The crest of Dudley of Northamptonshire, Bart. was ‘Out of a ducal coronet or, a woman’s bust: her hair dishevelled, bosom bare, a helmet on her head with the stay or throat-latch down proper.’ From a MS. in the possession of this family, written by a monk about the close of the fourteenth century, it appeared that the father of Agnes Hotot (who, in the year 1395, married an ancestor of the Dudleys,) having a quarrel with one Ringsdale concerning the proprietorship of some land, they agreed to meet on the ‘debateable ground,’ and decide their right by combat. Unfortunately for Hotot, on the day appointed he was seriously ill; “but his daughter Agnes, unwilling that he should lose his claim, or suffer in his honour, armed herself cap-a-pie, and, mounting her father’s steed, repaired to the place of decision, where, after a stubborn encounter, she dismounted Ringsdale, and when he was on the ground, she loosened the stay of her helmet, let down her hair about her shoulders, and, disclosing her bosom, discovered to him that he had been conquered by awoman.” This valiant lady became the heiress of her family, and married a Dudley, whence the latter family derived their right to this crest.
Sir Richard Waller was at the battle of Agincourt, where he took prisoner Charles, duke of Orleans, father of Charles XII (afterwards King of France). This personage was brought to England by his captor, who held him in ‘honourable restraint’ at his own mansion, at Groombridge, co. Kent, during the long period of twenty-four years, at the termination of which he paid 400,000 crowns for his ransom. In accordance with the chivalrous spirit of that age, the captor and captive lived together on terms of the strictest friendship. This appears from the fact that the Duke, at his own expense, rebuilt for Sir Richard the family house at Groombridge. He was also a benefactor “to his parish church of Speldhurst, where his arms remain in stonework over the porch.”[211]Previously to this event the family arms had been the punning device of ‘Sable, on a bend voided argent, threewalnutleaves or,’ and the crest, ‘Awalnuttree fructed proper.’ To one of the lower boughs of this tree was now appended a shield, charged with the arms of France—‘Azure, three fleurs-de-lis or, differenced with a label of three points;’ an augmentation which continues to be borne by the descendants of Sir Richard Waller to this day.
Burton of Salop, and Rivers of Kent, bear[212]white roses, commemorative of the services rendered by their ancestors to the faction distinguished by this badge, while the Lutterells of Somerset, bear, as a crest, the white boar ofRichard III, ensigned on the shoulder with the Lancastrian red rose! The white and red roses in the arms of families, as partisans of the two rival houses, would furnish matter for a whole chapter; but I must pass on.
Augmentations have sometimes been made to the arms of English families by foreign monarchs. Thus Sir Henry Guldeforde, knight, having rendered assistance to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, in the reduction of Granada, received from them the honour of knighthood, with permission to add to his ancestral arms, ‘On a canton Argent, the arms of Granada, viz. a pomegranate, the shell open, grained gules, stalked and leaved proper.’ John Callard, esq. a retainer of the said Sir Henry, for his valour on the same occasion, acquired the following coat: ‘Gyronny of six pieces, or and sable; on each division or, a Moor’s head couped sable.’ William Browne, esq. called by Holinshed “a young and lusty gentleman,” another follower of Guldeforde, was honoured with an augmentation, viz. ‘On a chief argent, an eagle displayed sable,’—the arms of Sicily, which was then an adjunct to the Spanish crown.
The Duke of Norfolk bears on his ‘bend argent’ ‘an escocheon or, charged with a demi-lion rampant within a double tressure, flory and counter-flory; an arrow pierced through the lion’s mouth all gules.’ This is an augmentation nearly resembling the arms of Scotland, and was granted to the Earl of Surrey, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, for his services against the Scots at Flodden Field, in 1513. It will be recollected that when the body of James IV was found after the battle, it was pierced with several arrows, the cause of his death.
As a further memorial of this victory the Earl gave, as the badge of his retainers, a white lion, one of the supportersof his house, trampling upon the red lion of Scotland, and tearing it with his claws.
