“1578. Sire John Gefferay, knyght, Lord Chief Baron of the quenes majesties exchequer Died at his house in London on Twesday the xiij daye of Maye, and from thense was conveyed to his Maner house at Chettingligh in the County of Sussex & was buryed at the p[ar]ishe churche of Chettingligh the xxijthdaye of the same monthe Ao. 1578, he maryed to his fierst wiff Alis doughter& heire aperante to John Apesley of London, gent. & by her had yssue Elizabethe his only doughterand heire; secondly he maryed Mary doughter to George Goringe of Lewis in the county of Sussex, esquier, & by her had no yssue. The offycers of armes that servid their was Ric. Turpyn alias Windsor and Edmond Knyght alias Chester, herauldes. In Witnes of the truthe of this certyfycatt these [pt=]ies hereunder writen have subscribed their names the xxiijthdaye of Maye ao1578.(Sign’d)George Goringe.Wm. Apsley. Richard Jefferay.”[316]
“1578. Sire John Gefferay, knyght, Lord Chief Baron of the quenes majesties exchequer Died at his house in London on Twesday the xiij daye of Maye, and from thense was conveyed to his Maner house at Chettingligh in the County of Sussex & was buryed at the p[ar]ishe churche of Chettingligh the xxijthdaye of the same monthe Ao. 1578, he maryed to his fierst wiff Alis doughter& heire aperante to John Apesley of London, gent. & by her had yssue Elizabethe his only doughterand heire; secondly he maryed Mary doughter to George Goringe of Lewis in the county of Sussex, esquier, & by her had no yssue. The offycers of armes that servid their was Ric. Turpyn alias Windsor and Edmond Knyght alias Chester, herauldes. In Witnes of the truthe of this certyfycatt these [pt=]ies hereunder writen have subscribed their names the xxiijthdaye of Maye ao1578.
(Sign’d)George Goringe.Wm. Apsley. Richard Jefferay.”[316]
8. Last, though not least, among the aids in tracing pedigrees, areParish Registers. The dispersion of the monks, who had previously been the great register-keepers, gave rise to the necessity of these local records. A mandate was issued in 1538, by Thomas Cromwell, the king’s vicar-general, for the keeping, in every parish, of registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials. Many of the existing registers begin with that year, but more generally they commence in 1558, the first year of Elizabeth.[317]
Parish registers, when carefully kept, are amongst the most useful of public records. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in the earlier part of the eighteenth, they are in many instances a sort of chronicles not only of the rites of baptism, marriage, and burial, but also of interesting parochial events; such as fires, unusual mortalities, storms, alterations in the churches, and short remarks on the baptisms or burials of distinguished persons. The following extracts from various registers may not be unamusing to the reader:
“Mr.Henry Hastings, son & heir of Mr. Francis Hastings, was born on St. Nicholas’ even, April 24, between the hours of 10 & 11 of the clock at night. Sign. Sagit. secund. die plenilunii Marte in Taurum intrato die precedente, & was christened May 17.”Eaton, co. Rutland.“1597. Mm. forgotten until now, that Edmond Denmark & Alice Smyth were married the 24th. of May, 1584.”Thorington, Essex.“1618. License to Lady Barbara Hastings to eat flesh in Lent, on account of her great age.”St. Mary, Leicester.“1643. Richard Snatchall, a stout yong man, a curious blacksmith, died of yesmall-pox.”Chiddingly, co. Sussex.“1656. A time of mortality upon the Dicker. Richard Luccas, wthout any buriall was buried!”Ibid.
“Mr.Henry Hastings, son & heir of Mr. Francis Hastings, was born on St. Nicholas’ even, April 24, between the hours of 10 & 11 of the clock at night. Sign. Sagit. secund. die plenilunii Marte in Taurum intrato die precedente, & was christened May 17.”Eaton, co. Rutland.
“1597. Mm. forgotten until now, that Edmond Denmark & Alice Smyth were married the 24th. of May, 1584.”Thorington, Essex.
“1618. License to Lady Barbara Hastings to eat flesh in Lent, on account of her great age.”St. Mary, Leicester.
“1643. Richard Snatchall, a stout yong man, a curious blacksmith, died of yesmall-pox.”Chiddingly, co. Sussex.
