Authentic History of Heraldry.
(John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, temp. Hen. VI,in his surcoat or coat of arms.)[32]
“Vetera quæ nunc sunt fuerunt olimnova.”“L’histoire du blazon! mais c’est l’histoire tout entière de notre pays!”Jouffroy d’Eschavannes.
“Vetera quæ nunc sunt fuerunt olimnova.”
“L’histoire du blazon! mais c’est l’histoire tout entière de notre pays!”
Jouffroy d’Eschavannes.
Havinggiven some illustrations of the desire of referring the heraldric system to times of the most remote antiquity, and shown something of the misapplication of learning to prove what was incapable of proof, let us now leave the obscure byways of those mystifiers of truth and fabricators of error, and emerge into the more beaten path presented to us in what may be called the historical period, which is confined within the last eight centuries. The history of the sciences,like that of nations, generally has its fabulous as well as its historical periods, and this is eminently the case with heraldry; yet in neither instance is there any exact line of demarcation by which the former are separable from the latter. This renders it the duty of a discriminating historian to act with the utmost caution, lest, on the one hand, truths of a remote date should be sacrificed because surrounded by the circumstances of fiction, and lest, on the other, error should be too readily admitted as fact, because it comes to us in a less questionable shape; and I trust I shall not be deemed guilty of misappropriation if I apply to investigations like the present, that counsel which primarily refers to things of much greater import, namely, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”
Thegermof that flourishing tree which eventually ramified into all the kingdoms of Christendom, and became one of the most striking and picturesque features of the feudal ages, and the most gorgeous ornament of chivalry, and which interweaves its branches into the entire framework of mediæval history, is doubtless to be found in the banners and ornamented shields of the warriors of antiquity. Standards, as the necessary distinctions of contending parties on the battle-field, must be nearly or quite as antient as war itself; and every such mark of distinction would readily become a national cognizance both in war and peace.[33]But it was reserved for later ages to apply similar marks and symbols to the purpose of distinguishing different commanders on the same side, and even after this became general it was sometime ere the hereditary transmission of such ensigns was resorted to as a means of distinguishing families, which in the lapse of ages—the warlike idea in which they had their origin having vanished—has become almost the only purpose to which they are now applied.
The standards used by the German princes in the centuries immediately preceding the Norman Conquest, are conjectured to have given rise to Heraldry, properly so called. Henry l’Oiseleur (the Fowler), who was raised to the throne of the West in 920, advanced it to its next stage when, in regulating the tournaments—which from mismanagement had too often become scenes of blood—he ordered that all combatants should be distinguished by a kind of mantles or livery composed of lists or narrow pieces of stuff of opposite colours, whence originated the pale, bend, &c.—the marks now denominated ‘honourable ordinaries.’[34]
If the honour of inventing heraldry be ascribed to the Germans, that of reducing it to a system must be assigned to France. To the French belong “the arrangement and combination of tinctures and metals, the variety of figures effected by the geometrical positions of lines, the attitudes of animals, and the grotesque delineation of monsters.”[35]The art of describing an heraldric bearing in proper terms is called blasonry, from the French verbblasonner, whence also we derive our wordblazein the sense of to proclaim or make known.
“The heavens themselvesblazeforth the death of princes.”Shak.“But he went out and began to publish it much, and toblazeabroad the matter.”St. Mark.“’Tis still our greatest pride,Toblazethose virtues which the good would hide.”Pope.
“The heavens themselvesblazeforth the death of princes.”Shak.
“But he went out and began to publish it much, and toblazeabroad the matter.”St. Mark.
“’Tis still our greatest pride,Toblazethose virtues which the good would hide.”Pope.
The verb seems to have come originally from the Germanblasen, to blow a horn. At the antient tournaments the attendant heralds proclaimed with sound of trumpet the dignity of the combatants, and the armorial distinctions assumed by them; and hence the application of the word to the scientific description of coat armour.[36]The arrangement of the tinctures and charges of heraldry into a system may be regarded as the third stage in the history of the science. This, as we have just seen, was achieved by the French: and hence the large admixture of old French terms with words of native growth in our heraldric nomenclature.
