The Curiosities of Heraldry Part 3

As early heraldry consisted of very simple elements, it cannot excite surprise that the same bearings were frequently adopted by different families unknown to each other; hence arose very violent disputes and controversies, as to whom the prior right belonged. The celebrated case of Scrope against Grosvenor in the reign of Richard II, may be cited as an example. The arms _Azure, a bend or_, were claimed by no less than three families, namely, Carminow of Cornwall, Lord Scrope, and Sir Robert Grosvenor. On the part of Scrope, it was a.s.serted that these arms had been borne by his family from the Norman conquest. Carminow pleaded a higher antiquity, and declared they had been used by _his_ ancestors ever since the days of king Arthur! The trial by combat had been resorted to by these two claimants without a satisfactory decision, wherefore it was decreed that both should continue to bear the coat as heretofore. The dispute between Scrope and Grosvenor was not so summarily disposed of; a trial, not by the sword, but by legal process, took place before the high Constables and the Earl Marshal, and lasted five years. The proceedings, which were printed in 1831 from the records in the Tower, occupy two large volumes! The depositions of many gentlemen bearing arms, touching this controversy, are given at full length, and present us with some curious and characteristic features of the times. Among many others who gave evidence in support of the claims of Lord Scrope was the famous Chaucer.

His deposition, taken from the above records, and printed in Sir Harris Nicolas's elegant life of the poet, recently published, is interesting, no less from its connexion with the witness than for its curiosity in relation to our subject:

"Geoffrey Chaucer, Esquire, of the age of forty and upwards, armed for twenty-seven years, produced on behalf of Sir Richard Scrope, sworn and examined. Asked, whether the arms _Azure, a bend or_, belonged, or ought to belong, to the said Sir Richard? Said, Yes, for he saw him so armed in France, before the town of Retters,[55] and Sir Henry Scrope armed in the same arms with a white label, and with a banner; and the said Richard, armed in the entire arms, 'Azure, with a bend or;' and so he had seen him armed during the whole expedition, until the said Geoffrey was taken [prisoner.] Asked, how he knew that the said arms appertained to the said Sir Richard? Said, that he had heard say from Old Knights and Esquires, that they had been reputed to be their arms, as common fame and the public voice proved; and he also said that they had continued their possession of the said arms; and that all his time he had seen the said arms _in banners, gla.s.s, paintings, and vestments_, and commonly called the arms of Scrope. Asked, if he had heard any one say who was the first ancestor of the said Sir Richard, who first bore the said arms? Said, No, nor had he ever heard otherwise than that they were come of antient ancestry and old gentry, and used the said arms. Asked, if he had heard any one say how long a time the ancestors of the said Sir Richard had used the said arms?

Said, No, but he had heard say that it pa.s.sed the memory of man.

Asked, whether he had ever heard of any interruption or challenge made by Sir Robert Grosvenor, or by his ancestors, or by any one in his name, to the said Sir Richard, or to any of his ancestors? Said, No, but he said that he was once in Friday-street in London, and as he was walking in the street he saw hanging a new sign made of the said arms, and he asked what Inn that was that had hung out these arms of _Scrope_? and one answered him and said, No, Sir, they are not hung out for the arms of Scrope, nor painted there for those arms, but they are painted and put there by a knight of the county of Chester, whom men call Sir Robert Grosvenor; and that was the first time he ever heard speak of Sir Robert Grosvenor or of his ancestors, or of any other bearing the name of Grosvenor."[56]

At this date the n.o.bility claimed, and to a considerable extent exercised, the right of conferring arms upon their followers for faithful services in war. A memorable instance is related by Froissart, in which the Lord Audley, a famous general at the battle of Poictiers, rewarded four of his esquires in this manner. When the battle was over, Edward the Black Prince, calling for this n.o.bleman, embraced him and said, "Sir James, both I myself and all others acknowledge you, in the business of the day, to have been the best doer in arms; wherefore, with intent to furnish you the better to pursue the wars, I retain you for ever my knight, with 500 marks yearly revenue, which I shall a.s.sign you out of my inheritance in England." This was, at the period, a great estate, and the Lord Audley duly appreciated the generosity of the donation; yet, calling to mind his obligations in the conflict to his four squires, Delves, Mackworth, Hawkeston, and Foulthurst, he immediately divided the Prince's gift among them, giving them, at the same time, permission to bear his own arms, altered in detail, for the sake of distinction. When the prince heard of this n.o.ble deed he was determined not to be outdone in generosity, but insisted upon Audley's accepting a further grant of 600 marks per annum, arising out of his duchy of Cornwall.