“1656. A time of mortality upon the Dicker. Richard Luccas, wthout any buriall was buried!”Ibid.
It would be difficult to say how this was managed.
Some of the entries are occasionally very loose.
“1658. Buried. Wickens, a lame boy. 1659. A maide of N. M. A maide of R. B.”Ibid.“An infant crisaned!”—Burials. “A mayde from the mill.” “Black John.” “A prentice of Mr. Kirford.” “A Tinker of Berye in Suffolk.” VideGrimaldi’s Orig. Geneal.“Richard Cole andhis wifewere marryed the xixth. of May 1612. Symon Fuller was marryed the 3rd. of October, 1612.”Alfriston, co. Sussex.“The son of a mason, buried x Feb. 1593.”“Mother Fowler buried 18th. Nov. 1603.”“Goody Hilton bur. April 7. 1699.”Ibid.
“1658. Buried. Wickens, a lame boy. 1659. A maide of N. M. A maide of R. B.”Ibid.
“An infant crisaned!”—Burials. “A mayde from the mill.” “Black John.” “A prentice of Mr. Kirford.” “A Tinker of Berye in Suffolk.” VideGrimaldi’s Orig. Geneal.
“Richard Cole andhis wifewere marryed the xixth. of May 1612. Symon Fuller was marryed the 3rd. of October, 1612.”Alfriston, co. Sussex.
“The son of a mason, buried x Feb. 1593.”
“Mother Fowler buried 18th. Nov. 1603.”
“Goody Hilton bur. April 7. 1699.”Ibid.
During the protectorate of Cromwell marriages were solemnized by justices of the peace. The following entry of such a marriage, cited by Mr. Grimaldi, is a curious specimen of magisterial literature:
“Marriadges.Begonethe 30. September, 1653.John Ridgway,Bricklarand Mary Chartwiddowaccording toaAct of Parliamentbaringedate the 24. August 1653,wasthree several timespublissedin the market-place, and afterwardsmariedbymeeupon Tuesday, thesixof December, 1653.“Thomas Atkin.”“1707. Married William Thunder and Eliz. Horscraft as is reputed but not certainly knownAnab.: Chiddingly.“1718. Mr. Thomas Shirley, a young Gentleman of great hopes, who in all probability had he lived longer would have been very useful to his country and neighbours.”Ibid.“1722. This day were married by Mr. Holloway,I think, a couplewhose names I could never learn, for he allowed them to carry away the license.”Lincoln’s Inn Chapel.“1705. Buried Mr. Matt. Hutchinson, vicar of Gilling, worth £50 a year. 1706. Mrs. Ursula Allen worth £600.”Richmond, co. York.
“Marriadges.
Begonethe 30. September, 1653.
John Ridgway,Bricklarand Mary Chartwiddowaccording toaAct of Parliamentbaringedate the 24. August 1653,wasthree several timespublissedin the market-place, and afterwardsmariedbymeeupon Tuesday, thesixof December, 1653.
“Thomas Atkin.”
“1707. Married William Thunder and Eliz. Horscraft as is reputed but not certainly knownAnab.: Chiddingly.
“1718. Mr. Thomas Shirley, a young Gentleman of great hopes, who in all probability had he lived longer would have been very useful to his country and neighbours.”Ibid.
“1722. This day were married by Mr. Holloway,I think, a couplewhose names I could never learn, for he allowed them to carry away the license.”Lincoln’s Inn Chapel.
“1705. Buried Mr. Matt. Hutchinson, vicar of Gilling, worth £50 a year. 1706. Mrs. Ursula Allen worth £600.”Richmond, co. York.
Many of the entries respecting local events are very curious; but as they belong still less than the foregoing to my subject, I must resist the temptation to transcribe any of them.
To these several principal sources of genealogical materials may be added the private memoranda preserved in many families, correspondence, entries in family bibles, and others which it is unnecessary to mention.
There are some persons who cannot discriminate between the taste for pedigree and the pride of ancestry. Now these two feelings, though they often combine in one individual, have no necessary connexion with each other. Man is said to be a hunting animal. Some hunt for foxes; others for fame or fortune. Others hunt in the intellectual field; some for the arcana of nature and of mind; some for the roots of words or the origin of things. I am fond of hunting out a pedigree.Parva decent parvum.
