The Curiosities of Heraldry Part 31

[40] _Lybbardes_--leopards. It has long been a matter of controversy between French and English armorists, whether the charges of our royal arms were originally leopards or lions. Napoleon always derisively called them leopards. The author of the 'Roll of Karlaverok,' described in a future page, speaking of the banner of Edward I, says it contained "three leopards courant of fine gold, set on red, fierce, haughty, and cruel."--_Nicolas' Karlav._ p. 23.

Nisbet, who, as a Scotchman, viewed English heraldry with a somewhat supercilious eye, decides in favour of leopards, and cites the 'Survey of London,' by John Stowe, who quotes a record of the city of London, stating that Frederick, Emperor of Germany, in 1225, sent to Henry III three living leopards, "in token of the regal s.h.i.+eld of arms." The same author likewise mentions an order of Edward II to the Sheriff of London, to pay the keeper of the King's leopards in the Tower of London sixpence a day for the sustenance of the leopards.--_Nisbet's Essay on Armories_, p. 163.

[41] Dallaway; but Nisbet (Armories, p. 61,) alludes to earlier examples abroad.

[42] Salverte. Essai sur les Noms d'Hommes, (Paris, 1824.) vol. I, p. 240.

[43] Dall. pp. 31-32. The offering of trophies to the Deity is of a much earlier origin, and it was derived from the nations of antiquity. The Old Testament furnishes us with several instances, the cla.s.sics with many more: "It was very common," says Robinson, "to dedicate the armour of the enemy, and to suspend it in temples."--Vide Homer, Iliad, vii. 81, "I will bear his armour to Troy, and hang it up in the temple of Apollo;" and Virgil, aen. vii, describes a temple hung round with

----"helmets, darts and spears, And captive chariots, axes, s.h.i.+elds, and bars, And broken beaks of s.h.i.+ps, _the trophies of their wars_."

_Dryden_, vii. 252.

But, what is more to our purpose, "It was also customary to dedicate to the G.o.ds their own weapons, when they retired from the noise of war to a private life." (Rob. Archaeolog. Graec.) From I Sam. xxi, 9, it appears that David, after his victory over Goliath, had dedicated the Philistine's sword to G.o.d as a trophy. "Behold it is here," says the priest, on a subsequent occasion, "wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod." In I Chron. x, 10, we read that the Philistines put the armour of Saul "in the house of their G.o.ds, and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon;" and, in xxvi, 27, we are told that "out of the spoils won in battles did they (the Israelites) dedicate to maintain the House of the Lord."

[44] Hist. Poet. i, 302.

[45] The second book of Upton's treatise, written in the fifteenth century, is ent.i.tled 'Of _Veterans_, now called Heralds.'

[46] Nicolas' Karlaverok, p. 4.

[47] Nicolas' Karlaverok, p. 44. The charge here blazoned, a cross patee, is, in fact, a cross patonce.

[48] Ibid., Notes, p. 368.

[49] Waterhouse's Discourse, p. 77.

[50] Let it not be understood from this remark that I mean in the slightest degree to advocate war as a means of acquiring national greatness. The war which Edward waged against France was totally unjustifiable; and the desolating civil wars which followed the misgovernment of his pusillanimous grandson Richard, were (as many of our subsequent wars have been) a disgrace to the very name of England.

[51] Strutt's Roy. and Eccl. Antiq.

[52] Holinshed.

[53] The engraving above is from Royal MS., 14 E. iii. Brit. Mus.

[54] Decline and Fall, v. 6, p. 59.

[55] Apparently the village of Retiers, near Rennes, in Brittany.

[56] De Controversia in Curia Militari inter R. de Scrope and R.

Grosvenor, Milites, Rege Ricardo Secundo, 1385-1390. E Recordis in Turre, Lond. a.s.servatis, vol. i, p. 178.

[57] Vide Historical and Allusive Arms; Loud. 1803, p. 43, et seq.

Anecdotes of Heraldry and Chivalry; Worcester, 1795.