Several English families bear their arms upon the breast of an eagle with two heads. This is the standard of the German empire, and it has been granted to such families for military and other services. The Lord Arundel of Wardour, in the reign of Elizabeth, received this distinguished mark of honour by patent from the Emperor Rodolph II, for valorous conduct against the Turks, whom, as the avowed enemies of Christianity, he opposed with all the enthusiasm of a crusader of more antient times. He was at the same time created a Count of the Empire, and, on returning to England, was desirous of taking precedence according to his German title. But this step was violently opposed by the peers, and the Queen, being asked her opinion of his claim, answered, “that faithful subjects should keep their eyes at home, and not gaze upon foreign crowns, and that she, for her part, did not care her sheep should wear a stranger’s mark, nor dance after the whistle of every foreigner!”[213]
The Bowleses of Wiltshire, and the Smiths of Lincolnshire, received appropriate arms about the same time for their services against the Turks, under the same Emperor.[214]
The assumption of the arms of an enemy slain or captured in war, though permitted by the heraldric canon of early times, seems not to have been very usual in this country; yet instances are not wanting of arms so acquired. In 1628, Sir David Kirke, knight, reduced Canada, then in the power of the French, and took the admiral De la Roche prisoner.For this service he received as an augmentation, ‘A canton azure charged with a talbot sejant, collared and leash reflexed argent, sustaining a faulchion proper,’ this being the coat of his captive.
Charles I rewarded many of his adherents with augmentations of arms—the only recompense some of them ever received. The favourite marks of honour were the crown, rose, and lion of England.
Sir Palmes Fairborne, knighted by Charles II for his defence of Tangier against the Moors, had permission to bear as his crest, ‘An arm in armour couped at the elbow, lying on a wreath sustaining a sword; on the point thereof a Turk’s head, turbaned all proper.’ The epitaph on this commander, on his tomb in Westminster Abbey, was written by Dryden; and had nothing more sublime proceeded from his pen, his name would be as little known to posterity as that of the hero he celebrates.
“Alive and deadthesewalls he will defend,Great actions great examples must attend;The Candian siege his early valour knew,Where Turkish blood did his young hands imbrew;From thence returning with deserved applause,Against the Moors hiswell-fleshedsword he draws,” &c. &c.
Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the celebrated admiral, received, by the express command of William III, a grant of arms blazoned thus: ‘Gules a cheveron ermine between two crescents in chief argent, and a fleur-de-lis in base or,’ to commemorate two great victories over the Turks and one over the French. This is one of the most appropriate coats I remember to have seen.
It would be impossible (even were it desirable) within thelimits I have assigned myself, to notice all the arms and augmentations which have been granted to heroes, naval and military, for services performed during the last, and at the commencement of the present, century. A superabundance of them will be found in the plates attached to the ordinary peerages, &c. Suffice it to say, that in general they exhibit a most wretched taste in the heralds who designed them, or rather, perhaps I should say, in the personages who dictated to the heralds what ensigns would be most agreeable to themselves. Figures never dreamed of in classical armory have found their way into these bearings: landscapes andwordsin great staring letters across the shield, bombshells and bayonets, East Indians and American Indians, sailors and soldiers, medals and outlandish banners,figures of Peace, and grenadiers of the 79th regiment![215]Could absurdity go farther?
But, lest I should be thought unnecessarily severe upon the armorists of the past age, I annex the arms of Sir Sidney Smith, a veteran who certainly deservedbetter thingsof his country. I shall not attempt to blazon them, as I am sure my reader would not thank me for occupying a page and a half of a chapter—already perhaps too long—with what would in this case bejargonindeed. Shades of Brooke, and Camden, and Guillim, and Dugdale! what think ye of this?
II. The second class of Historical Arms is composed of those derived fromActs of Loyalty. The earliest coat of this kind mentioned by the author of the volume before quoted, is that of Sir John Philpot, viz. ‘Sable a bend ermine,’—his paternal arms—impaling, ‘Gules a cross between four swords argent, hilts or’—an augmentation granted to Philpot for killing Wat Tyler with his sword after Walworth, the mayor, had knocked him down with his mace, in the presence of Richard II, in 1378.
Ramsay, earl of Holderness, temp. James VI, bore as an augmentation impaling his paternal arms, ‘Azure, a dexter hand holding a sword in pale, argent, hilted or, piercing a human heart proper, and supporting on the point an imperial crown of the last.’ This was granted to Sir John Ramsay, who was also rewarded with the title just mentioned, for having saved the young monarch’s life from assassination by Ruthven, earl of Gowrie, by piercing the assassin to the heart. The story of this attempt upon the ‘British Solomon’ is too well known to the reader of Scottish history to need copying in these pages. The whole narration, enshrouded in mystery, is now almost universally discredited, and the affair regarded as a pretended plot, to answer a political purpose. It is sufficient to say that Gowrie and his father, Alexander Ruthven, fell victims to it, while Ramsay was rewarded for his share in the transaction as above stated.[216]Erskine, earl of Kelly, and Sir Hugh Harris, two other individuals concerned in this plot, also received augmentations.[217]
The notorious Colonel Titus, temp. Charles II, was rewarded for his services in the restoration of the king, with an augmentation, viz. ‘quarterly with his paternal arms, Or, on a chief gules, a lion of England.’ ‘Lions of England’ were likewise assigned to the following families for their loyalty to the Stuarts: Robinson of Cranford, Moore, Lord Mayor of London, Lane of Staffordshire, &c. The crest of the last-mentioned family is ‘A demi-horse salient argent, spotted dark grey, bridled proper, sustaining with his fore feet a regal crown or;’ in allusion to the circumstance of Charles’s having been assisted in his escape, after his defeat at Worcester, by a lady of this family, whose servant the king personated by riding before her on horseback. In this guise Charles arrived safely at Bristol, and at length, after many hair-breadth escapes and a circuitous tour of the southern counties, reached Brighthelmstone, whence he set sail for the continent.