Family pride, abstractedly considered, is one of the coarsest feelings of which our nature is susceptible.
“Those who on glorious ancestors enlarge,Produce their debt instead of their discharge.”
A great and wise man among the antients said
“——Genus, et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,Vix ea nostra voco.”
“The glory of ancestors,” says Caius Marius, “casts a light indeed upon their posterity, but it only serves to show what the descendants are. It alike exhibits to full view their degeneracy and their worth.”
“Boast not the titles of your ancestours,Brave youths! They’retheirpossessions, none ofyours;When your own virtues equall’d have their names,’Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames,For they are strong supporters; but, till then,The greatest are but growing gentlemen.”Ben Jonson.
I do not know that I can more appropriately close this last chapter of my essay than by citing a passage from Lord Lindsay’s introduction to his ‘Lives of the Lindsays,’ a passage which entitles its author to as high a place among “virtue’s own noblemen” as he deservedly occupies among the great ones of man’s creation.
“Be grateful, then, for your descent from religious as well as noble ancestors: it is your duty to be so, and this is the only worthy tribute you can now pay to their ashes. Yet, at the same time be most jealously on your guard lest this lawful satisfaction degenerate into arrogance, or a fancied superiority over those nobles of God’s creation, who, endowed in other respects with every exalted quality, cannot point to a long line of ancestry. Pride is of all sins the most hateful in the sight of God; and of the proud, who is so mean, who so despicable as he who values himself on the merits of others? And were they all so meritorious, these boasted ancestors? were they all Christians? Remember, remember, if some of them have deserved praise, others have equally merited censure; if there have been “stainless knights,” never yet was there a stainless family since Adam’s fall.Where, then, is boasting? for we would not I hope glory in iniquity.
‘Only the actions of the JustSmell sweet and blossom in the dust.’
“One word more. Times are changed, and in many respects we are blessed with knowledge beyond our fathers, yet we must not on that account deem our hearts purer, or our lives holier, than theirs were. Nor, on the other hand, should we for a moment assent to the proposition, so often hazarded, that the virtues of chivalry are necessarily extinct with the system they adorned. Chivalry, in her purity, was a holy and lovely maiden, and many were the hearts refined and ennobled by her influence; yet she proclaims to us not one virtue that is not derived from and summed up in Christianity. The age of chivalry may be past—the knight may no more be seen issuing from the embattled portal-arch on his barbed charger, his lance glittering in the sun, his banner streaming to the breeze,—but the spirit of chivalry can never die; through every change of external circumstances, through faction and tumult, through trial and suffering, through good report and evil report, still that spirit burns like love, the brighter and purer;—still, even in the nineteenth century, lights up its holiest shrine, the heart of that champion of the widow, that father of the fatherless, that liegeman of his God, his king, and his country, the noble-hearted but lowly-minded Christian gentleman of England.”
Differences, Abatements, Grant of Arms, etc. etc.
Appendix A.
DIFFERENCES.
Afew remarks upon this interesting branch of Heraldry have been made at p.43et seq. This subject is ably discussed by Wyrley, Camden, Dallaway, and others, in their published works, but the following treatise, I have good reason to believe, has never before appeared in print. It is the production of Sir Edward Dering, a representative of the great family of that name in Kent: the author, who enjoyed the friendship of Sir William Dugdale, was knighted 22 Jan. 1618, and created a Baronet 1st Feb. 1626.
The only copy of this essay I have seen occurs in a copy of the Visitation of Kent, 1619, transcribed from a MS. of Peter Le Neve, by Hasted, the Kentish Historian, and now in the possession of Mr. J. R. Smith.
“VARIATIONS OF THE ARMS IN THE FAMILY OF DERING, BY SIR EDWARD DERING, KNT. AND BART.
The differences of Arms by adding small and minute figures as of Crescents, Mullets, Martlets, etc. is neither antient nor could be so: For 300 years since every man of note and family carried in the wars his shield carved and coloured, and his armour painted suitable, and his coat of arms to cover his armour embroidered of the same; besidesthe caparison of his horse, if so be he served on horseback; you shall have it by example as follows:—
[A rude sketch of a brass of a man in armour with his surcoat of arms is here given, and beneath it—“This was copied from Pluckley Church, from the gravestone of John Dering, Esq., who dyed August 1550.”]
