718 
Heraldry. on his way to the Holy Land, whither he was convey- 
“—_Y— ing the heart of King Robert the Bruce. A badge 
of the same species was assumed by the Earl of Surry, 
in the year 1515. “ A silver lion (the old cognisance 
of bis family) tearing in pieces a lion prostrate gules. 
«¢ If Scotland’s coat no mark of fame can lend, 
That Lion placed in our bright silver bend— 
Which as a trophy beautifies our shield 
Since Scottish blood discoloured Flodden-field, 
When the dark Cheviot our proud ensign bare, 
As a rich jewel in a lady's hair, &c.” 
Drayton. 
Nicolas Upton mentions an English gentleman who 
assumed Argent, three ox heads sable, “ pro eo quod 
ipse erat in bello Vernolii cum lancia per membra ge- 
nitalia totaliter transfixus, sic quod amplius generare 
non potuit.” (De Milit. Officio, p. 154.) * 
The influence of the spirit of faction has also given 
rise to innumerable bearin In Italy, during the 
contests of the Guelphs-and Gibelins, things came to 
such a pass that almost every family was obliged to 
adopt some method of expressing by their arms to 
which party they adhered. The Guelphs carried 
Coupé, the Gibelins party. The Guelphs bore the 
lily of Florence gules on argent; the Gibelins argent 
on gules, The fleur-de-lys-in-chief (after the Guelph 
party had embraced the cause of Charles of Anjou), 
became a Guelph mark,—and three stars in chief de- 
noted a Gibelin. In France, in like manner, when 
the kingdom was split inte two factions from the year 
1409 till 1449, those who espoused the cause of Or« 
leans and Berry, carried.a white bend, and were called 
** bendes,” while the adherents of the Duke of Bur- 
gundy were known by the cross of St Andrew. 
19. Offices of dignity are marked in the same way. 
Thus the great officers of the empire were all accustom- 
ed to bear the tokens of their dignity. The Counts of 
Oldenburgh, as architects of the empire, gules éwo 
fesses or, which are supposed to represent two beams. 
The house of Wirtemberg bore three stag-horns. That 
of Wernigerode a fish; and the Electors of Hanover 
the imperial crown, as archtreasurers of the empire. 
Vassalage, When any great family had once assumed a particular 
or bearing, it was very natural for their vassals to bear it, 
either in whole or in part, as a token of their depend- 
ence. Indeed the grants of feudal tenure were com- 
monly made with some such condition. Thus in Brit= 
tany almost every family bore Ermine in honour of 
the ancient sovereigns of that country; and a great 
many mascles, and billets, in token of their connec- 
tion with the houses of Rohan and Beau Manoir. In 
Cheshire sheaves of wheat are very common, and these 
were the bearing of the old Earls of Chester. A strik- 
ing instance of this custom is to be met with so late 
as the time of Edward III. in the case of the four es- 
ete of Lord Audley, who all adopted the bearing of 
at nobleman, with some little variation. (Vide Spel- 
man’s Aspilogia, p. 49.) And there is preserved in 
the notes on the same treatise, a charter, by which Sir 
Gervase de Clifton makes a similar grant of a helmet 
to his well-beloved friend Richard de Bevercotes, dated 
in the third year of Richard II. In Scotland many 
Faction, 
Offices, and 
Feudal te- 
ures, 
HERALDRY. 
old families bear stars in these parts of the 
where the Douglasses were most powerful. And a 
large ortion of the families of Renfrewshire bear 
dons" Eercagp: chequered, ie Siuislnik Of the’ Salad iat 
Stuart. 
The ancient signiory of the castle of T idge in 
Kent, belonged to the Clares, Earls of Gioacestie “eke 
bare for their arms or, three chevrons gules ; and there« 
fore the family of Hardress bare gules, a lion rampant 
ermine debruised by a chevron or, to denote that they 
held their manor of Hardress by knight’s service of 
the said castle of Tunbridge. 
20. Soon after arms had acquired the tation of 
being the avowed and established marks of gentility, 
they came to be looked upon as inheritances alienable. 
So that although no man could legally assume at his 
e coat-armour which had been granted 
And accordingly instances are not wanting of the pro- 
prietors of coat-armour conveying and assigning by 
formal grants, and that with a covenant of warrantry, 
the original paternal ensigns of their own family, as 
well as the coat-armour of other families which had 
descended to them by intermarriages, no- 
wise connected with them by blood, to the exclusion of 
their own heirs. Although no doubt could have been 
entertained as to the truth of these facts, yet the le« 
gality of such concessions having been often called in 
uestion, it is proper to state that the matter was 4 
iséussed in the court of the Earl Marshall of England, 
in the case which depended between Sir Thomas Cow- 
and Sir John de Norwich, and in that between 
fohn Lord Lovell and Thomas Lord Morley.+ 
Latterly, however, it has been invariably held as 
indispensible, that arms should be either given or autho- 
rised by the prince. The concession of arms by the 
sovereign may be in the common way, viz. wherein the 
al consent is given to the use of such and such arms, 
whether they have been formerly borne by the grantee 
or not, as it is expressed in the common words of let~ 
ters of nobility on the continent of Europe.“ In omni« 
bus et singulis honestis expeditionibus, et actibus tam 
serio quam jocis nobilium, militarium armi m mo- 
doin tourneamentis hastiludiis,” &c. ; or the concession 
may be of a particular kind, by which the sovereign 
permits his subject to assume some honourable aug- 
mentation, often part of his own: royal atchievement, 
in token of his peculiar favour. Thus the double tres- , op 
sure has been to several families in Scotland, as concession 
the Randolphs Earls of Murray, the Seatons of that 4 
ilk, &c.; and the lion, as to a ere = prec oe 
by wa’ paige: gor When Henry Duke runs- 
wick Gare to England to visit his ally Henry II. who Mi 
then bore five | or, King Henry gave two of f 
them to be carried by the Duke, which are still retain. | 
ed by his descendants, and are marshalled with other 
figures in the fourth quarter of his t Maje: i 
George III. Edmonstone gives at full length the deec 
by which Queen Elizabeth allowed the Duchess of 7 
* « Ob hujusmodo causas insignia concedi satis magno est mento scutum Coleonum gentilitium quod icone trium testium insignitur. 
Malti enim ex hic familia tres testes habuisse perhibentur, “Vide Aldrovandum de Meiories historia, Bauhinum de Hermaphroditis 
Kornmannum de Miraculis Viventium: 
Coleonum insignia ex vita Bartholomai Coleonis huc transtulimus. Deditum fuisse amoribus 
Auctor satis ingenue confitetur. Et fidem rei fecerit illud evangelicorum ministrorum decretum quod triorchi cuidam apud Germenes 
principi isi : 
T See Anstis’s Register of the Garter, vol. ii. p. 260. 
permisit concubinam Uxori superinducere de quo yideas Thuanum,” 
Note in Upton, fs 7. 
