Gavaston, earl of Cornwall, bore "Vert six eagles gold."
Bayforde of Fordingbridge sealed (in 1388) with arms of "An eagle
bendwise, with a border engrailed and a baston."
Graunson bore "Paly silver and azure with a bend gules and three
golden eagles thereon."
Seymour bore "Gules a lure of two golden wings."
Commoner than the eagle as a charge is the martlet, a humbler bird which
is never found as the sole charge of a shield. In all but a few early
representations the feathers of the legs are seen without the legs or
claws. The martlet indicates both swallow and martin, and in the arms of
the Cornish Arundels the martlets must stand for "hirundels" or
swallows.
[Illustration: Monthermer. Siggeston. Gavaston. Graunson. Arundel.]
The falcon or hawk is borne as a rule with close wings, so that he may
not be taken for the eagle. In most cases he is there to play on the
bearer's name, and this may be said of most of the flight of lesser
birds.
Naunton bore "Sable three martlets silver."
Heron bore "Azure three herons silver."
Fauconer bore "Silver three falcons gules."
Hauvile bore "Azure a dance between three hawks gold."
Twenge bore "Silver a fesse gules between three popinjays (or parrots)
vert."
Cranesley bore "Silver a cheveron gules between three cranes azure."
Asdale bore "Gules a swan silver."
Dalston bore "Silver a cheveron engrailed between three daws' heads
razed sable."
Corbet bore "Gold two corbies sable."
[Illustration: Seymour. Naunton. Fauconer. Twenge.]
Cockfield bore "Silver three cocks gules."
Burton bore "Sable a cheveron sable between three silver owls."
Rokeby bore "Silver a cheveron sable between three rooks."
Duffelde bore "Sable a cheveron silver between three doves."
Pelham bore "Azure three pelicans silver."
[Illustration: Asdale. Corbet. Cockfield. Burton.]
Sumeri (13th century) sealed with arms of "A peacock with his tail
spread."
John Pyeshale of Suffolk (14th century) sealed with arms of "Three
magpies."
_Fishes, Reptiles and Insects._--Like the birds, the fishes are borne
for the most part to call to mind their bearers' names. Unless their
position be otherwise named, they are painted as upright in the shield,
as though rising towards the water surface. The dolphin is known by his
bowed back, old artists making him a grotesquely decorative figure.
Lucy bore "Gules three luces (or pike) silver."
Heringaud bore "Azure, crusilly gold, with six golden herrings."
Fishacre bore "Gules a dolphin silver."
La Roche bore "Three roach swimming."
John Samon (14th century) sealed with arms of "Three salmon swimming."
Sturgeon bore "Azure three sturgeon swimming gold, with a fret gules
over all."
Whalley bore "Silver three whales' heads razed sable."
Shell-fish would hardly have place in English armory were it not for the
abundance of scallops which have followed their appearance in the
banners of Dacre and Scales. The crest of the Yorkshire Scropes,
playing upon their name, was a pair of crabs' claws.
Dacre bore "Gules three scallops silver."
Shelley bore "Sable a fesse engrailed between three whelk-shells
gold."
[Illustration: Rokeby. Pelham. Lucy. Fishacre. Roche.]
Reptiles and insects are barely represented. The lizards in the crest
and supporters of the Ironmongers of London belong to the 15th century.
Gawdy of Norfolk may have borne the tortoise in his shield in the same
age. "Silver three toads sable" was quartered as a second coat for
Botreaux of Cornwall in the 16th century--Botereau or Boterel signifying
a little toad in the old French tongue--but the arms do not appear on
the old Botreaux seals beside their ancient bearing of the griffon.
Beston bore "Silver a bend between six bees sable" and a 15-century
Harbottle seems to have sealed with arms of three bluebottle flies.
Three butterflies are in the shield of Presfen of Lancashire in 1415,
while the winged insect shown on the seal of John Mayre, a King's Lynn
burgess of the age of Edward I., is probably a mayfly.
[Illustration: Dacre. Shelley. See of Salisbury. Isle of Man.]