The arms of Lord Audley were GULES, FRETTY OR, and those of the four valiant esquires, as borne for many generations by their respective descendants, in the counties of Chester and Rutland, as follows:

DELVES. Argent, a cheveron _gules, fretty or_, between three delves or billets sable.

MACKWORTH. Party per pale indented, ermine and sable, a cheveron _gules, fretty or_.

HAWKESTONE. Ermine, a fesse, _gules, fretty or_, between three hawks.

The hawks were in later times omitted.

FOULTHURST. _Gules, fretty or_, a chief ermine.[57]

Another interesting instance of the granting of arms to faithful retainers, occurs in a deed from William, Baron of Graystock, to Adam de Blencowe, of Blencowe, in c.u.mberland, who had fought under his banners at Cressy and Poictiers: "To ALL to whom these presents shall come to be seen or heard, William, Baron of Graystock, Lord of Morpeth, wisheth health in the Lord. Know ye that I have given and granted to Adam de Blencowe, an escocheon sable, with a bend closetted, argent and azure, with three chaplets, gules; and with a crest closetted argent and azure of my arms; _to have and to hold_ to the said Adam and his heirs for ever; and I, the said William and my heirs will warrant to the said Adam the arms aforesaid. In witness whereof, I have to these letters patent set my seal.

Written at the castle of Morpeth, the 26th day of February, in the 30th year of the reign of King Edward III, after the Conquest."[58]

The practice of devising armorial bearings by will is as antient as the time of Richard II. In some cases they were also transferred _by deed of gift_. In the 15th year of the same reign Thomas Grendall, of Fenton, makes over to Sir William Moigne, to have and to hold to himself, his heirs and a.s.signs for ever, the arms which had escheated to him (Grendall) at the death of his cousin, John Beaumeys, of Sawtrey.[59]

Notwithstanding the numerous traditions relative to the granting of arms by monarchs in very early times, it seems to have been the _general_ practice before the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV for persons of rank to a.s.sume what ensigns they chose.[60] But these monarchs, regarding themselves as the true "fountains of honour," granted or took them away by royal edict. The exclusive right of the king to this privilege was long called in question, and Dame Julyan Berners, so late as 1486, declares that "armys bi a mannys auctorite taken (if an other man have not borne theym afore) be of strength enogh." The same gallant lady boldly challenges the right of heralds: "And it is the opynyon of moni men that an herod of armis may gyve armys. Bot I say if any sych armys be borne ...

thoos armys be of no more auctorite then thoos armys the wich be taken by a mannys awne auctorite."

So strictly was the use of coat-armour limited to the military profession, that a witness in a certain cause in the year 1408, alleged that, although descended from n.o.ble blood, he had no armorial bearings, because neither himself nor his ancestors had ever been engaged in war.[61]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

It was in the reign of the luxurious Richard II that heraldric devices began to be displayed upon the civil as well as the military costume of the great; "upon the mantle, the surcoat and the just-au-corps or boddice, the charge and cognizance of the wearer were profusely scattered, and shone resplendent in tissue and beaten gold."[62] Hitherto the escocheon had been charged with the hereditary (paternal) bearing only, but now the practice of impaling the wife's arms, and quartering those of the mother, when an heiress, became the fashion. Impalement was sometimes performed by placing the dexter half of the lord's shield in juxta-position with the sinister moiety of his consort's;[63] but this mode of marshalling occasioned great confusion, entirely destroying the character of both coats,[64] and was soon abandoned in favour of the present mode of placing the full arms of both parties side by side in the escocheon. Occasionally the shield was divided horizontally, the husband's coat occupying the chief or upper compartment, and the wife's the base or lower half; but this was never a favourite practice, as the side-by-side arrangement was deemed better fitted to express the equality of the parties in the marriage relation.

The practice of impaling official with personal arms, for instance, those of a bishopric with those of the bishop, does not appear to be of great antiquity. Provosts, mayors, the kings of arms, heads of houses, and certain professors in the universities, among others, possess this right; and it is the general practice to cede the dexter, or more honourable half of the shield to the coat of office.

