Royal arms

“ Florin and the Royal Arms.—What is the authority for placing the national arms (which are by royal proclamations ordered to be borne quarterly in ratification of the respective unions, and to be borne under one imperial crown) in separate shields? They surely cannot with any heraldic propriety be so arranged. The absurdity was remarked in the reign of the Georges, for by the separation of the coats the arms of the German Dominions of George I. obtained the second place, viz. the dexter side, with France on the sinister, and Ireland at the bottom or fourth place. ”

“ Providing a person is palpably living in that style and condition of life in which the use of arms is usual, subject always to the Earl Marshal's pleasure and discretion, a Grant of Arms can ordinarily be obtained upon payment of the usual fees. The social status of present-day grantees of arms is considerably in advance of the status of grantees in the Tudor period. An augmentation of arms, however, is on a totally and entirely different footing. It is an especial mark of favour from the Sovereign, and the effective grant is a Royal Warrant under the hand and Privy Seal of the Sovereign. ”

“ We were next led into the Armoury, in which are these particularities:—Spears, out of which you may shoot; shields, that will give fire four times; a great many rich halberds, commonly called partisans, with which the guard defend the royal person in battle; some lances, covered with red and green velvet, and the body-armour of Henry VIII.; many and very beautiful arms, as well for men as for horses in horse-fights; the lance of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, three spans thick ”

“ We have great need of artillery, ammunition, and arms for the men who are here. Will your Majesty please have us provided with the best men and men of the best morals that can be found, for this is necessary for the service of your Majesty whose royal Catholic person we pray our Lord to preserve with greater kingdoms and increasing seigniories, as is desired by us, your Majesty’s faithful servants. ”

“ First Coat-of-Arms
Variety.—Used without supporters.
[Monro. Works. Edinburgh, 1781.]
[Pg 185]
Second Coat-of-Arms
Arms.—Within the Garter. Quarterly.
1st and 4th, England. 2nd, Scotland. 3rd, Ireland.
Over all, on an escutcheon of pretence, the arms of the Royal Dominions in Germany ensigned with an electoral bonnet gu., turned up with miniver. Used from 1st January 1801 until 8th June 1816. Colours as used by George I. (q.v.) .
Crest, Supporters, and Motto as used by James I. (q.v.) . ”

“ Consequently all who held land having, because of that land, to be responsible for followers in battle, found it necessary to use arms. The corollary is therefore evident, that all who held lands of the King were gentlemen or noble, and used arms; and as a consequence all who possessed arms were gentlemen, for they would not need or use arms, nor was their armour of a character upon which they could display arms, unless they were leaders. The leaders, we have seen, were the land-owning or upper class; therefore every one who had arms was a gentleman, and every gentleman had arms. ”

“ In accordance with the strictest laws of armory, the badge, embroidered on the front and back of the tunic, has changed, and is now the triple badge—the rose, the thistle, and the shamrock—of the triple kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Every soldier who wears a scarlet coat, the livery of his Sovereign, every regiment that carries its colours, every saddle-cloth with a Royal emblem thereupon, is evidence that the use of armory in battle still exists in a small degree to the present day ”

“ There is not the slightest doubt that, in the earliest infancy of the science, arms were assumed and chosen without the control of the Crown; and one would not be far wrong in assuming that, so long as the rights accruing from prior appropriation of other people were respected, a landowner finding the necessity of arms in battle, was originally at liberty to assume what arms he liked. ”

“ Taking into consideration the great antiquity of these “name-devices,” and their early introduction into the armorial shield, I cannot see any good reason for the strong prejudices which have existed against them in modern times. To me, indeed, they appear not only ‘allowable’ but ‘commendable’ armory; for arms, like names, are signs of personality, and therefore those which ‘speak to the eye’ most intelligibly are preferable to those charges which have in themselves no meaning. ”

“ Behind them rode the cavalry, the flower of the French nobility, with their gilded helmets and neck bands, their velvet and silk surcoats, their swords each of which had its own name, their shields each telling of territorial estates, and their colours each telling of a lady-love. Besides defensive arms, each man bore a lance in his hand, like an Italian gendarme, with a solid grooved end, and on his saddle bow a quantity of weapons, some for cutting and same for thrusting. ”

“ We find, therefore, in the poems and chronicles of this later time, constant mention of rich arms and armour; and in the capitularies of Charlemagne especially, we get a glimpse of the improvements in northern warfare. "Let each count," commands the emperor, "be careful that the troops he has to lead to battle are fully equipped; that they have spear, shield, a bow with two strings, and twelve arrows, helmet, and coat-of-fence [7] ." We here see the soldiery adding to their defensive appointments the casque and lorica, and to their offensive arms the bow and arrows. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If military flags, which comprise the standards, guidons and drum banners of the cavalry, and also the colours of the infantry, have been reverenced in war, they are equally respected in peace time. They may never be sent from place to place without a properly constituted escort, which “will 3pay them the customary honours,” and an army regulation says that “standards, guidons, and colours when uncased are, at all times, to be saluted with the highest honours, viz., arms presented, trumpets or bugles sounding the salute, drums beating a ruffle.” ”

“ The dress sword of the Lord Mayor means but guardian power. The State sword worn by a court official but implies the defence of the sovereign’s person, and the right of those surrounding the throne to carry arms. At all times it has been the emblem of personal authority and governance. ”

“ But we may conceive them as a tall, fair-haired people, clothed in shirts and smocks of embroidered linen, and gaiters cross-strapped with hide; their arms and necks encircled with gold and silver rings; the warriors, at least of the upper class, well horsed, and armed with lance and heavy sword, with chain-mail, and helmets surmounted with plumes, horns, towers, dragons, boars, and the other strange devices which are still seen on the crests of German nobles. ”

