the memory of that event was fresh ; but in MONTFAUCON'S time, the
beginning of the eighteenth century, the Science heroique was matter of
such moment in France that it is not to be believed that the armorial
figures on the shields, had there been any, would have been left out."

Surely, if anywhere, we might have expected to have found evidence
of armory, if it had then existed, in the Bayeux Tapestry. Neither do
the seals nor the coins of the period produce a shield of arms. Nor
amongst the host of records and documents which have been pre-
served to us do we find any reference to armorial bearings. The
intense value and estimation attached to arms in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, which has steadily though slowly declined since
that period, would lead one to suppose that had arms existed as we
know them at an earlier period, we should have found some definite
record of them in the older chronicles. There are no such references,
and no coat of arms in use at a later date can be relegated to the
Conquest or any anterior period. Of arms, as we know them, there are
isolated examples in the early part of the twelfth century, perhaps also at
the end of the eleventh. At the period of the Third Crusade (1189)
they were in actual existence as hereditary decorations of weapons of
warfare.

Luckily, for the purposes of deductive reasoning, human nature
remains much the same throughout the ages, and, dislike it as we
may, vanity now and vanity in olden days was a great lever in the
determination of human actions. A noticeable result of civilisation is
the effort to suppress any sign of natural emotion ; and if the human
race at the present day is not unmoved by a desire to render its ap-
pearance attractive, we may rest very certainly assured that in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries this motive was even more pronounced,
and still yet more pronounced at a more remote distance of time.
Given an opportunity of ornament, there you will find ornament and
decoration. The ancient Britons, like the Maories of to-day, found
their opportunities restricted to their skins. The Maories tattoo them-
selves in intricate patterns, the ancient Britons used woad, though
history is silent as to whether they were content with flat colour or
gave their preference to patterns. It is unnecessary to trace the art of



THE ORIGIN OF ARMORY 17

decoration through embroidery upon clothes, but there is no doubt
that as soon as shields came into use they were painted and decorated,
though I hesitate to follow practically the whole of heraldic writers
in the statement that it was the necessity for distinction in battle which
accounted for the decoration of shields. Shields were painted and
decorated, and helmets were adorned with all sorts of ornament, long
before the closed helmet made it impossible to recognise a man by his
facial peculiarities and distinctions. We have then this underlying
principle of vanity, with its concomitant result of personal decora-
tion and adornment. We have the relics of savagery which caused a
man to be nicknamed from some animal. The conjunction of the two
produces the effort to apply the opportunity for decoration and the
vanity of the animal nickname to each other.

We are fast approaching armory. In those days every man fought,
and his weapons were the most cherished of his personal possessions.
The sword his father fought with, the shield his father carried, the
banner his father followed would naturally be amongst the articles a
son would be most eager to possess. Herein are the rudiments of the
idea of heredity in armory ; and the science of armory as we know it
begins to slowly evolve itself from that point, for the son would natu-
rally take a pride in upholding the fame which had clustered round the
pictured signs and emblems under which his father had warred.

Another element then appeared which exercised a vast influence
upon armory. Europe rang from end to end with the call to the Crusades.
We may or we may not understand the fanaticism which gripped the
whole of the Christian world and sent it forth to fight the Saracens.
That has little to do with it. The result was the collection together
in a comparatively restricted space of all that was best and noblest
amongst the human race at that time. And the spirit of emulation
caused nation to vie with nation, and individual with individual in the
performance of illustrious feats of honour. War was elevated to the
dignity of a sacred duty, and the implements of warfare rose in esti-
mation. It is easy to understand the glory therefore that attached to
arms, and the slow evolution which I have been endeavouring to in-
dicate became a concrete fact, and it is due to the Crusades that the
origin of armory as we now know it was practically coeval through-
out Europe, and also that a large proportion of the charges and
terms and rules of heraldry are identical in all European countries.

