236 NOTES ON ARMORIAL HORSE TRAPPINGS. 



arms were enamelled, and the copper had perhaps been 

 silvered, or more probably gilt, though no unquestionable 

 trace of either process now remains. The arms of Montacute 

 at that period were Argent 3 fusils conjoined in fess gules ; 

 those of Grandison, Paly argent and azure on a bend gules 3 

 eagles displayed or. A considerable portion of the azure 

 enamel exists ; but in both escutcheons the gules has dis- 

 appeared, and been replaced by a dull apple-green, merely 

 superficial ; a change not uncommon where an enamel red 

 has been upon copper, and attributable probably to a 

 carbonate or protoxide of copper having been formed on the 

 sunken surface after the removal of the enamel. 



It occurred to me that this relic, now so rude and unattrac- 

 tive, had once been an ornament of some kind belonging to a 

 descendant from a marriage of a Montacute with an heiress 

 of Grandison. I was thus led to investigate whether such a 

 marriage had taken place in the 14th century ; and I found 

 that William Montacute, the first Earl of Salisbury of that 

 family, and one of the distinguished companions in Arms of 

 Edward III., married Katherine, daughter of William Lord 

 Grandison. She was not one of his co-heiresses, it is true, 

 though often so called ; but, what is for my purpose virtually 

 the same thing, on the death of her nephew, Thomas 

 Grandison, without issue in 1375, her son, she being dead, 

 became, as representing her, one of her father's co-heirs. 

 This accords very well with the arms just mentioned, as both 

 coats are undifferenced, and are, therefore, to be referred to 

 the respective heads of these houses. 



It is highly probable, therefore, that a larger escutcheon 

 than the others once occupied the centre in this object, and 

 was affixed to a piece of copper inserted into the hole I 

 mentioned. If so, that was undoubtedly the principal coat, 

 and the four coats about it were subordinate ; such, most 

 likely, as the bearer of the principal one might in later times 

 have quartered. 



In tracing the descent of the Earldom in the Montacute 

 family, we find the two eldest branches ended in an heiress, 