[A rude sketch of a brass of a man in armour with his surcoat of arms is here given, and beneath it—
“This was copied from Pluckley Church, from the gravestone of John Dering, Esq., who dyed August 1550.”]
The use of all this art was to distinguish and notify the party, and soe his valorous atchievements might be seen and known, when his face was not. The further off and the easier this view could be made, the better; for that concurred to the end for which these signs were taken. Now these petty variations were not to be seen, but when near at hand, requiring a clear light and near approach to make them, and so consequently, the bearers of them, discoverable.
In the last battle fought by the famous Earl of Warwicke for K. Henry 6th against K. Edward the 4th, the day grew hopefull for Warwick by the valor of the Earl of Oxford: Oxford’s soldiery had his star, or rather mullet, embroidered on their coats—K. Edward’s men, saith Speed, the sun; but it was indeed a little white rose, with the rayes of the sun-beams pointing round about it. The day was overcast and foggy; Oxford had made such impression upon the Yorkists, that many fled from the field at Barnet to London, giving out the news that the day was Warwick’s. Warwick, intending to perfect the victory over that part of K. Edward’s army, came up to Oxford, when, the light being dull with mists, rendered Oxford’s badge as big as the king’s, the difference in form and colours being but little; so that Warwick’s men by mistake let fly at those of Oxford. They seeing Warwick’s ragged staff and bear making havock at their backs, whilst they were pressing forward on K. Edward’s sun-beams, not knowing or guessing the cause and Error, cryed out, “Treason! Treason! we are all betrayed.” Hereupon the Earl of Oxford, with 800 men fled the field, and the Yorkists prevailed, with the death of the great Warwick and his brother the Marquis of Montacute.
Other examples have been two; in Wyrley one, of thetwo Baliols—the other of the French Lord of Chine, who laying up the Lord Courcy’s banner, the English of Sir Hugh Calvely’s company, reputing them friends, were thereby unfortunately slain, and the Lord Courcy had thereupon dishonour spoken of him, though absent as far as Austrich.
“This Chine did raise Lord Courcy’s fair Devise,Which was 6 Bars of vairy and of red;This way the same or difference small so niceAnd slender that ’mongst them they error bred,Which now were either taken slain or fled.All men of younger house which banners bearShould have their difference glist’ning large and fair.”Capital de Bur, p. 151.
These minute differences, as they were antiently dangerous and insufficient, so in manner as they are now used they were then unknown; neither is there art enough by any of our heralds’ rules, though much refined of late, to guide one so as to know which of the Crescent-bearers was the uncle or which the nephew, and for Crescent upon Crescent, Mullet upon Mullet, etc. in a pedigree of no great largeness, perspective-glasses and spectacles cannot help you; but you must have Lyncean eyes, or his that could write Homer’s Iliads, and fold them into a nutshell.
There was an elder way of differencing in former ages, and very good, though at no time regularly prescribed, yet it was much practised, as by bordures, bars, bends, chiefs, etc. and something upon special motives of relinquishing the whole devise and assuming another; all which are eminently known in the families of Nevil, Howard, Berkeley, Beauchamp, Stafford, Chaworth, Latymer, Grey and Bassett, Willoughby, etc. You shall have an example of two in Kent leaving the chevron-bearers in imitation of the great Lords of Clare and Criol, the ten variations and imitations of Leyborne’s Lions; and of Sandwich’s indentings in like number, I will here instance in Say and Cobham.
There are more examples, but these are in Kent.
Now for an instance in the family of Cobham.
Vide Book of Differences, p. 177.
Henry Cobham, great grandchild of this John, and Joane, da. and heir of de Bokeland.
John de Cobham, son of Henry and Joane Bokeland, put his father’s fleurs de lizs upon his mother’s cheveron, and had issue three sons, who did each constitute a several family, and varied their arms.
This Henry by the great heir, his wife, was father of three sons, who all of them followed the copy of their Mother’s Arms, whereof
This elder Stephen was father of Sir John de Cobham of Rundale, and of Robert de Cobham, which Sir John was father of Sir Thomas Cobham de Rundale, and of John de Hever, who had the manor of Hever, and thence his name.