_Human Charges._--Man and the parts of him play but a small part in
English shields, and we have nothing to put beside such a coat as that
of the German Manessen, on which two armed knights attack each other's
hauberks with their teeth. But certain arms of religious houses and the
like have the whole figure, the see of Salisbury bearing the Virgin and
Child in a blue field. And old crests have demi-Saracens and falchion
men, coal-miners, monks and blackamoors. Sowdan bore in his shield a
turbaned soldan's head; Eady, three old men's "'eads"! Heads of maidens,
the "winsome marrows" of the ballad, are in the arms of Marow. The
Stanleys, as kings of Man, quartered the famous three-armed legs
whirling mill-sail fashion, and Tremayne of the west bore three men's
arms in like wise. "Gules three hands silver" was for Malmeyns as early
as the 13th century, and Tynte of Colchester displayed hearts.
_Miscellaneous Charges._--Other charges of the shield are less frequent
but are found in great variety, the reason for most of them being the
desire to play upon the bearer's name.
Weapons and the like are rare, having regard to the military
associations of armory. Daubeney bore three helms; Philip Marmion took
with his wife, the coheir of Kilpek, the Kilpek shield of a sword
(_espek_). Tuck had a stabbing sword or "tuck." Bent bows were borne by
Bowes, an arblast by Arblaster, arrows by Archer, birding-bolts or
_bosouns_ by Bosun, the mangonel by Mangnall. The three lances of
Amherst is probably a medieval coat; Leweston had battle-axes.
A scythe was in the shield of Praers; Picot had picks; Bilsby a hammer
or "beal"; Malet showed mallets. The chamberlain's key is in the shield
of a Chamberlain, and the spenser's key in that of a Spenser. Porter
bore the porter's bell, Boteler the butler's cup. Three-legged pots were
borne by Monbocher. Crowns are for Coroun. Yarde had yard-wands;
Bordoun a burdon or pilgrim's staff.
Of horse-furniture we have the stirrups of Scudamore and Giffard, the
horse-barnacles of Bernake, and the horse-shoes borne by many branches
and tenants of the house of Ferrers.
Of musical instruments there are pipes, trumps and harps for Pipe,
Trumpington and Harpesfeld. Hunting horns are common among families
bearing such names as Forester or Horne. Remarkable charges are the
three organs of Grenville, who held of the house of Clare, the lords of
Glamorgan.
Combs play on the name of Tunstall, and gloves (_wauns_ or _gauns_) on
that of Wauncy. Hose were borne by Hoese; buckles by a long list of
families. But the most notable of the charges derived from clothing is
the hanging sleeve familiar in the arms of Hastings, Conyers and Mansel.
Chess-rooks, hardly to be distinguished from the _roc_ or _roquet_ at
the head of a jousting-lance, were borne by Rokewode and by many more.
Topcliffe had pegtops in his shield, while Ambesas had a cast of three
dice which should each show the point of one, for "to throw ambesace" is
an ancient phrase used of those who throw three aces.
Although we are a sea-going people, there are few ships in our armory,
most of these in the arms of sea-ports. Anchors are commoner.
Castles and towers, bridges, portcullises and gates have all examples,
and a minster-church was the curious charge borne by the ancient house
of Musters of Kirklington.
Letters of the alphabet are very rarely found in ancient armory; but
three capital T's, in old English script, were borne by Toft of Cheshire
in the 14th century. In the period of decadence whole words or
sentences, commonly the names of military or naval victories, are often
seen.
_Blazonry._--An ill-service has been done to the students of armory by
those who have pretended that the phrases in which the shields and their
charges are described or blazoned must follow arbitrary laws devised by
writers of the period of armorial decadence. One of these laws, and a
mischievous one, asserts that no tincture should be named a second time
in the blazon of one coat. Thus if gules be the hue of the field any
charge of that colour must thereafter be styled "of the first." Obeying
this law the blazoner of a shield of arms elaborately charged may find
himself sadly involved among "of the first," "of the second," and "of
the third." It is needless to say that no such law obtained among
armorists of the middle ages. The only rule that demands obedience is
that the brief description should convey to the reader a true knowledge
of the arms described.
