CAEMINOW OF CARMINOW. 229 



respect to Carminow, Fycliet calling him Thomas Carminow. 

 These five testimonies are given in the Norman French from the 

 Roll, in the Preface to the Visitation of Cornwall abeacly quoted, 

 p. vi. 



Besides these, six other witnesses for Grrosvenor refer also to 

 one Daniell as having challenged Carminow' s right; but all 

 agree in this, that he was allowed to bear his arms entire. 



Perhaps it will be considered that a statement so circumstantial 

 as that of John of Graunt, supported by so many witnesses, 

 against the label, if not strictly legal evidence to satisfy the 

 critical spirit of the present day, may at least be accepted in 

 proof of a general belief at the time, that Carminow bore these 

 arms without a difference. But when we find the statement 

 supported by efiigy and seals which shew actual user of this 

 coat by four generations prior to the death of Edward III. 

 (1377), and two seals and a portrait since the date at which John 

 of G-aunt is made to speak, the chain of evidence seems complete 

 and irresistible, and the label must be expunged at once, as 

 quite foreign to the Carminow coat. Lysons, in his Magna 

 Britannia, and Burke, in his general Armoury, both good author- 

 ities, give the coat Azure, a bend Or. 



And now having set up our new authorities, it becomes neces- 

 sary to dispose of that on which the label has been assumed. 

 It has been already stated that the aiithority relied on is that of 

 Hals, as quoted by Davies Gilbert.* Hals, indeed, there asserts, 

 in effect, that in the year 1360 Lord Richard Scrope, Lord 

 Chancellor of England, temp. Edward III, challenged Ralph 

 Carmenow (Sheriff of Cornwall, in 1379), with unlawfully assum- 

 ing his arms, viz. : — azure, a bend or. The trial took place in 

 the Earl Marshal's Coiu't, arguments and proofs were offered on 

 either side, and after a full view and hearing of what could be 

 said and shown on either part by learned council, as to records, 

 manuscripts, deeds and pedigrees, the Earl Marshal in West- 

 minster Hall gave judgment for the plaintiff (Scrope) that 

 Carminow should never more give the arms aforesaid without a 

 label of three points gules, for a distinction — Carminow paying 

 costs, and ever after using this difference. Such in brief is Hals' 

 account ; and he proceeds to infer that the family motto which he 



* See the full account in Davies Gilbert's Hist : Cornw ; Vol III, p. 129. 



