12 ON THE TUTBURY HORN. 



points instead of 5, but the number of points in a label are well- 

 known to vary somewhat capriciously, and in accordance with 

 the space at the emblazoner's or engraver's hands. 



The three fleur-de-lis for the arms of France, in place of the 

 older semee, were not used in England till Henry IV., or closely 

 approximating to that time. But Henry IV., son of John of 

 Gaunt, bore in his father's lifetime the difference of a label of 

 five points, whereby two were ermine and three charged with fleur- 

 de-lis. The same coat was borne by Henry IV.'s son, John, 

 Duke of Bedford. 



It is, then, we think established with tolerable certainty that these 

 are the arms of John of Gaunt, as borne by him shortly before his 

 death, which occurred in 1399, and perhaps the only instance 

 extant of his bearing in the French quarters only three fleur-de-lis. 



The impalement of vair or vairy, almost certainly that of Ferrers, 

 offers some little difficulty. None of the three marriages of John 

 of Gaunt offer the least solution of the difficulty, nor indeed does 

 any other matrimonial alliance of any kind of the house of Plan- 

 tagenet. The Manor of Tutbury came to the Duchy of Lancaster 

 through the forfeiture of Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby, in the 

 reign of Henry III. That monarch gave the Ferrers estates to his 

 second son Edmund ; Blanche, co-heir of a grandson of this 

 Edmund, married John of Gaunt, and thus brought the Honour of 

 Tutbury to him, and subsequently to his son Henry. Henry be- 

 coming afterwards king (Henry IV.), the earldom of Derby, as 

 well as the Duchy of Lancaster, were from that time absorbed in 

 the crown. 



There is not the least necessity, on account of this impalement 

 of the Ferrers arms, to fall in with the surmise of Dr. Pegge, that 

 the offices attached to this horn were held by the Ferrers of Tam- 

 worth, before Agard ; and that it was the marriage of Nicholas 

 Agard of Tutbury, in the 16th century, to Elizabeth, daughter and 

 co-heir of Robert Ferrers, a son of Sir Thomas Ferrers of Tam- 

 worth, that accomplished this transference. Such a surmise is 

 directly contrary to the best evidence. 



The reasons why this impalement cannot have any reference to 