The arms granted to the family of Penderell for concealing Charles II in the oak at Boscobel, and otherwise assisting his escape, and those assigned on the same occasion to Colonel Careless (orCarlos, as it was the king’s humour afterwards to name him) were exactlyalikein charges, though different in tincture.
Carlos.‘Or, on a mount an oak-tree proper; over all a fesse gules, charged with three regal crowns proper.’
Penderell.‘Argent, on a mount an oak-tree proper; over all a fesse sable, charged with three regal crowns proper.’[218]
III. The third class of Historical Arms are those ofAlliance. I shall content myself with an example or two. The arms[219]and dexter supporter[220]of the Lyons, earls of Strathmore, evidently allude to a connexion with the royal line of Scotland, and the crest of the family is, ‘On a wreath vert and or, aladycouped below the girdle, inclosed within an arch of laurel, and holding in her right hand the royal thistle, all proper.’ Sir John Lyon, an ancestor of this house, having gained the favour of King Robert II, that monarch gave him in marriage his daughter, the lady Jane. To perpetuate so splendid and beneficial an alliance, his descendants have ever since continued to represent this princess as their crest.
The Seymours, dukes of Somerset, bore quarterly with their paternal arms, the following: ‘Or, on a pile gules, between six fleurs-de-lis azure, three lions of England,’ an augmentation originally granted by Henry VIII to Jane Seymour, his third wife. These ensigns, it will be seen, are a composition from the royal arms.
IV. The fourth are derived fromFavourandServices. The antient arms of Compton, subsequently created earls of Northampton, were ‘Sable, three helmets argent.’ For services rendered to Henry VIII, William Compton, esq. received permission to place ‘a lion of England’ between the helmets.
Thomas Villiers, first Earl of Clarendon, bore, ‘Argent,on a cross gules, five escallops or [originally derived from the Crusade under Edward I] a crescent for difference; and on an inescocheon argent, the eagle of Prussia, viz. displayed sable, &c. &c., charged on the breast with F. B. R. for Fredericus, Borussorum Rex.’ This was an augmentation granted to that nobleman by Frederick, king of Prussia, as a mark of the high value he set upon certain diplomatic services in which he had been engaged. The augmentation was ratified at the Heralds’ office by the command of George III.
The Earl of Liverpool, in addition to his paternal arms, bears ‘on a chief wavy argent, a cormorant sable, holding in his beak a branch of laver or sea-weed vert.’ This augmentation (being the arms of the town of Liverpool) was made to the arms of Charles Jenkinson, first Earl of Liverpool, at the unanimous request of the mayor and municipality of that town, signified by their recorder.
V. A very interesting class of Allusive Arms is composed of those derived from theSituationof the original residences of the respective families. The following are instances:
Wallop, earl of Portsmouth, ‘Argent, a bend wavy sable.’ The name of Wallop is local, and it was antiently written Welhop. Wallop, or Welhope, is the name of two parishes in Hampshire, so denominated from a fountain orwell, springing from ahopeor hill in the vicinity, and giving birth to a small river, which becomes tributary to the Tese. Here, in very antient times, this family resided, and from the little river referred to the surname was adopted, while the bend wavy in the arms alludes both to the river and the name.
Stourton, Lord Stourton, ‘Sable, a bend or, between six fountains proper.’ The river Stour rises at Stourton, co.Wilts, from six fountains or springs. The family name is derived from the place, and the arms from this circumstance. The bend may be regarded as the pale of Stourton park, as three of the sources of the river are within that inclosure and three beyond it.