Nisbet mentions a fashion formerly prevalent in Spain, which certainly ranks under the category of 'Curiosities,' and therefore demands a place here. Single women frequently divided their shield per pale, placing their paternal arms on the sinister side, and leaving the dexter _blank_, for those of their husbands, as soon as they should be so fortunate as to obtain them. This, says mine author, "was the custom _for young ladies that were resolved to marry_!"[65] These were called "Arms of Expectation."[66]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The gorgeous decoration of the male costume with the ensigns of heraldry soon attracted the attention and excited the emulation of that s.e.x which is generally foremost in the adoption of personal ornaments. Yes, incongruous as the idea appears to modern dames, the ladies too a.s.sumed the embroidered _coat of arms_! On the vest or close-fitting garment they represented the paternal arms, repeating the same ornament, if _femmes soles_, or single women, on the more voluminous upper robe; but if married women, this last was occupied by the arms of the husband, an arrangement not unaptly expressing their condition as _femmes-covertes_. This mode of wearing the arms was afterwards laid aside, and the ensigns of husband and wife were impaled on the outer garment, a fashion which existed up to the time of Henry VIII, as appears from the annexed engraving of Elizabeth, wife of John Sh.e.l.ley, Esq.[67] copied from a bra.s.s in the parish church of Clapham, co. Suss.e.x. The arms represented are those of Sh.e.l.ley and Michelgrove, otherwise Fauconer; both belonging, it will be seen, to the cla.s.s called canting or allusive arms; those of Sh.e.l.ley being welk-_sh.e.l.ls_, and those of Fauconer, a _falcon_.

Quartering is a division of the shield into four or more equal parts, by means of which the arms of other families, whose heiresses the ancestors of the bearer have married, are combined with his paternal arms; and a shield thus quartered exhibits at one view the ensigns of all the houses of which he is the representative. In modern times this _c.u.mulatio armorum_ is occasionally carried to such an extent that upwards of a hundred coats centre in one individual, and may be represented upon his shield.[68] The arms of England and France upon the great seal of Edward III, and those of Castile and Leon in the royal arms of Spain, are early examples of quartering. The first English subject who quartered arms was John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, in the fourteenth century.

In this century originated the practice of placing the shield between two animals as supporters, for which see a future chapter.

The application of heraldric ornaments to household furniture and implements of war is of great antiquity. I have now before me the bra.s.s pommel of a sword on which are three triangular shields, two of them charged with a lion rampant, the other with an eagle displayed. This relic, which was dug up near Lewes castle, is conjectured to be of the reign of Henry III.[69] Arms first occur on coins in one of Edmund, King of Sicily, in the thirteenth century; but the first English monarch who so used them was Edward III. The first supporters on coins occur in the reign of Henry VIII, whose 'sovereign' is thus decorated. Arms upon tombs are found so early as 1144.[70]

Among the 'curiosities' of heraldry belonging to these early times may be mentioned _adumbrated_ charges; that is, figures represented in outline with the colour of the field showing through; because the bearers, having lost their patrimonies, retained only the _shadow_ of their former state and dignity.[71]

Monasteries and other religious foundations generally bore arms, which were almost uniformly those of the founders, or a slight modification of them.[72] Dallaway traces this usage to the knights-templars and hospitallers who were both soldiers and ecclesiastics. The arms a.s.signed to most cities and antient boroughs are borrowed from those of early feudal lords: thus the arms of the borough of Lewes are the chequers of the Earls of Warren, to whom the barony long appertained, with a canton of the lion and cross-crosslets of the Mowbrays, lords of the town in the fourteenth century. Some of the quaint devices which pa.s.s for the arms of particular towns have nothing heraldric about them, and seem to have originated in the caprice of the artists who engraved their seals. Such for example is the design which the good townsmen of Guildford are pleased to call their arms. This consists of a green mount rising out of the water, and supporting an odd-looking castle, whose two towers are ornamented with high steeples, surmounted with b.a.l.l.s; from the centre of the castle springs a lofty tower, with three turrets, and ornamented with the arms of England and France. Over the door are two roses, and in the door a key, the said door being guarded by a lion-couchant, while high on each side the castle is a pack of wool gallantly floating through the air!

What this a.s.semblage of objects may signify I do not pretend to guess.