“ First of all there is the suit of armour on the knight in the foreground, the hooded hauberk and chausses of mail and genouillières, the chapeau de fer, or war helm, and the surcoat, and the shield. But we get also a variety of helmets, different kinds of weapons, falchion and axe, as well as sword and spear, and the pennon attached to the spear; and, in addition, the complete horse trappings, with the ornamental crest which was used to set off the arching neck and tossing head. Moreover, we learn that this variety of arms and armour was to be found in a single troop of men-at-arms ”

“ The first representation of regal defensive equipment occurs in the reign of King Edward III., and in the Studded and Splinted Period. The gold noble of the second coinage of this monarch represents him standing in a ship bearing a shield upon his left arm and a sword in his right. The shield is large and heater-shaped, and the sword has a short grip, a globular pommel, and short quillons drooping towards the blade, which is long, and narrows gradually towards the point. ”

“ Similarly, in old Japan the father’s sword was a precious heirloom, a sacred charge, and this feeling has been common among all nations where the profession of arms was held to be noble, and the arms themselves consequently revered. ”

“ To a coat of arms no man, literally speaking, has pretensions, who is not the representative of somebody that bore arms in the old English wars; but when the necessity for military virtue decreased, arms gave way to the gown; and shields had honourable, but fantastic augmentations, for the peaceful triumphs of lawyers and statesmen. ”

“ The king now being returned into England, ordeined a statute for armour An ordinance for armour. and weapon to be had amongst his subiects heere in this realme, which was thus. Euerie man that held a knights fée should be bound to haue a paire of curasses, an helmet, with shield and speare; and euerie knight or man of arms should haue as manie curasses, helmets, shields and speares as he held knights fées in demaine. Euerie man of the laitie hauing [182] goods or reuenues to the value of sixteene marks, should have one paire of curasses, an helmet, a speare, and a shield. ”

“ Sword. When borne as a charge, straight in the blade, pointed, and with a cross-guard. All the appointments of the weapon are to be blazoned. It appears, as a spiritual emblem, in several episcopal coats of arms; in the arms of the City of London, No. 306, the first quarter of a Shield of St. George (arg., a cross gu.) is charged with a sword erect gules, the emblem of St. Paul, the special patron of the English metropolitan city. The sword is also borne in blazon in its military capacity. ”

“ When tournaments came into vogue it was natural that some one should examine the arms of those taking part, and from this the duties of the herald came to include a knowledge of coat-armour. As the Sovereign assumed or arrogated the control of arms, the right to grant arms, and the right of judgment in disputes concerning arms, it was but the natural result that the personal heralds of the Sovereign should be required to have a knowledge of the arms of his principal subjects, and should obtain something in the nature of a cognisance or control and jurisdiction over those arms ”

“ I protested. "I am an obscure American; your Highness does not share your—that is——"
I stopped, not wishing to give the term escapade to anything she might do. As a matter of fact she has caused her royal guardian, the King, no end of trouble. She went to Paris once unattended; at another time she roamed around Heidelberg and slashed a fencing master; she had donned a student's garb. She is said to be the finest swordswoman on the Continent. Yet, notwithstanding her caprices, she is a noble-minded woman. ”

“ The armour is simply made to fit the breast, body, arms, and legs; the thighs being protected by a modification of the tuilles in the form of a succession of overlapping plates (tassets or cuisses) which reach from the corslet to the knee.
Arquebusier.
The civil war of the Great Rebellion offers a tempting theme, but we must limit ourselves to the notice that few, except great noblemen when acting as military leaders, ever wore anything like a complete suit of armour. A beautiful suit, inlaid with gold, which belonged to Charles I., is in the Tower armoury. ”

“ Knights and gentlemen might not be represented with their coats of arms, unless they had lost their lives in some battle, single combat or rencontre with the prince himself, or in his service, unless they died and were buried within their own manors and lordships; and then to shew they died a natural death in their beds, they were represented with their coat of armour, ungirded, without a helmet, bareheaded, their eyes closed, their feet resting against the back of a greyhound, and without any sword. ”

“ In 1796, the department of medals was also enriched by several articles from the Garde-Meuble or Jewel-Office. Among them were some suits of armour belonging to several of the kings of France, particularly that of Francis I, that of Henry IV, and that of Lewis XIV. These were accompanied by a quantity of arms, helmets, shields, breast-plates, and weapons used in the ancient tournaments, as well as quivers, bows, arrows, swords, &c. ”

“ It was ordered, with the view of securing for the King an army of defence in case of need, every man was to have arms and armour according to his rank, and that the armour should be inspected twice a year ”

“ In 1181, Henry II. fixed an assize [Pg 98] of arms, by which all his subjects, being freemen, were bound to be in readiness for the defence of the realm, "Whosoever holds one knight's fee shall have a coat-of-fence (loricam) , a helmet (cassidem) , a shield, and a lance; and every knight as many coats, helmets, shields, and lances, as he shall have knights' fees in his domain. Every free layman, having in rent or chattels the value of sixteen marks, shall have a coat-of-fence, helmet, shield and lance. ”

“ The mail-clad knight and the heavily armed man-at-arms had played their part through many centuries, and were now to disappear; steel-clad squadrons in all the majestic might of the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, with levelled lance and mantling streaming in the wind, had lived their day and were now to be no more, Armour had served its purpose so long as sword and lance, javelin and bolt, were the usual weapons of war ”

“ If any person during his life shall have accomplished any notable feat of arms, or gained honour in the lists, he shall be shown armed de pied-en-cap, helmet on his head, visor raised, and hands joined. His sword shall be at his side, and his spurs on. These shall be of gold if he shall have been an armed knight ”