Speed and other historians give the arms of a long line of the Anglo-Saxon and Danish monarchs of England up to the period of the Norman Conquest; but we search in vain for contemporary evidence that armorial distinctions were then known. The MSS. of those early times which have descended to us are rich in illustrations of costume, but no representation of these ‘ensigns of honour’ occurs in any one of them. It seems probable that Speed was misled by the early chroniclers, who in their illuminated tomes often represented events of a much earlier date in the costume of their own times. Thus, in a work by Matthew Paris, who flourished in the thirteenth century, Offa, a Danish king of the tenth, is represented in the habits worn at the first-mentioned date, and bearing an armorial shield according to the then existing fashion.
At what period the colours and charges of the banner began to be copied upon the shield is uncertain. A proof that regular heraldry was unknown at the era of theConquest, is furnished by that valuable monument, the Bayeux Tapestry, a pictorial representation of the event, ascribed to the wife of the Conqueror. In these embroidered scenes neither the banner nor the shield is furnished with proper arms. Some of the shields bear the rude effigies of a dragon, griffin, serpent or lion, others crosses, rings, and various fantastic devices;[37]but these, in the opinion of the most learned antiquaries, are mere ornaments, or, at best, symbols, more akin to those of classical antiquity than to modern heraldry. Nothing but disappointment awaits the curious armorist, who seeks in this venerable memorial the pale, the bend, and other early elements of arms. As these would have been much more easily imitated with the needle than the grotesque figures before alluded to, we may safely conclude that personal arms had not yet been introduced.[38]
Dallaway asserts that, after the Conquest, William “encouraged,but under great restrictions, the individual bearing of arms;” but, strangely, does not cite the most slender authority for the assertion. Camden and Spelman agree that arms were not introduced until towards the close of the eleventh century, which must have been within a very short time of the Conqueror’s death. Others again, with more probability, speak of the second Crusade (A.D.1147) as the date of their introduction into this country. But even at this period the proofs of family bearings are very scanty. Traditions, indeed, are preserved in many families, of arms having been acquired during this campaign, and in a future chapter several examples will be quoted, rather as a matter of curiosity than as historical proof; for all tradition, and especially that which tends to flatter a family by ascribing to it an exaggerated antiquity, will generally be found to bevox et preterea nihil. The arms said to occur onsealsin the seventh and eighth centuries may be dismissed as merely fanciful devices, having no connexion whatever with the heraldry of the twelfth and thirteenth.
Towards the close of the twelfth century, and at the beginning of the thirteenth,A.D.1189-1230, it was usual for warriors to carry a miniature escocheon suspended from a belt, and decorated with the arms of the wearer.[39]
(Rich. I. from his second Great Seal.)
It was in the time of Richard I that heraldry assumed more of the fixed character it now bears. That monarch appears on his great seal of the date of 1189, with a shield containing two lions combatant; but in his second great seal (1195) three lions passant occur, as they have ever since been used by his successors. Before coming to the throne, as Earl of Poitou, he had borne lions in some attitude; for,in an antient poem, cited by Dallaway, William de Barr, a French knight, utters an exclamation to this effect: “Behold the Count of Poitou challenges us to the field; see he calls us to the combat; I know the grinning lions in his shield;” and in the romance of ‘Cuer de Lyon,’ we read the following couplet:
“Upon his shoulders a Schelde of stele,With the ‘lybbardes’[40]painted wele.”
The earliest representation of arms upon a seal is of the date of 1187.[41]The embellishment of seals was one of the first as well as one of the most interesting and useful applications of Heraldry. Seals, at first rude and devoid of ornament, became, in course of time, beautiful pieces of workmanship, elaborately decorated with arms, equestrian figures, and tabernacle work of gothic architecture.