John de Cobham, aforesaid, who bore the three lions on his cheveron, was father of Henry Lord Cobham, and of John Cobham de Blackburg, in co. Devon. Henry Lord Cobham was father of Henry Lord Cobham and of Thomas Cobham, of Chafford in Kent. This Henry Lord Cobham was father of John Lord Cobham and of Thomas Cobham, owner of Belunele and Pipards-clive, who had issue two sons, Thomas and Henry; now all these younger Cobhams varied their Arms as under.
In like manner the family of Dering, though not so eminent, (yet as antient, and more numerous, for aught yet appears,) did, as the use and necessity of those former ages required, vary their arms upon several occasions, which need not here be repeated, being more visible in the descent,[320]itshall therefore be enough in this place to set down the several shields borne anciently and at present by this name and the several branches thereof, by seals, monuments, old rolls, windows, &c. The antient paternal coat of this family was (if tradition may persuade us) only the blue fesse in a white field, until, say they, one of our ancestors being slain in the king’s wars, his shield was found to have three great bloody spots in place where now the roundels are. I cannot justify such far-fetcht storys; yet two things have a proportionate correspondence with this tradition.
First, it is certain that Norman Fitz-Dering was sheriff of Kent, as shall be evident in the part of the genealogical history which concerns him. 2dly. The Arms of William de Wrotham, Constable of Dover castle, and one of this family, were by old rolls the fesse without the roundells, which may confirm the report, because he was descended from Godred, brother to Norman, who was slain as aforesaid, and not of the body of the said Norman.
The concurrence whereof has induced me to assign that coat unto all before the said Norman Fitz-Dering.
So then the several shields borne by the several persons of this family have been as follows, setting them down as they have first been in antiquity used, and so in order successively.
To these ten may be added two very antient, whose order gave them a diversification, being Knights-Templers, and three other moderne, assigned by Sir Wm. Segar, Garter.
The three modern ones assigned by Sir Wm. Segar are as follows:
So in old chartularies of abbeys I have often observed that one and the same man varied his own name of addition by the change of places where he made his abode.
Besides the variations of arms, here is much change of sirname to be observed, which among antiquaries is nothing new. Here are Dering, Wimond, Dereman, De la Hell, Wrotham, Cuckeston, Pevington, Pirefield, Cheriton, Ash, and de Fraxino, whereof the first three are assumed from forenames or Xtian names, as have done the families of Herding, Herbert, Aucher, Bagot, Bardolph, Hasting, Durand, Hubert, Oughtred, Leonard, and very many more; all the others here were assumed by reason of lands possessed of that name. Norman Fitz-Dering being Lord of Ash was called Norman de Fraxino, de Fresne, and de Ash. Arnold, a son of another Norman Fitz-Dering, being Lord of Cuckeston, was called Arnold de Cuckeston, whose grandchildren were Wm. de Pevington and Wm. de Cheriton, and so the rest had their surnames appropriated from their habitation and possession. In the family of Cobham you have Toneford and Hever of the same blood. Mortimer and Warren were brothers, and the sons of Walter de St. Martin. De Frydon, de Pantley, and de Albdy, were three brothers, the sons of Hugh de Saddington. Wm. Belward, lord of the moiety of Malpas, in Chester, had issue David and Richard; from David came three sons, Wm. de Malpas, Philip Gogh, David Golborne;and from them Egerton and Goodman—Richard, son of Wm. Belward, had issue Thomas de Cotgreve, Wm. de Weston, and Richard Little, father of N. Keneclerk and of John Richardson, (who would conceive without good proof that Malpas, Gough, Golborne, Egerton, Goodman, Cotgrave, Weston, Little, Kenclerk, and Richardson were all in short time the issue of Wm. Belward.) Nay, to make the instance of better impression, the antient earls of Norfolk having also Suffolk within their earldom did write themselves of Norfolk, of Suffolk, and sometimes of Norwich, indifferently, according to the place where they signed or subscribed, or were in any instrument named. The like did the old earls of Dorset and Somerset, using either title indifferently. Four earls of Chester had several sirnames successively one after another—Randolph Meschines had issue Randolph Gemers, father of Hugh Kivilicke, whose son was Randolph Blundeville. If yet you wish a more full president, you have it in Lucas de Hardres, who....