The examples of blazonry given in that part of this article which deals
with armorial charges will be more instructive to the student than any
elaborated code of directions. It will be observed that the description
of the field is first set down, the blazoner giving its plain tincture
or describing it as burely, party, paly or barry, as powdered or sown
with roses, crosslets or fleurs-de-lys. Then should follow the main or
central charges, the lion or griffon dominating the field, the cheveron
or the pale, the fesse, bend or bars, and next the subsidiary charges in
the field beside the "ordinary" and those set upon it. Chiefs and
quarters are blazoned after the field and its contents, and the border,
commonly an added difference, is taken last of all. Where there are
charges both upon and beside a bend, fesse or the like, a curious
inversion is used by pedantic blazoners. The arms of Mr Samuel Pepys of
the Admiralty Office would have been described in earlier times as
"Sable a bend gold between two horses' heads razed silver, with three
fleurs-de-lys sable on the bend." Modern heraldic writers would give the
sentence as "Sable, on a bend or between two horses' heads erased
argent, three fleurs-de-lys of the first." Nothing is gained by this
inversion but the precious advantage of naming the bend but once. On the
other side it may be said that, while the newer blazon couches itself in
a form that seems to prepare for the naming of the fleurs-de-lys as the
important element of the shield, the older form gives the fleurs-de-lys
as a mere postscript, and rightly, seeing that charges in such a
position are very commonly the last additions to a shield by way of
difference. In like manner when a crest is described it is better to say
"a lion's head out of a crown" than "out of a crown a lion's head." The
first and last necessity in blazonry is lucidity, which is cheaply
gained at the price of a few syllables repeated.
_Modern Heraldry._--With the accession of the Tudors armory began a
rapid decadence. Heraldry ceased to play its part in military affairs,
the badges and banners under which the medieval noble's retinue came
into the field were banished, and even the tournament in its later days
became a renascence pageant which did not need the painted shield and
armorial trappers. Treatises on armory had been rare in the days before
the printing press, but even so early a writer as Nicholas Upton had
shown himself as it were unconcerned with the heraldry that any man
might see in the camp and the street. From the Book of St Albans onward
the treatises on armory are informed with a pedantry which touches the
point of crazy mysticism in such volumes as that of Sylvanus Morgan.
Thus came into the books those long lists of "diminutions of
ordinaries," the closets and escarpes, the endorses and ribands, the
many scores of strange crosses and such wild fancies as the rule, based
on an early German pedantry, that the tinctures in peers shields should
be given the names of precious stones and those in the shields of
sovereigns the names of planets. Blazon became cumbered with that
vocabulary whose French of Stratford atte Bowe has driven serious
students from a business which, to use a phrase as true as it is
hackneyed, was at last "abandoned to the coachpainter and the
undertaker."
With the false genealogy came in the assumption or assigning of shields
to which the new bearers had often no better claim than lay in a surname
resembling that of the original owner. The ancient system of
differencing arms disappeared. Now and again we see a second son obeying
the book-rules and putting a crescent in his shield or a third son
displaying a molet, but long before our own times the practice was
disregarded, and the most remote kinsman of a gentle house displayed the
"whole coat" of the head of his family.
The art of armory had no better fate. An absurd rule current for some
three hundred years has ordered that the helms of princes and knights
should be painted full-faced and those of peers and gentlemen sidelong.
Obeying this, the herald painters have displayed the crests of knights
and princes as sideways upon a full-faced helm; the torse or wreath,
instead of being twisted about the brow of the helm, has become a
sausage-shaped bar see-sawing above the helm; and upon this will be
balanced a crest which might puzzle the ancient craftsman to mould in
his leather or parchment. A ship on a lee-shore with a thunderstorm
lowering above its masts may stand as an example of such devices.
"Tastes, of course, differ," wrote Dr Woodward, "but the writer can
hardly think that the epergne given to Lieut.-General Smith by his
friends at Bombay was a fitting ornament for a helmet." As with the
crest, so with the shield. It became crowded with ill-balanced figures
devised by those who despised and ignored the ancient examples whose
painters had followed instinctively a simple and pleasant convention.