The next dominating influence was the introduction, in the early
part of the thirteenth century, of the closed helmet. This hid the face
of the wearer from his followers and necessitated some means by
which the latter could identify the man under whom they served.
What more natural than that they should identify him by the decora-

B



1 8 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY

tion of his shield and the ornaments of his helmet, and by the coat or
surcoat which he wore over his coat of mail ?

This surcoat had afforded another opportunity of decoration, and
it had been decorated with the same signs that the wearer had painted
on his shield, hence the term " coat of arms." This textile coat was
in itself a product of the Crusades. The Crusaders went in their
metal armour from the cooler atmospheres of Europe to the in-
tolerable heat of the East. The surcoat and the lambrequin alike
protected the metal armour and the metal helmet from the rays of the
sun and the resulting discomfort to the wearer, and were also found
very effective as a preventative of the rust resulting from rain and
damp upon the metal. By the time that the closed helmet had de-
veloped the necessity of distinction and the identification of a man
with the pictured signs he wore or carried, the evolution of armory
into the science we know was practically complete.



CHAPTER II

THE STATUS AND THE MEANING OF A COAT OF
ARMS IN GREAT BRITAIN

IT would be foolish and misleading to assert that the possession of
a coat of arms at the present date has anything approaching the
dignity which attached to it in the days of long ago ; but one must
trace this through the centuries which have passed in order to form a
true estimate of it, and also to properly appreciate a coat of arms at the
present time. It is necessary to go back to the Norman Conquest and
the broad dividing lines of social life in order to obtain a correct know-
ledge. The Saxons had no armory, though they had a very perfect
civilisation. This civilisation William the Conqueror upset, introducing
in its place the system of feudal tenure with which he had been familiar
on the Continent. Briefly, this feudal system may be described as the
partition of the land amongst the barons, earls, and others, in return for
which, according to the land they held, they accepted a liability of military
service for themselves and so many followers. These barons and earls
in their turn sublet the land on terms advantageous to themselves, but
nevertheless requiring from those to whom they sublet, the same military
service which the King had exacted from themselves proportionate with
the extent of the sublet lands. Other subdivisions took place, but always
with the same liability of military service, until we come to those actually
holding and using the lands, enjoying them subject to the liability of
military service attached to those particular lands. Every man who
held land under these conditions and it was impossible to hold land
without them was of the upper class. He \vas nobilis or known, and
of a rank distinct, apart, and absolutely separate from the remainder
of the population, who were at one time actually serfs, and for long
enough afterwards, of no higher social position than they had enjoyed
in their period of servitude. This wide distinction between the upper
and lower classes, which existed from one end of Europe to the other,
was the very root and foundation of armory. It cannot be too greatly
insisted upon. There were two qualitative terms, " gentle " and " simple,"
which were applied to the upper and lower classes respectively. Though
now becoming archaic and obsolete, the terms "gentle" and "simple"



