"If any person be advanced into an office or dignity of publique
administration, be it eyther ecclesiasticall, martiall, or ciuill: so
that the same office comprehendeth in it _dignitatem vel dignitatis
titulum_, either dignitie or (at the least) a title of dignitye: the
Heralde must not refuse to devise to such a publique person, upon his
instant request and willingnes to beare the same without reproche, a
coate of armes: and thenceforth to matriculate him, with his {51}
intermarriages, and issues descending, in the register of the Gentle
and Noble."
Thus wrote Sir John Ferne in _The Blazon of Gentrie_, printed in the year
1586. So also Coates, in his additions to Gwillim, writing in 1724, says:
"For though arms, in their first acceptation, were (as is shewed) taken
up at any gentleman's pleasure, yet hath that liberty for many ages
been deny'd, and they, by regal authority, made the rewards and ensigns
of merit, &c., the gracious favours of princes; no one being, by the
law of gentility in England, allowed the bearing thereof, but those
that either have them by descent, or grant, or purchase from the body
or badge of any prisoner they in open and lawful war had taken."
He proceeds to adduce various authorities on this subject, for which I
would refer to the Introduction to the last edition of Gwillim's
_Heraldry_, p. 16. &c.