The Crusades are admitted by all modern writers to have given shape to heraldry. And although we cannot give credit to many of the traditions relating to the acquisition of armorial bearings by valorous knights on the plains of Palestine, yet there is no doubt that many of our commonest charges, such as the crescent, the escallop-shell, the water-bowget, &c., are derived from those chivalric scenes. Salverte observes that “the ensigns which adorned the banner of a knight had not, in earlier times, been adopted by his son, jealous of honouring, in its turn, the emblem which he himself had chosen. But this glorious portion of the heritage of a father or a brother who had died fighting for the cross was seized with avidity by his successor on the fields of Palestine; for, in changing the paternal banner, he would have feared that he should not be recognized by his own vassals and his rivals in glory. History expressly tells us that, at this epoch, many of the chiefs of the crusaders rendered the symbols which they bore peculiar to their own house.”[42]Dallaway, with his accustomed elegance, remarks, “Those chiefs who, during the holy war, returned to their own country, were industrious to call forth the highest admiration of their martial exploits in the middle ranks. Ambitious of displayingthe banners they had borne in the sacred field, they procured every external embellishment that could render them either more beautiful as to the execution of the armorial designs, or more venerable as objects of such perilous attainment. The bannerols of this era were usually of silk stuffs, upon which was embroidered the device; and the shields of metal, enamelled in colours, and diapered or diversified with flourishes of gold and silver. Both the arts of encaustic painting and embroidery were then well known and practised, yet of so great cost as to be procured only by the most noble and wealthy. Amongst other pageantries was the dedication of these trophies to some propitiatory Saint, over whose shrine they were suspended, and which introduced armorial bearings in the decoration of churches, frequently carved in stone, painted in fresco upon the walls, or stained in glass in the windows. The avarice of the ecclesiastics in thus adding to their treasures conduced almost as much as the military genius of the age to the more general introduction of arms. So sanctioned, the use of them became indispensable.”[43]
By the time of Edward the First we find that all great commanders had adopted arms, which were at that date reallycoats; the tinctures and charges of the banner and shield being applied to the surcoat, or mantle, which was worn over the armour, while the trappings of horses were decorated in a similar manner.
In the ages immediately subsequent to the Crusades, heraldric ensigns began to be generally applied as architectural decorations. The shields upon which they were first represented were in the form of an isosceles triangle, slightly curved on its two equal sides; but soon afterwards they began to assume that of the gothic arch reversed, a shape probably adopted with a view to such decoration, as harmonising better with the great characteristics of the pointed style. Painted glass, too, in its earliest application, was employed to represent military portraits, and arms with scrolls containing short sentences, from which family mottoes may have originated. Warton[44]places this gorgeous ornament at an era earlier than the reign of Edward II.
Encaustic tiles, also, which were introduced in the early days of heraldry, afforded another means of displaying the insignia of warriors. They are still found in the pavements of many of our cathedrals and old parish churches.
Rolls of Arms, which afford, after seals, the best possible evidence of the ancient tinctures and charges, occur so early as the time of Henry III. A document of this description, belonging to that reign, is preserved in the College of Arms, and contains upwards of 200 coats emblazoned or described in terms of heraldry differing very little from the modern nomenclature. In a subsequent chapter I shall have occasion to refer for some facts to this curious and valuable manuscript.
In the succeeding reigns the science rapidly increased in importance and utility. The king and his chief nobility began to have heralds attached to their establishments. These officials, at a later date, took their names from some badge or cognizance of the family whom they served, such as Falcon, Rouge Dragon, or from their master’s title, as Hereford, Huntingdon, &c. They were, in many instances, old servants or retainers, who had borne the brunt of war,[45]and who, in their official capacity, attending tournaments and battle-fields, had great opportunities of making collections of arms, and gathering genealogical particulars. It is to them, as men devoid of general literature and historical knowledge, Mr. Montagu ascribes the fabulous and romantic stories connected with antient heraldry; and certainly they had great temptations to falsify facts, and give scope to invention when a championship for the dignity and antiquity of the families upon whom they attended was at once a labour of love and an essential duty of their office.
TheRoll of Karlaverok, the name of which must be familiar to every reader who has paid any attention to heraldry,is a poem in Norman-French, describing the valorous deeds of Edward I and his knights at the siege of the castle of Karlaverok, in Dumfriesshire, in the year 1300. This roll, which is curious on historical grounds, and by no means contemptible as a poem, possesses especial charms for the heraldric student. It describes with remarkable accuracy the banners of the barons and knights who served in the expedition against Scotland, and “affords evidence of the perfect state of the science of heraldry at that early period.” It is believed to have been written by Walter of Exeter, a Franciscan friar, further known as the author of the romantic history of Guy, Earl of Warwick. A contemporary copy of this valuable relic exists in the British Museum, and another copy, transcribed from the original, is in the Library of the College of Arms. The latter was published in 1828 by Sir Harris Nicolas, with a translation and memoirs of the personages commemorated by the poet.