Persons of the middle cla.s.s, not ent.i.tled to coat-armour, invented certain arbitrary signs called =Merchants' Marks=, and these often occur in the stonework and windows of old buildings, and upon tombs. Piers Plowman, who wrote in the reign of Edward III, speaks of "merchauntes' markes ymedeled"

in gla.s.s. Sometimes these marks were impaled with the paternal arms of aristocratic merchants, as in the case of John Halle, a wealthy woolstapler of Salisbury, rendered immortal by the Rev. Edward Duke in his 'Prolusiones Historicae.' The early printers and painters likewise adopted similar marks, which are to be seen on their respective works.[73] A rude monogram seems to have been attempted, and it was generally accompanied with a cross, and, occasionally, a hint at the inventor's peculiar pursuit, as in the cut here given, where the staple at the bottom refers to the worthy John Halle's having been a merchant of the staple. The heralds objected to such marks being placed upon a shield, for, says the writer of Harl. MS. 2252 (fol. 10), "=Theys be none Armys=, for every man may take hym a marke, but not armys without a herawde or purcyvaunte;" and in "The duty and office of an herald," by F. Thynne, Lancaster Herald, 1605, the officer is directed "to prohibit merchants and others to put their names, marks, or devices, in escutcheons or shields, which belong to gentlemen bearing arms and none others."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At the commencement of the fifteenth century considerable confusion seems to have arisen from upstarts having a.s.sumed the arms of antient families--a fact which shows that armorial bearings began to be considered the indispensable accompaniment of wealth. So great had this abuse become that, in the year 1419, it was deemed necessary to issue a royal mandate to the sheriff of every county "to summon all persons bearing arms to prove their right to them," a task of no small difficulty, it may be presumed, in many cases. Many of the claims then made were referred to the heralds as commissioners, "but the first regular chapter held by them in a collective capacity was at the siege of Rouen, in 1420."[74]

The first _King of Arms_ was William Bruges, created by Henry V. Several grants of arms made by him from 1439 to 1459 are recorded in the College of Arms.

During the sanguinary struggle between the Houses of Lancaster and York "arms were universally used, and most religiously and pertinaciously maintained." Sometimes, however, when the different branches of a family espoused opposing interests they varied their arms either in the charges or colours, or both. The antient family of Lower of Cornwall originally bore "... a cheveron between three _red_ roses," but espousing, it is supposed, the Yorkist, or white-rose side of the question, they changed the tincture of their arms to "sable, a cheveron between three _white_ roses,"[75] the coat borne by their descendants to this day. The interest taken by the Cornish gentry in these civil dissensions may account for the frequency of the rose in the arms of Cornwall families. The _red rose_ in the centre of the arms of Lord Abergavenny was placed there by his ancestor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, "better known as the king-maker," "to show himself the faithful homager and soldier of the House of Lancaster."[76]

The non-heraldric reader will require a definition of what, in the technical phrase of blazon, are called =differences=. These are certain marks, smaller than ordinary charges, placed upon a conspicuous part of the shield for the purpose of distinguishing the sons of a common parent from each other. Thus, the eldest son bears a label; the second a crescent; the third a mullet; the fourth a martlet; the fifth an annulet; and the sixth a fleur-de-lis. The arms of the six sons of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died 30{o} Edward III, were, in the window of St. Mary's Church, Warwick, _differenced_ in this manner.[77] These distinctions are carried still further, for the sons of a second son bear the label, crescent, mullet, &c. upon a crescent; those of a third son the same upon a mullet, respectively. In the third generation the mark of cadency is again superimposed upon the two preceding differences, producing, at length, unutterable confusion. Dugdale published a work, in 1682, on the differences of arms, in which he condemns this system, and suggests a return to the antient mode, which consisted in varying the colours and charges of the field, though preserving the general characteristics of the hereditary bearing. For example, Beauchamp of Elmley branched out into four lines; the eldest line bore the paternal arms, _Gules a fess, or_; the other three superadded to this bearing a charge _or_, six times repeated, namely,

II, Beauchamp of Abergavenny, 6 cross-crosslets III, Beauchamp of Holt, 6 billets, and IV, Beauchamp of Bletshoe, 6 martlets,

[Ill.u.s.tration]

and among the further ramifications of the family we find

V, Beauchamp of Ess.e.x 6 trefoils slipped VI, Beauchamp of ---- 6 mullets VII, Beauchamp of ---- 6 pears,

and upwards of ten other coats, all preserving the field gules and the fess or. The Ba.s.sets, according to the Ashmolean MSS.[78] varied their coat 7 times, the Lisles 4, the Nevilles 11, and the Braoses 5.