Shuckburgh, a parish in Warwickshire, is remarkable for that kind of fossil termedastroit, which resembles the mullet of heraldry. The family who, in very antient times, derived their surname from the locality, bear three mullets in their arms.[221]
The Swales of Swale-hall, co. York, bear ‘Azure, a bend undé argent.’ Some consider this a representation of the river Swale, though Peter Le Neve thinks it a rebus for the name ofNunda, whose heiress married a Swale.[222]
Highmore of High-moor, co. Cumberland: ‘Argent, a crossbow erect betweenfourmoor-cocks sable; their legs, beaks, and combs, gules.’ This family originated in the moors of that county,unde nomen et arma. The author of ‘Historical and Allusive Arms’ says that they branched out into three lines, called from the situation of their respective places of abode,Highmore,Middlemore, andLowmore. It is curious that the Middlemore branch gave as arms the crossbow andthreemoor-cocks; while the Lowmores bore the crossbow andtwomoor-cocks only. Had the family ramified still further into ‘Lowermore,’ it is probable that branch must have rested content with asinglemoor-cock, while the ‘Lowestmores,’ carrying out the same principle of gradation, could not have claimed even a solitary bird, but must have made shift with their untrophied crossbow.On the other hand, ‘Highermore’ would have been entitled tofive, and ‘Highestmore’ tosix, head of game, in addition to the family weapon!
Hume, of Nine Wells, the family of the great historian, bore ‘Vert, a lion rampant argent within a bordure or, charged withnine wellsor springs barry-wavy azure and argent,’ “The estate of Nine Wells is so named from a cluster of springs of that number. Their situation is picturesque; they burst forth from a gentle declivity in front of the mansion, which has on each side a semicircular rising bank, covered with fine timber, and fall, after a short course, into the bed of the river Whitewater, which forms a boundary in the front. These springs, as descriptive of their property, were assigned to the Humes of this place as a difference in arms from the chief of their house.”[223]
VI. Of arms alluding to theProfessionor pursuits of the original bearer, I shall adduce but few instances, as they generally exhibit bad taste, and a departure from heraldric purity;e. g.Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, the champion and martyr of the Protestant cause, bore ‘... a lamb in a burning bush; the rays of the sun descending thereon proper.’
Michael Drayton bore ‘Azure gutté d’eau [the drops of Helicon!] a Pegasus current in bend argent.’Crest, ‘Mercury’s winged cap amidst sunbeams proper.’ These classical emblems appear foreign to the spirit of heraldry, which originated in an unclassical age. Still it might have been difficult to assign to this stately and majestic poet more appropriate armorials.
The supporters chosen by Sir George Gordon, first LordAberdeen, a celebrated jurist, weretwo lawyers; while (every man to his taste) Sir William Morgan, K.B., a keen sportsman, adoptedtwo huntsmenequipped for the chase, and the motto ‘Saltando cave,’Look before you leap. Could anything be more pitiful?
VII. Arms derived fromTenureandOfficeare a much more interesting, though less numerous, class than the preceding.
“The tenure of the lands of Pennycuik, in Midlothian, obliges the possessor to attend once a year in the forest of Drumsleich (near Edinburgh) ... to give a blast of a horn at the king’s hunting; and therefore Clerk of Pennycuik, baronet, the proprietor of these lands, uses the following crest:”[224]‘A demi-forester, habited vert, sounding a hunting-horn proper;’ and motto, ‘Free for a blast.’ Most of the English families of Forester, Forster, and Foster have bugle-horns in their arms, supporting the idea that the founders of those families derived their surnames from the office of Forester, held by them in times when the country abounded in woody districts. This office was one of considerable honour and emolument.
The crest of Grosvenor is ‘a hound or talbot statant or;’ and the supporters ‘two talbots reguardant or,’ &c. Both these ensigns and the name allude to the antient office of the chiefs of this family, which was that ofLe Gros Veneur, great huntsman, to the Dukes of Normandy.
Rawdon, earl of Moira, ancestor of the Marquis of Hastings; ‘Argent, a fesse between three pheons or arrow-heads sable.’Crest, in a mural coronet argent, a pheon sable, with a sprig of laurel issuing therefrom proper.Supporters, two huntsmen with bows, quivers, &c. &c. This family were denominated from their estate, Rawdon, near Leeds, co. York, which they originally held under William the Conqueror. A rhyming title-deed, purporting to have been granted by him, but evidently of much later date, was formerly in the possession of the family:
“I William King, the thurd yere of my reigne,Give to thee, Paulyn Roydon, Hope and Hopetowne,Wyth all the bounds, both up and downe,From Heaven to yerthe, from yerthe to hel;For the and thyn ther to dwell,As truly as this Kyng-right is myn;For a cross-bowe and an arrow,When I sal come to hunt on Yarrow;And in token that this thing is sooth,I bit the whyt wax with my tooth.”