Landscapes and seascapes, musical lines, military medals and corrugated
boiler-flues have all made their appearance in the shield. Even as on
the signs of public houses, written words have taken the place of
figures, and the often-cited arms exemplified to the first Earl Nelson
marked, it may be hoped, the high watermark of these distressing
modernisms. Of late years, indeed, official armory in England has shown
a disposition to follow the lessons of the archaeologist, although the
recovery of medieval use has not yet been as successful as in Germany,
where for a long generation a school of vigorous armorial art has
flourished.
_Officers of Arms._--Officers of arms, styled kings of arms, heralds and
pursuivants, appear at an early period of the history of armory as the
messengers in peace and war of princes and magnates. It is probable that
from the first they bore in some wise their lord's arms as the badge of
their office. In the 14th century we have heralds with the arms on a
short mantle, witness the figure of the duke of Gelderland's herald
painted in the _Armorial de Gelre_. The title of Blue Mantle
pursuivant, as old as the reign of Edward III., suggests a like usage in
England. When the tight-laced coat of arms went out of fashion among the
knighthood the loose tabard of arms with its wide sleeves was at once
taken in England as the armorial dress of both herald and cavalier, and
the fashion of it has changed but little since those days. Clad in such
a coat the herald was the image of his master and, although he himself
was rarely chosen from any rank above that of the lesser gentry, his
person, as a messenger, acquired an almost priestly sacredness. To
injure or to insult him was to affront the coat that he wore.
We hear of kings of arms in the royal household of the 13th century, and
we may compare their title with those of such officers as the King of
the Ribalds and the King of the Minstrels; but it is noteworthy that,
even in modern warrants for heralds' patents, the custom of the reign of
Edward III. is still cited as giving the necessary precedents for the
officers' liveries. Officers of arms took their titles from their
provinces or from the titles and badges of their masters. Thus we have
Garter, Norroy and Clarenceux, March, Lancaster, Windsor, Leicester,
Leopard, Falcon and Blanc Sanglier as officers attached to the royal
house; Chandos, the herald of the great Sir John Chandos; Vert Eagle of
the Nevill earls of Salisbury, Esperance and Crescent of the Percys of
Northumberland. The spirit of Henry VII.'s legislation was against such
usages in baronial houses, and in the age of the Tudors the last of the
private heralds disappears.
In England the royal officers of arms were made a corporation by Richard
III. Nowadays the members of this corporation, known as the College of
Arms or Heralds' College, are Garter Principal King of Arms, Clarenceux
King of Arms South of Trent, Norroy King of Arms North of Trent, the
heralds Windsor, Chester, Richmond, Somerset, York and Lancaster, and
the pursuivants Rouge Croix, Bluemantle, Rouge Dragon and Portcullis.
Another king of arms, not a member of this corporation, has been
attached to the order of the Bath since the reign of George I., and an
officer of arms, without a title, attends the order of St Michael and St
George.
There is no college or corporation of heralds in Scotland or Ireland. In
Scotland "Lyon-king-of-arms," "Lyon rex armorum," or "Leo fecialis," so
called from the lion on the royal shield, is the head of the office of
arms. When first the dignity was constituted is not known, but Lyon was
a prominent figure in the coronation of Robert II. in 1371. The office
was at first, as in England, attached to the earl marshal, but it has
long been conferred by patent under the great seal, and is held direct
from the crown. Lyon is also king-of-arms for the national order of the
Thistle. He is styled "Lord Lyon," and the office has always been held
by men of family, and frequently by a peer who would appoint a "Lyon
depute." He is supreme in all matters of heraldry in Scotland. Besides
the "Lyon depute," there are the Scottish heralds, Albany, Ross and
Rothesay, with precedence according to date of appointment; and the
pursuivants, Carrick, March and Unicorn. Heralds and pursuivants are
appointed by Lyon.
In Ireland also there is but one king-of-arms, Ulster. The office was
instituted by Edward VI. in 1553. The patent is given by Rymer, and
refers to certain emoluments as "praedicto officio ... ab antiquo
spectantibus." The allusion is to an Ireland king-of-arms mentioned in
the reign of Richard II. and superseded by Ulster. Ulster holds office
by patent, during pleasure; under him the Irish office of arms consists
of two heralds, Cork and Dublin; and a pursuivant, Athlone. Ulster is
king-of-arms to the order of St Patrick. He held visitations in parts of
Ireland from 1568 to 1620, and these and other records, including all
grants of arms from the institution of the office, are kept in the
Birmingham Tower, Dublin.