The poem commences by stating that, in the year of Grace one thousand three hundred, the king held a great court at Carlisle, and commanded his men to prepare to go together with him against his enemies the Scots. On the appointed day the whole host was ready. “There were,” says the chivalrous friar, “many rich caparisons embroidered on silks and satins; many a beautiful penon fixed to a lance, and many a banner displayed.
“And afar off was the noise heard of the neighing of horses; mountains and valleys were everywhere covered with sumpter horses and waggons with provisions, and sacks of tents and pavilions.
“And the days were long and fine [it was Midsummer]. They proceeded by easy journeys arranged in four squadrons; the which I will so describe to you that not one shall bepassed over. But first I will tell you of the names and arms of the companions, especially of the banners, if you will listen how.”
In truth, by far the greater portion of the composition consists of descriptions of the heraldric insignia borne upon the banners of the commanders, upwards of one hundred in number. The following are quoted as examples:
‘Henry the good Earl of Lincoln, burning with valour, which is the chief feeling of his heart, leading the first squadron, had a banner of yellow silk with a purple lion rampant.’[46]
‘Prowess had made a friend of William le Latimer, whobore on this occasion a well-proportioned banner, with a gold cross patée, pourtrayed on red.’[47]
“Johans de Beauchamp proprementPortoit le baniere de vairAu douz tens et au sovest aier.”‘John de BeauchampHandsomely bore his banner of vair,To the gentle weather and south-west air.’[48]
The best authorities are agreed that coat-armour did not become hereditary until the reign of Henry III and his successor. Before that period families “kept no constant coat, but gave now this, anon that, sometimes their paternal, sometimes their maternal or adopted coats, a variation causing much obfuscation in history.”[49]Many of the nobility who had heretofore borne ensigns consisting of the honorable ordinaries, the simplest figures of heraldry, now began to charge them with other figures. Some few families, however, never adopted what are called common charges, but retained the oldest and simplest forms of bearing, such as bends, cheverons, fesses, barry, paly, chequy, &c.; and, as a general rule, such coats may be regarded as the most antient in existence. With respect to Welsh heraldry, Dallaway thinks that the families of that province did not adopt the symbols made use of by other nations, until its annexation to the English Crown by Edward I. Certain it is that many of the oldest families bear what may be termedlegendary pictures, having little or no analogy to the more systematic armory of England; such, for example, as a wolf issuing from a cave; a cradle under a tree with a child guarded by a goat, &c.
The reigns of Edward III and Richard II were the “palmy days” of heraldry. Then were the banners and escocheons of war refulgent with blazon; the light of every chancel and hall was stained with the tinctures of heraldry; the tiled pavement vied with the fretted roof; every corbel, every vane, spoke proudly of the achievements of the battle-field, and filled every breast with a lofty emulation of the deeds which earned such stately rewards. We, the men of this calculating and prosaic nineteenth century, have, it is probable, but a faint idea of the influence which heraldry exerted on the minds of our rude forefathers of that chivalrous age: but we can hardly refuse to admit that, by diffusing more widely the enthusiasm of martial prowess, it lent a powerful aid to the formation of our national character, and strongly tended to give to England that proud military ascendancy she has long enjoyed among the nations of the earth.[50]
(Ordeal Combat.)
At this period that peculiar species of ordeal,TRIAL BY COMBAT, the prototype of the modern duel, was licensed by the supreme magistrate. When a person was accused by another without any further evidence than the mereipse dixitof the accuser, the defendant making good his owncause by strongly denying the fact, the matter was referred to the decision of the sword,[51]and although the old proverb that “might overcomes right” was frequently verified in these encounters, the vanquished party was adjudged guilty of the crime alleged against him, and dealt with according to law. The charge usually preferred was that of treason, though the dispute generally originated in private pique between the parties. These combats brought together immense numbers of people. That between Sir John Annesley and Katrington, in the reign of Richard II, was fought before the palace at Westminster, and attracted more spectators than the king’s coronation had done.[52]All such encounters were regulated by laws which it was the province of the heralds to enforce.[53]
TheTOURNAMENT, though proscribed by churchmen (jealous, as Dallaway observes, ofshowsin which they could play no part), had nothing in it of the objectionable character attaching to the judicial combat. Nor will it suffer, in the judgment of Gibbon, on a comparison with the Olympic games, “which, however recommended by the idea of classicantiquity, must yield to a Gothic tournament, as being, in every point of view, to be preferred by impartial taste.”[54]Descriptions of tournaments occur in so many popular works that it is not here necessary to do more than to refer to them. The vivid picture of one by Sir Walter Scott in ‘Ivanhoe’ is probably fresh in the reader’s memory.
