154 ARMORIALS OF THE SAVAGE FAMILY. 



collection and publication of Church Armorials and other com- 

 memorative displays. Such a work has already been carried out 

 for the county of Hants by the late Mr. A. J. Jewers. The MS. 

 has been purchased by the British Museum, the library reference 

 thereto being " Egerton MS. 2364." Well would it be if similar 

 work had been done for every county in the Kingdom. Though 

 there may be difficulty in compiling such comprehensive records, 

 still, where armorial monuments are threatened with destruction, it 

 is always desirable to publish them in some suitable periodical and 

 with accurate figures, if possible. It is with such an object that I 

 have written this memoir. 



The Armorials of the Savage Family in Bloxworth Church are 

 remarkable from the fact that they are painted on the wall itself 

 and not on any raised element of stone or marble. They appear to 

 have been executed at, or nearly the same time, and the escutcheons 

 may be described as late Jacobean in character. The name* of 

 Savage is very widely spread, and appeared in mediaeval times in 

 different parts of England very remote from each other. Such 

 scattered names may have arisen from the migration of family 

 branches dispersed from a common root ; or, more probably, the 

 name, which was very likely to develope, started from several 

 distinct centres. 



Savage, of Rock-Savage, and of Clifton, co. Chester, appears to 

 have been the earliest and the most important of the name, and has 

 been formerly ennobled with an Earldom and a Viscounty, as well as 

 a Baronetcy, now all extinct. The arms borne by them were Argent, 

 6 lioncels rampant 3, 2, and 1, sable. These arms have been 

 claimed by Savage, of Bloxworth, and appear on the escutcheons I 

 am about to describe, and were accorded to them by that respectable 

 antiquary and genealogist, Hutchins, the author of the " History of 

 Dorset." But were they entitled to those arms 1 In other words, 

 were they descended, as claimed, from a sixth son of the House of 

 Savage, of Rock-Savage, co. Chester? The editor of the last 

 edition of the " History of Dorset " suggests that the connection of 

 the Bloxworth Savages with those of Cheshire is simply " ideal " 