The family of Pitt, earl of Chatham, bore ‘Sable, a fessechequyargent and azure, between three bezants or pieces ofmoney,’ in allusion to the office the original grantee held in theEXCHEQUER. The Fanshawes also bore chequy, &c., for the same reason.
The Woods of Largo, co. Fife, bear ships, in allusion to the office of Admiral of Scotland, antiently hereditary in that family.
The antient Earls of Warren and Surrey bore ‘chequy, or and azure.’ There is a tradition that the heads of this family were invested with the exclusive prerogative of granting licenses for the sale of malt liquors, and that it was enjoined on all alehouse-keepers to paint the Warren arms on their door-posts. Hence the chequers, still seen at theentrances of many taverns, were supposed to have originated, until the discovery of that ornament on an inn-door among the ruins of Pompeii proved the fashion to have existed in classical times. Its origin is involved in obscurity; it may have been placed upon houses of entertainment to show that some game analogous to the modern chess and backgammon might be played within.
Here we may be allowed to digress, to say a few words on the origin ofinn signs, which are generally of an heraldric character. In early times the town residences of the nobility and great ecclesiastics were called Inns; and in front of them the family arms were displayed. In many cases these Inns were afterwards appropriated to the purposes of the modern hotel, affording temporary accommodation to all comers.[225]The armorial decorations were retained, and under the name of signs directed the public to these places of rest and refreshment. On calling to mind the signs by which the inns of any particular town are designated, a very great majority of them will be recognized as regular heraldric charges. In addition to the full armorials of great families, as the Gordon Arms, the Pelham Arms, the Dorset Arms, we find such signs as the Golden Lion, Red Lion, White Lion, Black Lion, White Hart, Blue Boar, Golden Cross, Dragon, Swan, Spread Eagle, Dolphin, Rose and Crown, Catherine-Wheel, Cross-Keys,cum multis aliis, abundanteverywhere. These were originally, in most cases, the properly emblazoned armories of families possessing influence in the locality; and frequently the inns themselves were established by old domestics of such families. But owing to the negligence of mine host, or the unskilfulness of the common painter, who from time to time renovated his sign, the latter often lost much of its heraldric character; the shield and its tinctures were dropped, and the charges only remained; while by a still further departure from the original intention, three black lions, or five spread eagles, were reduced to one. A house in the town of Lewes was formerly known as the “Three Pelicans,” the fact of those charges constituting the arms of Pelham having been lost sight of. Another is still called “The Cats,” and few are aware that the arms of the Dorset family are intended.[226]In villages, innumerable instances occur of signs taken from the arms or crests of existing families, and very commonly the sign is changed as some neighbouring domain passes into other hands. There is a kind of patron and client feeling about this—feudality some may be disposed to call it—which a lover of Old England is pleased to contemplate.
VIII. The last species of Historical Arms are those which relate to Memorable Circumstances and Events which have occurred to the Ancestors of the families who bear them.
Stanley, earl of Derby.Crest.‘On a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, an Eagle with wings expanded or, feeding an Infant in a kind of cradle; at its head a sprig of oak all proper.’ This is the blazon given in “Historical and Allusive Arms;”[227]but Collins[228]blazons the Eagle as ‘preyingupon’ the Infant. This crest belonged originally to the family of Lathom or Latham, whose heiress, Isabella, married Sir John Stanley, afterwards Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord of the Isle of Man, and K. G. in the fourteenth century. According to tradition it originated in the following manner: One of the Lathams of Latham, co. Lancaster, having abandoned and exposed an illegitimate son in the nest of an eagle in a wood called Terlestowe Wood, near his castle, afterwards discovered, to his great astonishment, that the ‘king of birds,’ instead of devouring the helpless infant, had conceived a great liking for him, supplying him with food, and thus preserving his life. Upon witnessing this miraculous circumstance the cruel parent relented, and, taking home the infant, made him his heir. A ‘various reading’ of the tale states that Sir Thomas Latham, being destitute of legal issue, and wishing to adopt an illegitimate son, a proceeding to which his wife would not be likely to become a party, resorted to theruseof having the infant placed in the eyrie of an eagle, and then, taking his lady into the park, coming, as if by accident, to the place, at the moment when the eagle was hovering over the nest. Help—of courseaccidental—being at hand, the little fellow was rescued from his perilous couch, and presented to the lady, who pressed him to her bosom, and, ignorant of his consanguinity to her lord, joyfully acquiesced in his proposal to make the foundling heir to their estate.
According to Bishop Stanley’s ‘Historicall Poem touching ye Family of Stanley,’ and Vincent’s MS. Collection in the College of Arms, the Lord of Latham was “fowerscore” at the time he adopted this infant,
“Swaddled and cladIn a mantle of redd:”
—a statement which discredits both versions of the story as given above. These authorities further inform us that the foundling received the baptismal name of Oskell, and became father of the Isabella Latham who married Sir John Stanley.