An interesting example of early differencing is cited by Sir Harris Nicolas, in his 'Roll of Carlaverok.'[79] In the early part of the fourteenth century--

Leicestershire.

{Alan le Zouche bore Gules, besante Or Barons. {William le Zouche, of Haryngworth a quarter ermine

the same with {Sir William Zouche a label azure Knights. {Sir Oliver Zouche a cheveron erm.

{Sir Amory Zouche a bend argent {Sir Thomas Zouche on a quarter argent, a mullet sable.

Surnames in these early times were in a very unsettled state, for the younger branches of a family, acquiring new settlements by marriage and otherwise, abandoned their patronymics, and adopted new ones derived from the seignories so acquired.[80] Hence it often happens that arms are identical or similar, when the relationship is not recognized by ident.i.ty of appellation.

Illegitimate children generally bore the paternal ensigns differenced by certain _brizures_. Thus John de Beaufort, eldest natural son of John of Gaunt, bore _Per pale argent and azure_ [blue and white being the _colours_ of the House of Lancaster] _on a bend gules, three lions pa.s.sant-guardant or_ [the royal arms of England] _in the upper part of the bend a label azure, charged with nine fleur-de-lis or_.[81] The arms borne in the usual manner were often surrounded with a bordure to indicate b.a.s.t.a.r.dy; of this mode of differencing several examples are furnished in the arms of existing peers descended from royalty. Some of the descendants of Henry Beaufort, third duke of Somerset, placed the Beaufort arms upon a fesse, and numerous similar instances might be adduced.

The mode of differencing by alterations, or the addition of new charges, however commended by Dugdale and other great names, is certainly exposed to the same objection as the use of the label, crescent, mullet, &c., as tending equally to confusion; for, with the addition of cross-crosslets, billets, &c., to the primary charge of the Beauchamps, no herald will dare a.s.sert that the original arms are preserved. It is a canon of heraldry that "Omnia arma arithmeticis figuris sunt simillima, quibus si quid addas vel subtrahas non remanet eadem species." Every alteration, however slight, produces a new coat, and thus the princ.i.p.al advantage of coat armour--its hereditary character--is sacrificed. In fact, a coat of arms is the symbol of a generic, or family, name, and it is not within the compa.s.s of the heraldric art to particularize individual branches and members of a family by any additions or changes whatever, at least to any great extent.[82]

"The numerous cla.s.s of men who were termed =Armigeri=, or gentry of coat-armour," observes Dallaway, "very generally took, with a small variation, the escocheon of that feudal lord whose property and influence extended over that province which they inhabited," and Camden, in his 'Remaines,' says, "Whereas the earles of Chester bare garbes or wheat-sheafes, many gentlemen of that countrey took wheatsheafes. Whereas the old earles of Warwicke bare chequy or and azure, a cheueron ermin, many thereabout tooke ermine and chequy. In Leicestershire and the countrey confining diuers bare cinquefoyles, for that the ancient earles of Leicester bare geules, a cinquefoyle ermine, &c." This was a fertile source of new bearings.

Sometimes, in the absence of other evidence of one family's having been feudally dependent upon another, presumptive proof is furnished by a similarity between the arms. I subjoin an instance. The coat of the baronial family of Echingham of Echingham, co. Suss.e.x, was 'AZURE A FRET ARGENT,' and the crest, 'A DEMI-LION RAMPANT ARGENT.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The arms of Jefferay, of Chiddingly, in the same county, were '_Azure fretty or_' (with the addition of a lion pa.s.sant-guardant, gules, on a chief argent), and the crest, _A lion's head_ erased _argent_, ducally crowned azure. The first settlement of the Jefferays was at Betchington, co. Suss.e.x, an estate which had previously belonged to the lords Echingham, but there is no proof of the feudal connexion except that which is furnished by a comparison of the arms.

Richard III greatly promoted the cause of Heraldry in England by the erection of the heralds into the corporate body which still exists under the designation of the =College of Arms=. This epoch may be considered the noonday of the history of armory in England; and as two subsequent chapters of this volume, devoted respectively to the history of that inst.i.tution, and to notices of celebrated writers on heraldry, will bring down the annals of the science to our own times, "I here make an end" of a chapter which I trust may not have been found totally devoid of interest to any reader who loves to trace the records of the past.