20 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY

are still occasionally to be met with used in that original sense ; and the
two adjectives " gentle " and " simple," in the everyday meanings of the
words, are derived from, and are a later growth from the original usage
with the meaning of the upper and lower classes ; because the quality
of being gentle was supposed to exist in that class of life referred to as
gentle, whilst the quality of simplicity was supposed to be an attribute
of the lower class. The word gentle is derived from the Latin word
gens (gentilis), meaning a man, because those were men who were not
serfs. Serfs and slaves were nothing accounted of. The word " gentle-
man " is a derivative of the word gentle, and a gentleman was a member
of the gentle or upper class, and gentle qualities were so termed because
they were the qualities supposed to belong to the gentle class. A man
was not a gentleman, even in those days, because he happened to
possess personal qualities usually associated with the gentle class ; a
man was a gentleman if he belonged to the gentle or upper class and
not otherwise, so that " gentleman " was an identical term fbr one to
whom the word nobilis was applied, both being names for members of
the upper class. To all intents and purposes at that date there was no
middle class at all. The kingdom was the land ; and the trading com-
munity who dwelt in the towns were of little account save as milch kine
for the purposes of taxation. The social position conceded to them by
the upper class was little, if any, more than was conceded to the lower
classes, whose life and liberties were held very cheaply. Briefly to sum
up, therefore, there were but the two classes in existence, of which the
upper class were those who held the land, who had military obligations,
and who were noble, or in other words gentle. Therefore all who held
land were gentlemen ; because they held land they had to lead their
servants and followers into battle, and they themselves were personally
responsible for the appearance of so many followers, when the King
summoned them to war. Now we have seen in the previous chapter
that arms became necessary to the leader that his followers might
distinguish him in battle. Consequently all who held land having,
because of that land, to be responsible for followers in battle, found
it necessary to use arms. The corollary is therefore evident, that all
who held lands of the King were gentlemen or noble, and used arms ;
and as a consequence ail who possessed arms were gentlemen, for they
would not need or use arms, nor was their armour of a character upon
which they could display arms, unless they were leaders. The leaders,
we have seen, were the land-owning or upper class ; therefore every
one who had arms was a gentleman, and every gentleman had arms.
But the status of gentlemen existed before there were coats of arms,
and the later inseparable connection between the two was an evolution.
The preposterous prostitution of the word gentleman in these latter



THE STATUS OF A COAT OF ARMS 21

days is due to the almost universal attribute of human nature which
declines to admit itself as of other than gentle rank ; and in the eager
desire to write itself gentleman, it has deliberately accepted and or-
dained a meaning to the word which it did not formerly possess, and
has attributed to it and allowed it only such a definition as would
enable almost anybody to be included within its ranks.

The word gentleman nowadays has become meaningless as a word
in an ordinary vocabulary ; and to use the word with its original and
true meaning, it is necessary to now consider it as purely a technical
term. We are so accustomed to employ the word nowadays in its un-
restricted usage that we are apt to overlook the fact that such a usage
is comparatively modern. The following extract from "The Right
to Bear Arms " will prove that its real meaning was understood and
was decided by law so late as the seventeenth century to be " a man
entitled to bear arms " :

" The following case in the Earl Marshal's Court, which hung upon the definition
of the word, conclusively proves my contention :

"'2U/ November 1637. W. Baker, gent, humbly sheweth that having some
occasion of conference with Adam Spencer of Broughton under the Bleane, co.
Cant., on or about 28th July last, the said Adam did in most base and opprobrious
tearmes abuse your petitioner, calling him a base, lying fellow, &c. &c. The defen-
dant pleaded that Baker is noe Gentleman, and soe not capable of redresse in this
court. Le Neve, Clarenceux, is directed to examine the point raised, and having
done so, declared as touching the gentry of William Baker, that Robert Cooke,
Clarenceux King of Arms, did make a declaration loth May 1573, under his hand
and scale of office, that George Baker of London, sonne of J. Baker of the same
place, sonne of Simon Baker of Feversham, co. Cant., was a bearer of tokens of
honour, and did allow and confirm to the said George Baker and to his posterity,
and to the posterity of Christopher Baker, these Arms, &c. &c. And further, Le
Neve has received proof that the petitioner, William Baker, is the son of William
Baker of Kingsdowne, co. Cant., who was the brother of George Baker, and son of
Christopher aforesaid.' The judgment is not stated. (The original Confirmation
of Arms by Cooke, icth May 1573, may now be seen in the British Museum.
Genealogist for 1889, p. 242.)"

It has been shown that originally practically all who held land bore
arms. It has also been shown that armory was an evolution, and as a
consequence it did not start, in this country at any rate, as a ready-made
science with all its rules and laws completely known or promulgated.
There is not the slightest doubt that, in the earliest infancy of the science,
arms were assumed and chosen without the control of the Crown ; and
one would not be far wrong in assuming that, so long as the rights
accruing from prior appropriation of other people were respected, a
landowner finding the necessity of arms in battle, was originally at
liberty to assume what arms he liked.