The armorial duties of the ancient heralds are not clearly defined. The
patent of Edward IV., creating John Wrythe king of arms of England with
the style of Garter, speaks vaguely of the care of the office of arms
and those things which belong to that office. We know that the heralds
had their part in the ordering of tournaments, wherein armory played its
greatest part, and that their expert knowledge of arms gave them such
duties as reckoning the noble slain on a battlefield. But it is not
until the 15th century that we find the heralds following a recognized
practice of granting or assigning arms, a practice on which John of
Guildford comments, saying that such arms given by a herald are not of
greater authority than those which a man has taken for himself. The Book
of St Albans, put forth in 1486, speaking of arms granted by princes and
lords, is careful to add that "armys bi a mannys proper auctorite take,
if an other man have not borne theym afore, be of strength enogh,"
repeating, as it seems, Nicholas Upton's opinion which, in this matter,
does not conflict with the practice of his day. It is probable that the
earlier grants of arms by heralds were made by reason of persons
uncunning in armorial lore applying for a suitable device to experts in
such matters--and that such setting forth of arms may have been
practised even in the 14th century.
The earliest known grants of arms in England by sovereigns or private
persons are, as a rule, the conveyance of a right in a coat of arms
already existing or of a differenced version of it. Thus in 1391 Thomas
Grendale, a squire who had inherited through his grandmother the right
in the shield of Beaumeys, granted his right in it to Sir William
Moigne, a knight who seems to have acquired the whole or part of the
Beaumeys manor in Sawtry. Under Henry VI. we have certain rare and
curious letters of the crown granting nobility with arms "_in signum
hujusmodi nobilitatis_" to certain individuals, some, and perhaps all of
whom, were foreigners who may have asked for letters which followed a
continental usage. After this time we have a regular series of grants by
heralds who in later times began to assert that new arms, to be valid,
must necessarily be derived from their assignments, although ancient use
continued to be recognized.
An account of the genealogical function of the heralds, so closely
connected with their armorial duties will be found in the article
GENEALOGY. In spite of the work of such distinguished men as Camden and
Dugdale they gradually fell in public estimation until Blackstone could
write of them that the marshalling of coat-armour had fallen into the
hands of certain officers called heralds, who had allowed for lucre such
falsity and confusion to creep into their records that even their common
seal could no longer be received as evidence in any court of justice.
From this low estate they rose again when the new archaeology included
heraldry in its interests, and several antiquaries of repute have of
late years worn the herald's tabard.
In spite of the vast amount of material which the libraries catalogue
under the head of "Heraldry," the subject has as yet received little
attention from antiquaries working in the modern spirit. The old books
are as remarkable for their detachment from the facts as for their
folly. The work of Nicholas Upton, _De studio militari_, although
written in the first half of the 15th century, shows, as has been
already remarked, no attempt to reconcile the conceits of the author
with the armorial practice which he must have seen about him on every
side. Gerard Leigh, Bossewell, Ferne and Morgan carry on this bad
tradition, each adding his own extravagances. The _Display of Heraldry_,
first published in 1610 under the name of John Guillim, is more
reasonable if not more learned, and in its various editions gives a
valuable view of the decadent heraldry of the 17th century. In the 19th
century many important essays on the subject are to be found in such
magazines as the _Genealogist_, the _Herald and Genealogist_ and the
_Ancestor_, while Planche's _Pursuivant of Arms_ contains some slight
but suggestive work which attempts original enquiry. But Dr Woodward's
_Treatise on Heraldry, British and Foreign_ (1896), in spite of many
errors arising from the author's reliance upon unchecked material, must
be counted the only scholarly book in English upon a matter which has
engaged so many pens. Among foreign volumes may be cited those of
Menestrier and Spener, and the vast compilation of the German
Siebmacher. Notable ordinaries of arms are those of Papworth and
Renesse, companions to the armorials of Burke and Rietstap. The student
may be advised to turn his attention to all works dealing with the
effigies, brasses and other monuments of the middle ages, to the ancient
heraldic seals and to the heraldry of medieval architecture and
ornament. (O. Ba.)