The Curiosities of Heraldry Part 37

[307] 1812.

[308] A village on the western bank of the Tamar in the parish of Landulph.

[309] Desultoria, p. 6.

[310] This roll professes to give the names of the distinguished personages who accompanied William the Conqueror in his invasion; but it is a fact strongly militating against its genuineness that many of the names occurring in it are not to be found in the Doomsday books.

[311] 1622, p. 51.

[312] The reason a.s.signed by Peacham for Polydore's thus playing '_old gooseberry_' with the records is that "his owne historie might pa.s.se for _currant_!"

[313] Vide Sir H. Ellis's Polydore Vergil, printed for the Camden Soc.

1844. Preface.

[314] Vide notices of each in Horsfield's Lewes, vol. i.

[315] "The proof of pedigrees has become so much more difficult since Inquisitiones post mortem have been disused, that it is easier to establish one for 500 years before the time of Charles II than for 100 years since." (Lord C. J. Mansfield.)

[316] I, 10, p. 91, in Coll. Arm.

[317] The register of Alfriston, co. Suss.e.x, begins with marriages if I mistake not, in the year 1512, but as all the entries up to 1538, or later, were evidently written at one time, they were doubtless copied from a _private_ register kept by the inc.u.mbent prior to the mandate of the Government. I mention this fact because I never heard of another parish register of equal antiquity.

[318] In the MS. the tinctures of these shields are shown in the usual manner by lines, &c. Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, are quarterly, or and gules. The bordure of No. 2 is sable; the label of No. 3 is sable; that of No. 4 purpure; and that of No. 5 sable, charged with plates; the charge of No. 6 is a plate; the chief of No. 7 is quarterly, or and gules; and that of No. 8 gules and or. The coat No. 7 is identical with that of Peckham of Kent and Suss.e.x.

[319] These shields are all, as to the fields, gules; as to the cheverons, or; and as to the charges, sable.

[320] Id est, in the family pedigree. _Ed._

[321] The shields are all argent, the fesses azure, and the roundels, gules.

[322] Quarterly, or and gules, a plate.

[323] Argent, a fesse azure between six torteaux.

[324] Or, a saltire sable.

[325] Ditto, with a chief gules.

[326] Gules, three bucks' heads, or.

[327] Or, a saltire sable, a canton gules.

[328] The first of these two is or, a saltire sable, the second argent, a fesse azure, in chief three torteaux; the chiefs are both gules, a cross argent.

[329] These three are alike, or, a saltire sable, the differences being in the chief; the first is sable, the second gules, and the third azure. As the MS. bears evident marks of haste, the reader is desired not to depend upon the blazon here given.

[330] _Venter_, [a law term] a mother. _Bailey._

[331] In general the arms a.s.signed to a county are those of one of its chief, or most antient, boroughs. Thus the arms of Suss.e.x are identical with those of East Grinstead, once the county town; (although within the last 10 years, for some unexplained reason, the _fict.i.tious_ bearings ascribed to the South-Saxon kings have been employed as the official arms of the county.) But the arms of Cornwall are those of its antient feu, attached to the territory, and not to any particular family.

[332] Morgan's Armilogia, p. 158.

[333] Armories, p. 39.

[334] Sandford's Geneal. Hist. gives Richard, king of the Romans, two natural sons, viz. Richard de Cornwall, ancestor of the knightly family commonly called Barons of Burford, and Walter de Cornwall, to whom he gave lands in Branel. Walter de Cornwall mentioned in the text was probably descended from the latter.

[335] Nisbet, 37.

[336] It is now in the possession of Mr. Wm. Davey of Lewes. The engraving (from a drawing by Mr. Wm. Figg,) is of the actual size of the object.

[337] The charges on the shields are conjectured to be, 1, The lion-rampant of Poictou; 2, The double-headed eagle of the King of the Romans; and 3, The lion of Poictou, surrounded by the bezantee bordure of Cornwall, (vide p. 310.) The workmanship is so extremely rude that the bezants are scarcely perceptible.

[338] A similar example of ancient measures thus guaranteed by Heraldry exists in the market-place of Aisme, a small town in Piedmont, where a large marble block is adapted by four excavations of different sizes for corn measures from half a bushel to two bushels. On the front of this are two heater shields, apparently of the thirteenth century, with the arms of Savoy and Val Tarentaise. (Vide p. 32, vol. xviii, N. S. Gent. Mag.)