[N. B. The rest is wanting, or rather seems never to have been attempted by the author.]
The distinctions of arms to be borne by the several branches of the family of Dering, according to Sir Edward Dering, knight and baronet. The younger sons of the eldest house to give these differences instead of the crescent, mullet, martlet, etc.:
The 2d son a bordure sable.The 3d son a bordure gules.The 4th son a bordure purflewe, argent and azure.The 5th son a bordure azure.
Likewise the collar of the buck, their crest, was of the same colour as their bordure.
Younger houses:
The 2d house a chief sable.The 3d house a chief gules.The 4th house....The 5th house a chief azure.
Likewise the collar of the buck’s head, the crest, the same colour as the chief.
Younger sons of younger houses give the minute difference in the crest besides the great one in the arms: as Nichs. Dering, of Charing, gives a mullet on the buck’s neck.
Note.Nichs. Dering quarters both Lambert’s arms and Home’s, tho’ descended but from one of them; whereas Finch Dering and his son, Brent Dering, leave out the Home’s.
Anthony Dering, son of Anthony by a second venter,[330]gives the fleur de liz upon the buck’s neck. The wreath on which the crest stands is in all houses Or and sable....
Appendix B.
A verycurious illustration of some antient heraldric usages is furnished by an examination of the armorial bearings of families connected with the county of Cornwall.
1. The arms of the county of Cornwall are SABLE, FIFTEEN BEZANTS—5. 4. 3. 2AND1., with two lions as supporters, and the motto ‘One and all.’[331]This coat is pretended to be derived from Cadoc, or Cradock, earl or duke of Cornwall in the fifth century.
2. The families of Moreton and De Dunstanville, successively earls of Cornwall after the Norman Conquest, bore personal arms totally different from these; yet on the marriage of Roger Valetorte with Joan, daughter of Reginald de Dunstanville, he surrounded his paternal arms (argent, three bendlets gules,) with abordure sable bezantee.
3. Whalesborough of Cornwall, temp. Henry III, bore the same arms, with thebordure sable bezantee, whence he is presumed to have been a cadet of Valetorte.
4. Henry II took the earldom into his own hands, and gave it to his youngest son John, and John, on coming to the throne, gave it to his second son, Richard, afterwards king ofthe Romans and earl of Poictou. “Richard, 2nd son of king John, in the 9th year of king Henry III, his brother, being crowned king of the Romans, writ himselfSemper Augustus, and had his arms carved on the breast of the Romaneagle. He bareargent, a lyon rampant gules, crowned or, within abordure sable bezantee.”[332]“He had,” says Nisbet, “nothing of his father’s royal ensigns [his arms being] composed of his two noble Feus, viz. Argent, a lion rampant gules, crowned or (the arms of Poictiers), surrounded with a border sable bezantée, or, (the arms of Cornwall,) and which were on his seal of arms appended to instruments, anno 1226.”[333]
5. Edmund, his son and successor, bore the same arms, only omitting the imperial supporter.
6. The same arms are borne as the ensigns of the borough of Grampound. Boroughs usually took the arms of their over-lords.
7. Walter de Cornwall, knight of the shire in 1311, an illegitimate descendant of one of the earls of Cornwall, bore the same arms.[334]
8. Sir Geoffrey Cornwall having taken prisoner the duke of Brittany, received in reward that nobleman’s arms, viz. Ermine, which he made the field of his own, retaining the lion gules, &c.[335]
The descendants of the bastard offshoot of the earls of Cornwall became widely scattered, and, according to the practice of antient times, varied their arms in every house. For example:
9. De Cornewall, and Cornwall of Oxfordshire, bore thered lionof Poictou, debruised by a bendsable, charged with threebezants.
10. Cornwall of Devon omitted all traces of Poictou, but retained the characteristics of Cornwall, viz., On a cross patéesablefivebezants.
11. Cornwall of Essex bore thered lionof Poictou, the ermine of Burgundy, and thesable bordure bezanteeof Cornwall.
12. Cornwall of Salop bore the same, except that he made his lion reguardant. His descent from the princely stock of Cornwall is hinted at in his crest, which is aCornish Chough.