In Seacome’s ‘History of the House of Stanley’ there is an account, derived from another branch of the family, which coincides with the second-mentioned, with the important addition that the adopted child was discarded before the death of Sir Thomas Latham. It is further said, that on the adoption Sir Thomas had assumed for his crest “an Eagle upon wing, turning her head back and looking in a sprightly manner as for something she had lost,” and that on the disowning, the Stanleys (one of whom had married the legal heiress to the estate) “either to distinguish or aggrandize themselves, or in contempt and derision, took upon them the Eagle and Child,” thus manifesting the variation and the reason of it.
It is scarcely necessary to state, that the Sir Oskell of the legend has no existence in the veritable records of history; and Mr. Ormerod, the learned historian of Cheshire, who is connected by marriage with the family of Latham, thinks the whole story may be “more safely referred to ancestral Northmen, with its scene in the pine-forests of Scandinavia.”[229]
The subjoined engraving relates to this legend. It is copied from a cast[230]taken from an oak carving attached to the stall of James Stanley, bishop of Ely, in the collegiate church (now cathedral) of Manchester, of which he was warden. The figures below the trees are aREBUS[231]of masons or stone-cutters, termed, in mediæval Latin,Lathomi; and the castellated gateway they are approaching is that of Latham Hall, the scene of the tradition.
Trevelyan of Somersetshire, Bart. ‘Gules, a horse argent armed or, issuant from the sea in base, party per fesse wavy,azure and of the second.’ This family primarily bore a very different coat: their present armorials were assumed “on occasion of one of their ancestors swimming on horseback from the rocks called Seven Stones to the Land’s End in Cornwall, at the time of an inundation, which is said to have overwhelmed a large tract of land, and severed thereby those rocks from the continent of Cornwall.”[232]This story may appear rather improbable, but it should be remembered that some similar disruptions of land from the coast, such as the Goodwin Sands, Selsey Rocks, &c. are authentic matters of history. Whether the most powerful of the equine race, which are, even under far more favourable circumstances, “vain things for safety,” would be able to outbrave the violence of the sea necessary to produce such a phenomenon, I leave to better horsemen than myself to decide.
The arms of Aubrey de Vere, the great ancestor of the earls of Oxford,[233]in the 12th century, were ‘Quarterly, gules and or; in the first quarter a star or mullet of five points or.’ “In the year of our Lord 1098,” saith Leland,[234]“Corborant, Admiral to Soudan of Perce [so our antiquary was pleased to spell Persia,] was fought with at Antioche, and discomfited by the Christians. The night cumming on yn the chace of this bataile, and waxing dark, the Christianes being four miles from Antioche, God, willing the saufté [safety] of the Christianes, shewed a white star or molette of five pointes on the Christen host; which to every mannes sighte did lighte and arrest upon the standard of Albry de Vere, there shyning excessively!” The mullet was subsequently used as abadge by his descendants. “The Erle of Oxford’s men had a starre with streames booth before and behind on their lyverys.”[235]
Thomas Fitz-Gerald, father of John, first earl of Kildare, bore the sobriquet of Nappagh, Simiacus, or the Ape, from the following ludicrous circumstance. When he was an infant of nine months old, his grandfather and father were both killed in the war waged by them against M’Carthy, an opposing chief. He was then being nursed at Tralee, and his attendants, in the first consternation caused by the news of the disaster, ran out of the house, leaving the child alone in his cradle. A large ape or baboon, kept on the premises, with the natural love of mischief inherent in that mimic tribe, taking advantage of the circumstance, took him from his resting-place and clambered with him to the roof of the neighbouring abbey, and thence to the top of the steeple. After having carried his noble charge round the battlements, exhibiting the while various monkey tricks heretofore unknown to nursery-maids, to the no small consternation and amazement of the spectators, he descended with careful foot,ad terram firmam, and replaced the child in the cradle. In consequence of this event the earls of Kildare and other noble branches of this antient line assumed as a crest, ‘An ape proper, girt about the middle and chained or,’ and for supporters, two apes. The addition of thechainis singular.