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 armsAzure, 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 asserted that these arms had been borne by his family from the Norman conquest. Carminow pleaded a higher antiquity, and declared they had been used byhisancestors 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 otherswho 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 armsAzure, 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 armsin banners, glass, 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 passed 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 inhis 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 ofScrope? 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]
“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 armsAzure, 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 armsin banners, glass, 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 passed 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 inhis 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 ofScrope? 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 nobility 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 nobleman, 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 assign 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 thesake of distinction. When the prince heard of this noble 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 wereGules, 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 cheverongules, fretty or, between three delves or billets sable.Mackworth.Party per pale indented, ermine and sable, a cheverongules, 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]
Delves.Argent, a cheverongules, fretty or, between three delves or billets sable.
Mackworth.Party per pale indented, ermine and sable, a cheverongules, 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 Cumberland, who had fought under his banners at Cressy and Poictiers: “ToALLto 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 holdto the said Adam and hisheirs 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 transferredby 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 assigns 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 thegeneralpractice before the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV for persons of rank to assume 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 amannys 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 noble blood, he had no armorial bearings, because neither himself nor his ancestors had ever been engaged in war.[61]
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, entirelydestroying 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 dexterblank, for those of their husbands, as soon as they should be so fortunate as to obtain them. This, says mine author, “was the customfor young ladies that were resolved to marry!”[65]These were called “Arms of Expectation.”[66]
The gorgeous decoration of the male costume with the ensigns of heraldry soon attracted the attention and excited the emulation of that sex which is generally foremost in the adoption of personal ornaments. Yes, incongruous as the idea appears to modern dames, the ladies too assumed the embroideredcoat of arms! On the vest or close-fitting garment they represented the paternal arms, repeating the same ornament, iffemmes 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 asfemmes-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 Shelley, Esq.[67]copied from a brass in the parishchurch of Clapham, co. Sussex. The arms represented are those of Shelley and Michelgrove, otherwise Fauconer; both belonging, it will be seen, to the class called canting or allusive arms; those of Shelley being welk-shells, and those of Fauconer, afalcon.
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 thiscumulatio armorumis 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 brass 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 ofEdmund, 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 mentionedadumbratedcharges; that is, figures represented in outline with the colour of the field showing through; because the bearers, having lost their patrimonies, retained only theshadowof 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 assigned 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 pass 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 goodtownsmen 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 balls; 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 assemblage of objects may signify I do not pretend to guess.
Persons of the middle class, not entitled to coat-armour, invented certain arbitrary signs calledMerchants’ 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 glass. 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 Historicæ.’ 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 beenattempted, 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.”
At the commencement of the fifteenth century considerable confusion seems to have arisen from upstarts having assumed 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 firstKing of Armswas 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 ofLancaster 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 threeredroses,” 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 threewhiteroses,”[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. Thered rosein 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 calleddifferences. 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 30oEdward III, were, in the window of St. Mary’s Church, Warwick,differencedin this manner.[77]These distinctions arecarried 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 chargeor, six times repeated, namely,
and among the further ramifications of the family we find
and upwards of ten other coats, all preserving the field gules and the fess or. The Bassets, 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—
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 identity of appellation.
Illegitimate children generally bore the paternal ensigns differenced by certainbrizures. Thus John de Beaufort, eldest natural son of John of Gaunt, borePer pale argent and azure[blue and white being thecoloursof the House of Lancaster]on a bend gules, three lions passant-guardant or[theroyal 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 bastardy; 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 assert 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 principal 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 compass 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 class of men who were termedArmigeri, 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. Sussex, was ‘Azure a fret argent,’ and the crest, ‘A DEMI-LION RAMPANT ARGENT.’
The arms of Jefferay, of Chiddingly, in the same county, were ‘Azure fretty or’ (with the addition of a lion passant-guardant, gules, on a chief argent), and the crest,A lion’sheaderasedargent, ducally crowned azure. The first settlement of the Jefferays was at Betchington, co. Sussex, 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 theCollege 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 institution, 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.