In Glover’s ‘Ordinary’ are these two:
13. Cornwayle, Argent, on a fessesable, threebezants.
14. Cornwall, Argent, on a cross-patoncesable, fivebezants.
Many other coats borne by this name are given in various works of reference. Nearly the whole of them retain one or other of the charges and tinctures of the coat from which they were primarily borrowed. Similar arms are also borne by other names connected with the county.
15. Chamberlayne, M.P. for Liskeard, temp. Edw. III, bore, Argent on a bendsable, fivebezants. It seems exceedingly probable that this gentleman, or one of his ancestors, held the office (unde nomen) of Chamberlain to the earls of Cornwall, who paid him for his services with a few of their bezants.
16. Killegrew of Cornwall bore, Argent, aneagledisplayed with two headssable, within abordure sable bezantee.Crest.A demi-lyonrampant,gules, charged on the flank with twobezants. I cannot trace any connexion between this family (which was of great antiquity) and the earls of Cornwall; but the similarity between these bearings and those of the king of the Romans is too striking to admit a doubt of some connexion.
17. Cole of Cornwall bears, inter alia, abordure sable, charged alternately withbezantsand annulets.
18. Carlyon of Cornwall boresable, between three towers ... abezant. Query. Did the founder of this family hold the office of castellan to the earls of Cornwall?
Many Cornish families bear double-headedeagles, and the number bearingbezantsis really astonishing. In the foregoing enumeration I have confined myself to such of the latter as are borne upon sable.
It is probable that if the arms of other districts were examined they would produce a similar result; and I doubt not that, carrying out a large series of such investigations, the majority of our armorial bearings might be traced to a comparatively small number of antient baronial coats.
Appendix C.
ABATEMENTS.
AnAbatement of Honour is defined as a mark introduced into the paternal coat to indicate some base or ungentlemanlike behaviour on the part of the bearer. The number of these figures is, as usual,nine, and they are all tinctured of thestainantor disgraceful colours, tenné and sanguine. The first is the delf tenné, assigned to him who revokes his challenge. 2. The escocheon reversed sanguine, occupying the middle point of the arms, is the sign of disgrace proper to him who offends the chastity of virgin, wife, or widow, or flies from his sovereign’s banner. 3. The point-dexter parted tenné is for him who boasts of valiant actions he never performed. 4. The point-in-point sanguine is the badge of a coward. 5. The point champaine tenné attaches to him who breaks the laws of chivalry by slaying a prisoner after he has demanded quarter. 6. The liar should bear the plain-point sanguine. 7. The gore sinister tenné is the punishment of the soldier who acts in a cowardly manner towards his enemy. 8. The gusset sanguine, if on the right side, denotes adultery, and if on the left, drunkenness. 9. The last and greatest ‘abatement of honour’ is the reversing or turning upside down of the whole shield: this belongs to the traitor. From these abatements originates the expression—“He has ablotin his scutcheon.”
It is scarcely necessary to state that ‘abatements of honour’ exist only in theory. Who ever did or wouldvoluntarily bear a badge of disgrace? Every one deserving either of them would sooner relinquish all claim to the bearing of arms than continue it with such a stigma.
Leigh, Guillim, and other old writers are sufficiently prolix on this subject, which would seem to belong exclusively to English heraldry; for Menestrier calls themEnglish fooleries(‘Sottises Anglaises,’) and Montagu thinks “we shall seek in vain for a more appropriate designation.”
A singular mistake prevails among the vulgar respecting the “bloody hand,” borne in the arms of Baronets. I have been very seriously andconfidentiallytold, that murders had been committed by the ancestors of such and such families, and that the descendants were compelled to bear this dreadful emblem in consequence. According to the same sapient authorities, it can only be got rid of by the bearer’s submitting, either in his own person or by proxy,to pass seven years in a cave, without either speaking or cutting his nails and beard for that length of time! The intelligent reader needs not be informed that this supposed badge of infamy is really a mark of honour, derived from the arms of the province of Ulster in Ireland, the defence and colonization of which was the specious plea upon which the order of Baronets was created by James I.