Stuart, of Hartley-Mauduit, co. Hants. ‘Argent, a lion rampant gules, debruised by a bend raguly [popularly termed aragged staff] or.’ Sir Alexander Stuart, or Steward, knight, an ancestor of this family, in the presence of Charles VI of France, encountered a lion with a sword, which breakinghe seized a part of a tree, and with it killed the animal. This so much pleased the king, that he gave him the above as an augmentation to his paternal arms.[236]
Maclellan Lord Kirkcudbright bore as a crest, ‘A dexter arm erect, the hand grasping a dagger, with a human head on the point thereof, couped proper,’ In the reign of James II, of Scotland, a predatory horde of foreigners, who entered that kingdom from Ireland, committed great ravages in the shire of Galloway; whereupon a royal proclamation was issued ordering their dispersion, and offering, as a reward to the captor or killer of their chieftain, the barony of Bombie. Now it happened that one Maclellan, whose father had been laird of Bombie, (and had been dispossessed of it for some aggressions on a neighbouring nobleman,) was the fortunate person who killed the chieftain; thus singularly regaining his ancestral property. The crest originated in the circumstance of his having presented to the king the marauder’s head fixed upon the point of a sword.
The head is variously blazoned as that of aSaracen,Moor, orGipsey, and the question might here be started, ‘Who were the lawless band that made the inroad referred to?’ The terms Moor and Saracen were in early times applied indiscriminately to Mahometans of every nation, but it cannot be supposed that these intruders were followers of the False Prophet, for we have no record of any such having found their way into regions so remote. Neither is it probable that they were the wild or uncivilized Irish, whose manners and language would have been recognized in the south-western angle of Scotland, which is only separated from Ireland by a narrow channel that could be crossed in a fewhours. The most probable opinion is that they belonged to that singular race, theGipseys, who first made their appearance in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France, between the years 1409 and 1427. Admitting that a tribe of them found their way soon after from the continent into Ireland, it seems exceedingly likely that a detachment of that tribe should have crossed over to Scotland in the reign of James, between 1438 and 1460. As the Gipseys on their first settlement were black, and could be traced to an oriental source, and as they disavowed Christianity, they were very naturally considered as Saracens, by a rule analogous to that which makes all the inhabitants of Christendom Franks in the eyes of a Turk. I have made this little digression because this instance of a Gipsey’s head is probably unique in British Heraldry, and because the tradition perfectly coincides in point of time with the actual ingress of the Gipseys into this part of Europe.
The crest of the Davenports of Cheshire, a family as numerous, according to the proverb, as ‘dogs’ tails,’ is ‘a man’s head couped below the shoulders in profile, hair brown, a halter about his neck proper.’ According to the tradition of the family, it originated after a battle between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, in which one of the Davenports, being of the vanquished party, was spared execution by the commander on the opposite side, on the humiliating condition that he and all his posterity should bear this crest.
When Queen Elizabeth made Sir John Hawkins paymaster of the navy in 1590, she gave him a coat of arms appropriate to his profession, and as a crest, in allusion to hislaudableconcern in the slave trade, ‘A demi-negro proper, manacled with a rope,’ the very symbol which, more than two hundred years afterwards, was used to stamp infamyon those concerned in it, as well as abhorrence and detestation of the slave trade itself.[237]
It would be a matter of little difficulty to produce a great number of additional instances of armorials allusive to the personal history or office of the original grantee; but let it be mine rather than that of the fatigued reader to cry
‘Ohe, jam satis!’
Distinctions of Rank and Honour.
Anytreatise on Heraldry, whatever its scope or its design, would certainly be deemed defective if it did not embrace this subject. Heraldry consists of two distinct parts, namely,first, the knowledge of titles and dignities, the proper sphere of each, and the ceremonials connected with them; and,secondly, the science of blazon, or the rules by which armorial insignia are composed and borne. One treats of honours; the other of the symbols of those honours. The first, though some will refuse to concede it that distinction, is a science; the second partakes the nature of both a science and anart. The immediate object of this humble volume is armory or blazon, its history and its philosophy; yet I should scarcely feel justified in passing over, in silence, the other branch of heraldry, abounding as it does with ‘Curiosities.’ It is not, however, my intention to write a dissertation on the orders of nobility, their origin, their privileges, or their dignity; for the general reader, who happens to be uninformed on these points, can readily consult numerous authorities respecting them, while more profound students, should any such deign to read my lucubrations, would scarcely deem what could be said in the courseof a short chapter sufficient. I must therefore refer the former class to their peerages, or books of elementary heraldry, while the latter will not require that I should point out the learned tomes of Segar, Selden, Markham, and the various other ‘workes of honour,’ of which our literature has been so remarkably prolific. To relieve the tedium occasioned by the constant reference to or, and gules, and ermine; and bend, and fesse, and cheveron; and lions rampant and eagles displayed, which must necessarily occur in a book of heraldry, even in one which professes to treat of its ‘Curiosities,’ I intend here,currente calamo, to lay before the reader a few jottings which have occurred to me in the course of my heraldric and antiquarian researches.