That period, however, was of but brief duration, for we find as early



22 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY

as 1390, from the celebrated Scrope and Grosvenor case, (i) that a man
could have obtained at that time a definite right to his arms, (2) that
this right could be enforced against another, and we find, what is more
important, (3) that the Crown and the Sovereign had supreme control
and jurisdiction over arms, and (4) that the Sovereign could and did
grant arms. From that date down to the present time the Crown, both
by its own direct action and by the action of the Kings of Arms to whom
it delegates powers for the purpose, in Letters Patent under the Great
Seal, specifically issued to each separate King of Arms upon his appoint-
ment, has continued to grant armorial bearings. Some number of early
grants of arms direct from the Crown have been printed in the Genea-
logical Magazine, and some of the earliest distinctly recite that the reci-
pients are made noble and created gentlemen, and that the arms are
given them as the sign of their nobility. The class of persons to whom
grants of arms were made in the earliest days of such instruments is
much the same as the class which obtain grants of arms at the present
day, and the successful trader or merchant is now at liberty, as he was
in the reign of Henry VIII. and earlier, to raise himself to the rank of
a gentleman by obtaining a grant of arms. A family must make its
start at some time or other ; let this start be made honestly, and not by
the appropriation of the arms of some other man.

The illegal assumption of arms began at an early date ; and in spite
of the efforts of the Crown, which have been more or less continuous
and repeated, it has been found that the use of lt other people's " arms
has continued. In the reign of Henry V. a very stringent proclamation
was issued on the subject ; and in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and her
successors, the Kings of Arms were commanded to make perambulations
throughout the country for the purpose of pulling down and defacing
improper arms, of recording arms properly borne by authority, and of
compelling those who used arms without authority to obtain authority
for them or discontinue their use. These perambulations were termed
Visitations. The subject of Visitations, and in fact the whole subject of
the right to bear arms, is dealt with at length in the book to which re-
ference has been already made, namely, "The Right to Bear Arms."

The glory of a descent from a long line of armigerous ancestors, the
glory and the pride of race inseparably interwoven with the inheritance
of a name which has been famous in history, the fact that some arms
have been designed to commemorate heroic achievements, the fact that
the display of a particular coat of arms has been the method, which
society has countenanced, of advertising to the world that one is of the
upper class or a descendant of some ancestor who performed some
glorious deed to which the arms have reference, the fact that arms
themselves are the very sign of a particular descent or of a particular



THE STATUS OF A COAT OF ARMS 23

rank, have all tended to cause a false and fictitious value to be placed
upon all these pictured emblems which as a whole they have never
possessed, and which I believe they were never intended to possess.
It is because they were the prerogative and the sign of aristocracy that
they have been coveted so greatly, and consequently so often assumed
improperly. Now aristocracy and social position are largely a matter
of personal assertion. A man assumes and asserts for himself a certain
position, which position is gradually and imperceptibly but continuously
increased and elevated as its assertion is reiterated. There is no par-
ticular moment in a man's life at the present time, the era of the great
middle class, at which he visibly steps from a plebeian to a patrician
standing. And when he has fought and talked the world into conced-
ing him a recognised position in the upper classes, he naturally tries to
obliterate the fact that he or " his people " were ever of any other social
position, and he hesitates to perpetually date his elevation to the rank
of gentility by obtaining a grant of arms and thereby admitting that
before that date he and his people were plebeian. Consequently he
waits until some circumstance compels an application for a grant, and
the consequence is that he thereby post-dates his actual technical
gentility to a period long subsequent to the recognition by Society of
his position in the upper classes.