[58] Hutchinson's c.u.mberland, vol. i, p. 314. The arms borne by a junior branch of the Blencowes are 'Gules, a quarter argent,' the original coat of the family. The baron of Graystock's grant is sometimes borne as a quartering. The arms of his lords.h.i.+p, from which it is borrowed, were 'Barry of six, _argent_ and _azure_, over all three _chaplets_ gules.'

According to a family tradition, Adam de Blencowe was standard-bearer to the Baron. Vide West's Antiquities of Furness, quoted by Hutchinson.

[59] Montagu's Study of Heraldry, Appendix A.

[60] One of the earliest grants of Arms preserved in the Heralds' Coll. is printed in the Appendix. It is of the time of Edward III.

[61] "Nihil sibi insignii accidisse quia nec ipse nec majores sui in bello unquam descendissent." Waterhouse, quoted by Dallaway.

[62] Dallaway.

[63] This was called _dimidiation_.

[64] The dimidiated coat represented on p. 36, is not the arms of a family, but those of the corporation of Hastings. Here three demi-lions are conjoined with three sterns of antient s.h.i.+ps--a composition compared with which the griffin, c.o.c.katrice, and every other _hybrid_ of a herald's imagination sinks into insignificance. That this singular s.h.i.+eld is a dimidiation of two antient coats cannot be doubted. Three s.h.i.+ps, in all probability, formed the original arms of the town--the dexter-half of the royal arms of England having been superimposed in commemoration of some great immunity granted to this antiently important corporation.

[65] Query--Might not some of our English maidens, who are verging somewhat on the _antique_, resort to this mode of advertising for a husband with advantage? The odious appellation of "old maids" would then give place to the more courteous one of "Ladies of the half-blank s.h.i.+eld."

[66] Nisbet's Essay on Armories, p. 70.

[67] A lineal ancestor of Sir John Sh.e.l.ley, Bart. The date of the lady's death is 1513.

[68] In the great hall at Fawsley, co. Northampton, the seat of Sir Charles Knightly, Bart., is a s.h.i.+eld containing the unprecedented number of 334 quarterings. Vide Baker's Northampton, vol. i, p. 386.

[69] Vide Appendix.

[70] In the Temple Church, London. Tomb of Sir Geoffrey de Magnaville.

Vide woodcut at the head of the Preface.

[71] Boke of St. A. and Dall.

[72] The arms of the See of Hereford at this day are identical with those of Thomas Cantilupe, who held the episcopate in the thirteenth century, and was canonized as St. Thomas of Hereford, 34{o} Edward I.

[73] It is almost unnecessary to observe that the expression 'a merchant's mark' is by no means appropriate; for such devices were employed in a great variety of ways. They appear, primarily, to have been used as signatures by illiterate though wealthy merchants, who could not write their names. At a later date they were employed for _marking_ bales of goods. Within the last century, many flockmasters in the South of England used them for marking sheep. Although the illiterate of our own times subst.i.tute a + for their proper names, it was far otherwise two centuries ago, when they generally made a rude monogram, or _peculiar_ mark, a.n.a.logous to the merchant's mark of earlier date.

[74] Dallaway.

[75] C. S. Gilbert's Hist. Cornw. vol. i, Introd. to Herald.

[76] Historical and Allusive Arms, p. 347.

[77] Montagu, Study of Heraldry. But this is, perhaps, an isolated instance of such early date, for Dame Julyan Berners, more than a century later, says, "There be vi differences in armys; ij for the excellent and iiij for the n.o.bles; Labelle and Enborduryng for lordis; Jemews, Mollettys, Flowre delyce and Quintfoyles for the n.o.bles," (i. e. gentry).

[78] Cited by Dall. p. 127.

[79] Memoirs, p. 287. Cott. MS., Calig. A. xviii.

[80] Vide my English Surnames, 2d edition, p. 194 et seq.

[81] Montagu, p. 42.

[82] If Heraldry had to be established _de novo_, something of the sort might be done, by giving each family a patent right to a particular ordinary, provided the ordinaries were much more numerous than they are.

But as nearly every ordinary and charge is common to many families, Dugdale's system cannot possibly be carried out.

[83] Hugh Clark's 'Introduction to Heraldry,' which may be purchased for a few s.h.i.+llings, contains everything necessary to a thorough knowledge of the art of blazon.