It has been observed that “among barbarous nations there are no family names. Men are known bytitlesof honour, bytitlesof disgrace, or bytitlesgiven to them on account of some individual quality. A brave man will be called the lion, a ferocious one the tiger. Others are named after a signal act of their lives, or from some peculiarity of personal appearance; such as the slayer-of-three-bears, the taker-of-so-many-scalps, or straight-limbs, long-nose, and so on. Some of these, especially such as express approbation or esteem, are worn as proudly by their savage owners as that of duke or marquis is by European nobles.[238]They confer a distinction which begets respect and deference amongstthe tribes, and individuals so distinguished obtain the places of honour at feasts, and they are the leaders in battle. It is nearly the same in modern civilized life; titled personages are much sought after and fêted by the tribes of untitled; and are, moreover, the leaders of fashion. The only difference between the savage and civilized titles of honour is, that in the former case they can only be obtained by deeds; they must be earned; which is not always the case with modern distinctions.”
All titles of honour indubitably originated in official employments, though, in the lapse of ages, they have become, as to the majority, entirely honorary. This will appear on an etymological inquiry into the meaning of the titles still enjoyed in our social system. Thus,Dukeis equivalent withdux, a leader or commander, and such, in a military sense, were those personages who primarily bore this distinction.Marquis, according to the best authorities, signifies a military officer to whom the sovereign intrusted the guardianship of the marches or borders of a territory. AnEarlor count was the lieutenant or viceroy of a county, and the geographical term owes its origin to the office. A vicecomes, orViscount, again, was the deputy of a count. The derivation ofBaronis more obscure; still there was a period when official duties were required of the holders of the title. To descend to the lesser nobility,Knightis synonymous with servant, a servant in a threefold sense, first to religion, next to his sovereign, and thirdly to his ‘ladye;’ while anEsquirewas in antient timesecuyerorscutifer, the knight’s shield-bearer. Among the Orientals official duties are still attachedto every title of honour; and it is worthy of remark that the highest of all titles, that of king, has never, in any country, been merely honorary; the responsible duties of government having always been connected with it.
In sovereigns, whom our old writers quaintly term ‘fountains of honour,’ is vested the right of conferring dignities, and it is by a judicious use of this prerogative that the balance of a limited monarchy is properly preserved. Were there no difference of grade amongst the subjects of a state, the monarch would be too far removed from his people, and mutual disgust or indifference would be the consequence. A well-constituted peerage serves as a connecting link between the sovereign and the great body of his subjects, and may therefore be regarded, next to the loyal affections of the people, the firmest prop of the throne.
I know that, in these utilitarian days, this position is frequently and fiercely controverted, and that probably by many who have never read the following eloquent passage of Burke—a passage which thoughdecies repetita placebit, and which I therefore introduce without apology:
“To be honoured and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man. Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the securities against injustice and despotism implanted in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure property, and to preserve communities in a settled state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemuswas the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle in his own heart who wishes to level all the artificial institutions which have been adopted for giving a body to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem.It is a sour, malignant, and envious disposition, without taste for the reality, or for any image or representation of virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what had long flourished in splendour and in honour.I do not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land.”[239]
It is a fact not perhaps generally known that poverty formerly disqualified a peer from holding his dignity. In the reign of Edward IV, George Neville, duke of Bedford, was degraded on this account by Act of Parliament. The reason for this measure is given in the preamble of the Act: “Because it [poverty] causeth great extortion, &c. to the great trouble of all such countries where the estate [of the impoverished lord] happens to be.”[240]
Happily for some of its members, no such prerogative is now exercised by Parliament.
Dignities and titles, like other things, are of course estimated by their rarity. “If all men were noble, where would be the noblesse of nobility?” In no country has so much prudence been displayed in regard to the multiplication of titles as in England. On the continent, as every one is aware, there is such a profusion of titled persons that, excepting those of the highest orders, they are very little respected on thescore of honour. Titles are so cheap that persons of very indifferent reputation not unfrequently obtain them; and hence the Spanish proverb: “Formerly rogues were hung on crosses, but now crosses are hung upon rogues!” A German potentate once requested to be informed what station an English esquire occupied in the ladder of precedence, and was answered, that he stood somewhat higher than a French count, and somewhat lower than a German prince! There was certainly more truth than courtesy in the reply.
Much has been written on the orders of precedence. I am neither disposed nor qualified to handle so delicate a subject; but the following table, showing how the various grades were formerly recognized by theirhawks, is so curious that I do not hesitate to introduce it: