Oswald Barron

“ Such were the knots of Stafford, Bourchier and Wake, the scabbard-crampet of La Warr, the sickle of Hungerford, the swan of Toesni, Bohun and Lancaster, the dun-bull of Nevill, the blue boar of Vere and the bear and ragged staff of Beauchamp, Nevill of Warwick and Dudley of Northumberland. So well known of all were these symbols that a political ballad of 1449 sings of the misfortunes of the great lords without naming one of them, all men understanding what signified the Falcon, the Water Bowge and the Cresset and the other badges of the doggerel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though a black lion in a silver field may be armed with red claws, and a golden leopard in a red field given blue claws and tongues, these trifles are but fancies which follow the taste of the painter, and are never of obligation. The tusks and hoofs of the boar, and often the horns of the hart, are thus given in some paintings a colour of their own which elsewhere is neglected.
As the lion is among armorial beasts, so is the eagle among the birds. ”

“ But nice distinctions of outline, even were they ascertainable, are not to be marked on the tiny seal, or easily expressed by the broad strokes of the shield painter. The leopard was indeed lesser than the lion, but in armory, as in the Noah’s arks launched by the old yards, the bear is no bigger than the badger. Then a happy device came to the armorist. He would paint the leopard like the lion at all points. But as the lion looks forward the leopard should look sidelong, showing his whole face. ”

“ The crest of a cadet is often differenced like the arms, and thus a wyver or a leopard will have a label about its neck. The Montagu griffon on the helm of John, marquess of Montagu, holds in its beak the gimel ring with which he differenced his father’s shield. His brother, the King-Maker, following a custom commoner abroad than at home, shows two crested helms on his seal, one for Montagu and one for Beauchamp—none for his father’s house of Nevill. It is often stated that a man, unless by some special grace or allowance, can have but one crest. ”

“ By the 12th century the tournament had grown so popular in England that Henry II. found it necessary to forbid the sport which gathered in one place so many barons and knights in arms. In that age we have the famous description by William FitzStephen of the martial games of the Londoners in Smithfield. He tells how on Sundays in Lent a noble train of young men would take the field well mounted, rushing out of the city with spear and shield to ape the feats of war. Divided into parties, one body would retreat, while another pursued striving to unhorse them. ”

“ A twice-married woman would sometimes show a shield charged with her paternal arms between those of both of her husbands, as did Beatrice Stafford in 1404, while in 1412 Elizabeth, Lady of Clinton, seals with a shield paled with five coats—her arms of la Plaunche between those of four husbands. In most cases the parted shield is found on the wife’s seal alone. Even in our own time it is recognized that the wife’s arms should not appear upon the husband’s official seal, upon his banner or surcoat or upon his shield when it is surrounded by the collar of an order. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the wife is an heir, her arms are now borne in a little scocheon above those of her husband. If the husband’s arms be in an unquartered shield the central charge is often hidden away by this scocheon.
The practice of marshalling arms by quartering spread in England by reason of the example given by Eleanor, wife of Edward I., who displayed the castle of Castile quartered with the lion of Leon. Isabel of France, wife of Edward II., seals with a shield in whose four quarters are the arms of England, France, Navarre and Champagne. ”

“ A little roundel of the arms of a Japanese house was often borne as a crest in the Japanese helmet, stepped in a socket above the middle of the brim. The 12th-century seal of Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, shows a demi-lion painted or beaten on the side of the upper part of his helm, and on his seal of 1198 our own Richard Cœur de Lion’s barrel-helm has a leopard upon the semicircular comb-ridge, the edge of which is set off with feathers arranged as two wings. ”

“ In the reign of William IV., the third and last Viscount Courtenay was living unmarried in Paris, an exile who for sufficient reasons was keeping out of the reach of the English criminal law. In the name of this man, his presumptive heir male, William Courtenay, clerk assistant of the parliament, succeeded in persuading the House of Lords that the Courtenay earldom under the patent of 1553 was still in existence, the plea being that the terms of the remainder—to him and his heirs male for ever—did not limit the succession to heirs male of the body of the grantee. ”

“ His cousins are seen changing the crosslets for martlets or for billets. Bastards difference their father’s arms, as a rule, in no more striking manner than the legitimate cadets. Towards the end of the 14th century we have the beginning of the custom whereby certain bastards of princely houses differenced the paternal arms by charging them upon a bend, a fesse or a chief, a cheveron or a quarter. Before his legitimation the eldest son of John of Gaunt by Katharine Swinford is said to have borne a shield party silver and azure with the arms of Lancaster on a bend. ”

“ In Ireland the heir male of the Ormonde earls, Sir Piers Butler—“red Piers”—assumed the earldom of Ormonde in 1515 and seized upon the Irish estates. Being a good ally against the rebel Irish, the government temporized with his claim. He was an Irishman born, allied to the wild Irish chieftains by his mother, a daughter of the MacMorrogh Kavanagh; the earldom had been long in the male line; all Irish sentiment was against the feudal custom which would take it out of the family, and the two co-heirs were widows of English knights. ”

“ In modern armory the label is reckoned a difference proper only to an eldest son. But in older times, although the label was very commonly used by the son and heir apparent, he often chose another distinction during his father’s lifetime, while the label is sometimes found upon the shields of younger sons. Changing the colours or varying the number of charges, drawing a bend or baston over the shield or adding a border are common differences of cadet lines. Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, bore “Gules with a fesse and six crosslets gold.” ”

“ Henry V.’s herald, named from his master’s coat, was Leopard Herald; and Napoleon’s gazettes never fail to speak of the English leopards. In our own days, those who deal with armory as antiquaries and students of the past will observe the old custom for convenience’ sake. Those for whom the interest of heraldry lies in the nonsense-language brewed during post-medieval years may correct the medieval ignorance at their pleasure. ”

“ Bends follow the same fashion, early bends engrailed or indented being some four or more fusils joined bendwise by their blunt sides, bends of less than four fusils being very rare. Thus also the engrailed or indented saltires, pales or cheverons, the exact number of the fusils which go to the making of these being unconsidered. For the fesse there is another law. The fesse indented or engrailed is made up of fusils as is the engrailed bend. But although early rolls of arms sometimes neglect this detail in their blazon, the fusils making a fesse must always be of an ascertained number. ”

“ Richard Beauchamp, the adventurous earl of Warwick, who had seen most European courts during his wanderings, may have had this shield in mind when, over his arms of Beauchamp quartering Newburgh, he set a scocheon of Clare quartering Despenser, the arms of his wife Isabel Despenser, co-heir of the earls of Gloucester. The seal of his son-in-law, the King-Maker, shows four quarters—Beauchamp quartering Clare, Montagu quartering Monthermer, Nevill alone, and Newburgh quartering Despenser. ”

“ Thus John Cromwell (14th century) bore “Silver a chief gules with a baston gobony of gold and azure.”
The scocheon or shield used as a charge is found among the earliest arms. Itself charged with arms, it served to indicate alliance by blood or by tenure with another house, as in the bearings of St Owen whose shield of “Gules with a cross silver” has a scocheon of Clare in the quarter. In the latter half of the 15th century it plays an important part in the curious marshalling of the arms of great houses and lordships. ”

“ Their history is full of warring with the native Irish, and as the sun stood still upon Gibeon, even so, we are told, it rested over the red bog of Athy while James the White Earl was staying the wild O'Mores. More than one of the earls of Ormonde had the name of a scholar, while of the 6th earl, master of every European tongue and ambassador to many courts, Edward IV. is said to have declared that were good breeding and liberal qualities lost to the world they might be found again in John, earl of Ormonde. The earls were often absent from Ireland on errands of war or peace. ”

“ The most commonly found is the line engrailed, which for the student of medieval armory must be associated with the line indented. In its earliest form the line which a roll of arms will describe indifferently as indented or engrailed takes almost invariably the form to which the name indented is restricted by modern armorists.
The cross may serve as our first example. A cross, engrailed or indented, the words being used indifferently, is a cross so deeply notched at the edges that it seems made up of so many lozenge-shaped wedges or fusils. ”

“ The heraldry books, eager to work out problems of blazonry, decide that a shield divided into six squares should be described as “Party per fesse with a pale counterchanged,” and one divided into nine squares as bearing “a cross quarter-pierced.” It seems a simpler business to follow a 15th-century fashion and to blazon such shields as being of six or nine “pieces.” Thus John Garther (15th century) bore “Nine pieces erminees and ermine” and Whitgreave of Staffordshire “Nine pieces of azure and of Stafford’s arms, which are gold with a cheveron gules.” ”

“ That mysterious business of totemism, which students of folk-lore have discovered among most primitive peoples, must be regarded as another of the forerunners of true heraldry, the totem of a tribe supplying a badge which was sometimes displayed on the body of the tribesman in paint, scars or tattooing. Totemism so far touches our heraldry that some would trace to its symbols the white horse of Westphalia, the bull’s head of the Mecklenburgers and many other ancient armories. ”

“ The Fret, drawn as a voided lozenge interlaced by a slender saltire, is counted an Ordinary. A charge in such a shape is extremely rare in medieval armory, its ancient form when the field is covered by it being a number of bastons—three being the customary number—interlaced by as many more from the sinister side. Although the whole is described as a fret in certain English blazons of the 15th century, the adjective “fretty” is more commonly used. Trussel’s fret is remarkable for its bezants at the joints, which stand, doubtless, for the golden nail-heads of the “trellis” suggested by his name. ”

“ Some writers, the learned Menêtrier among them, will have it that they were first the fantastically clad fellows who supported and displayed the knight’s shield at the opening of the tournament. If the earliest supporters were wild men, angels or Saracens, this theory might be defended; but lions, boars and talbots, dogs and trees are guises into which a man would put himself with difficulty. By the middle of the 14th century we find what are clearly recognizable as supporters. ”

“ It has been said that these Poles were the first English peers whose fortunes had been founded upon riches gained in trade; but the Berkeleys, descendants of Robert fitz Harding, the rich burghers of Gloucester, must perhaps be reckoned before them. Their pedigree begins with one Will1am atte Pole (d. c. 1329) , a merchant of Ravensrode who settled in Hull, where his widow became the wife of John Rotenhering, also a merchant. His sons, Sir Richard and Sir William atte Pole, were both famous for their wealth at a time when the Crown had great need of rich men’s aid. ”

“ In 1497 the seal of Giles Daubeney and Reynold Bray, fellow justices in eyre, shows their arms parted in one shield. English bishops, by a custom begun late in the 14th century, part the see’s arms with their own. By modern English custom a husband and wife, where the wife is not an heir, use the parted coat on a shield, a widow bearing the same upon the lozenge on which, when a spinster, she displayed her father’s coat alone. ”

“ In ancient rolls of arms the word Rowel is often used, and probably indicated the pierced molet. That the piercing was reckoned an essential difference is shown by a roll of the time of Edward II., in which Sir John of Pabenham bears “Barry azure and silver, with a bend gules and three molets gold thereon,” arms which Sir John his son differences by piercing the molets. Beside these names is that of Sir Walter Baa with “Gules a cheveron and three rowels silver,” rowels which are shown on seals of this family as pierced molets. ”

“ But the death of the imprisoned earl of Warwick may have suggested to him that Henry’s court was a dangerous place for those of the blood of York, and in 1501 he found his way to the emperor Maximilian in Tirol with a scheme for the invasion of England. Although the kaiser at first promised him men for the adventure, nothing came of his promises. Maximilian, persuaded by a gift of English money, bound himself not to suceour English rebels. Suffolk, who had re assumed the ducal style, was at tainted in 1504, and in the same year was seized by the duke of Guelders. ”

“ In the 14th-century rolls the word “potent” is sometimes used for these crosses fitchy, the long foot suggesting a potent or staff. From this source modern English armorists derive many of their “crosses potent,” whose four arms have the T heads of old-fashioned walking staves.
Howard bore “Silver a bend between six crosslets fitchy gules.”
Scott of Congerhurst in Kent bore “Silver a crosslet fitchy sable.”
The Saltire is the cross in the form of that on which St Andrew suffered, whence it is borne on the banner of Scotland, and by the Andrew family of Northamptonshire. ”

“ After his legitimation in 1397 he changed his bearings to the royal arms of France and England within a border gobony of silver and azure. Warren of Poynton, descended from the last earl Warenne and his concubine, Maude of Neirford, bore the checkered shield of Warenne with a quarter charged with the ermine lion of Neirford. By the end of the middle ages the baston under continental influence tended to become a bastard’s difference in England and the jingle of the two words may have helped to support the custom. About the same time the border gobony began to acquire a like character. ”