Arms are the sign of the technical rank of gentility. The posses-
sion of arms is a matter of hereditary privilege, which privilege the
Crown is willing should be obtained upon certain terms by any who
care to possess it, who live according to the style and custom which is
usual amongst gentle people. And so long as the possession of arms
is a matter of privilege, even though this privilege is no greater than is
consequent upon payment of certain fees to the Crown and its officers ;
for so long will that privilege possess a certain prestige and value, though
this may not be very great. Arms have never possessed any greater
value than attaches to a matter of privilege ; and (with singularly few
exceptions) in every case, be it of a peer or baronet, of knight or of
simple gentleman, this privilege has been obtained or has been regularised
by the payment at some time or other of fees to the Crown and its officers.
And the only difference between arms granted and paid for yesterday
and arms granted and paid for five hundred years ago is the simple
moral difference which attaches to the dates at which the payments
were made.

Gentility is merely hereditary rank, emanating, with all other rank,
from the Crown, the sole fountain of honour. It is idle to make the word
carry a host of meanings it was never intended to. Arms being the
sign of the technical rank of gentility, the use of arms is the advertise-
ment of one's claim to that gentility. Arms mean nothing more. By



24 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY

coronet, supporters, and helmet can be indicated one's place in the
scale of precedence ; by adding arms for your wife you assert that she
also is of gentle rank ; your quarterings show the other gentle families
you represent ; difference marks will show your position in your own
family (not a very important matter) ; augmentations indicate the deeds
of your ancestors which the Sovereign thought worthy of being held in
especial remembrance. By the use of a certain coat of arms, you assert
your descent from the person to whom those arms were granted, confirmed, or
allowed. That is the beginning and end of armory. Why seek to make
it mean more ?

However heraldry is looked upon, it must be admitted that from its
earliest infancy armory possessed two essential qualities. It was the
definite sign of hereditary nobility and rank, and it was practically an
integral part of warfare ; but also from its earliest infancy it formed
a means of decoration. It would be a rash statement to assert that
armory has lost its actual military character even now, but it certainly
possessed it undiminished so long as tournaments took place, for the
armory of the tournament was of a much higher standard than the
armory of the battlefield. Armory as an actual part of warfare existed
as a means of decoration for the implements of warfare, and as such it
certainly continues in some slight degree to the present day.

Armory in that bygone age, although it existed as the symbol of the
lowest hereditary rank, was worn and used in warfare, for purposes of
pageantry, for the indication of ownership, for decorative purposes, for
the needs of authenticity in seals, and for the purposes of memorials
in records, pedigrees, and monuments. All those uses and purposes of
armory can be traced back to a period coeval with that to which our
certain knowledge of the existence of armory runs. Of all those usages
and purposes, one only, that of the use of armorial bearings in actual
battle, can be said to have come to an end, and even that not entirely
so ; the rest are still with us in actual and extensive existence. I am
not versed in the minutiae of army matters or army history, but I think
I am correct in saying that there was no such thing as a regular stand-
ing army or a national army until the reign of Henry VIII. Prior to
that time the methods of the feudal system supplied the wants of the
country. The actual troops were in the employment, not of the Crown,
but of the individual leaders. The Sovereign called upon, and had the
right to call upon, those leaders to provide troops ; but as those troops
were not in the direct employment of the Crown, they wore the liveries
and heraldic devices of their leaders. The leaders wore their own
devices, originally for decorative reasons, and later that they might be
distinguished by their particular followers : hence the actual use in
battle in former days of private armorial bearings. And even yet the



THE STATUS OP A COAT OF ARMS 25

practice is not wholly extinguished, for the tartans of the Gordon and
Cameron Highlanders are a relic of the usages of these former days.
With the formation of a standing army, and the direct service of the
troops to the Crown, the liveries and badges of those who had formerly
been responsible for the troops gave way to the liveries and badges of
the Crown. The uniform of the Beefeaters is a good example of the
method in which in the old days a servant wore the badge and livery
of his lord. The Beefeaters wear the scarlet livery of the Sovereign,
and wear the badge of the Sovereign still. Many people will tell you,
by the way, that the uniform of a Beefeater is identical now with what
it was in the days of Henry VIII. It isn't. In accordance with the