances in the authorities which are not easily accounted for. They are seldom agreed upon those of any early sovereign. For example, Berry gives Richard II a lion and a hart; Fosbroke says, _two angels_, and makes him the first king who adopted supporters. Henry IV, according to Nisbet, had two angels; Dallaway says, a lion and an antelope; and Sandford, a swan and an antelope! To Henry V, Nisbet a.s.signs two antelopes, while Willement, out of Broke, gives him the lion and antelope. The probability is that all parties are right, each having reference to a particular instance in which the respective supporters are employed. One thing is certain, that while the colours and charges of the shield have remained unchanged from a very early date, the supporters have experienced many vicissitudes. Edward IV changed his supporters at least three times; and until the reign of James I, when the lion and unicorn became stationary, the royal supporters do not seem to have been regarded as part of the _hereditary_ ensigns of the kingdom.[172]

I shall only add on this subject some extraordinary fashions in the use of supporters. I am inclined to think that these adjuncts to arms originated, partly, in the corbels of Gothic architecture, on which shields are frequently supported in the hands of angels.[173] Numerous instances of this kind occur in antient churches and halls built in the decorated style. Sometimes these angels are vested in terrene habiliments, as in the annexed cut, from a drawing of a sculptured stone among the ruins of Robertsbridge Abbey.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Shields of arms are sometimes supported by a single animal, as in the case of the arms of Prussia, where an eagle with two heads performs that duty.

Several instances of arms borne upon the breast of an eagle are found in English heraldry: the following occur to my recollection, namely, those of Richard Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III,[174] those of the Lathams of Latham, in the fourteenth century,[175] and those of John le Bray, on his seal attached to a deed dated 1327.[176] A curious instance of this kind of supporter occurs in the arms of the lord of the manor of Stoke-Lyne, co. Oxon. The figure employed in this case is neither angel nor eagle, but a hawk. When Charles I held his parliament at Oxford, the then lord of Stoke-Lyne having rendered him an important service, the king offered him the honour of knighthood, which he gratefully declined, and merely requested the royal permission to place the arms of his family upon the breast of a hawk. This being granted, the lords of the manor have ever since employed a hawk displayed as their supporter.[177]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There is another species of supporter, the use of which seems to have been almost restricted to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and which is seldom noticed in our books of heraldry. The arms are represented upon a banner, the staff of which is supported by an animal in a rampant, or, more usually, in a sejant, posture. The arms of Sir Roger Fynes, Treasurer of the Household to Henry VI, are thus represented over the great gate of Hurstmonceux castle, built by him. The supporter is the _alaunt_, or wolf-dog,[178] and the scroll round the pole seems to have contained a motto, which is now illegible.

Some very singular supporters occur in French heraldry. Under the _ancien regime_ the arms of most of the great officers of state were supported by ensigns emblematical of their various duties; for example--

_Officers._ _Supporters._

The Admiral of France bore Two anchors.

Vice-Admiral, One anchor in pale behind the shield.

Great Huntsman, Two bugles at the dext. and sin.

bases of the shield.

Grand Master of Artillery, Two mounted cannons at ditto.

Grand Marshal, At the base of the shield a cloud, from the dexter side of which proceeds a hand holding a sword in pale, and from the sinister, another hand holding a baton of office.

Grand Louvetier, Two wolves' heads at the base (Wolf-hunter,) corners of the shield.

Grand Esquire, Two swords in pale with sashes.