the purpose and medium wax, enamel, or stone in which they are
executed is borne in mind, and the knowledge used with due discrimi-
nation. Mr. Eve, without slavishly copying, originally appears to have
modelled his work upon the admirable designs and ideas of the " little
masters " of German art in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He
has since progressed therefrom to a distinctive and very excellent style
of his own. Mr. Graham Johnson models his work upon Plantagenet
and Tudor examples. The work of Pere Anselm, and of Pugin, the first
start towards the present ideas of heraldic art, embodying as it did so
much of the beauty of the older work whilst possessing a character of
its own, and developing ancient ideals by increased beauty of execution,
has placed their reputation far above that of others, who, following in
their footsteps, have not possessed their abilities. But with regard to
most of the heraldic design of the present day as a whole it is very
evident that we are simply picking and choosing tit-bits from the work of
bygone craftsmen, and copying, more or less slavishly, examples of other
periods. This makes for no advance in design either in its character
or execution, nor will it result in any peculiarity of style which it will
be possible in the future to identify with the present period. Our
heraldry, like our architecture, though it may be dated in the twentieth
century, will be a heterogeneous collection of isolated specimens of
Gothic, Tudor, or Queen Anne style and type, which surely is as
anachronistic as we consider to be those Dutch paintings which re-
present Christ and the Apostles in modern clothes.
Roughly the periods into which the types of mantlings can be
divided, when considered from the standpoint of their fashioning, are
somewhat as follows. There is the earliest period of all, when the
mantling depicted approximated closely if it was not an actual repre-
sentation of the capelote really worn in battle. Examples of this will
be found in the Armorial de Gelre and the Zurich Wappenrolle. As the
mantling worn lengthened and evolved itself into the lambrequin, the
mantling depicted in heraldic art was similarly increased in size,
terminating in the long mantle drawn in profile but tasselled and with
the scalloped edges, a type which is found surviving in some of the
early Garter plates. This is the transition stage. The next definite
period is when we find the mantling depicted on both sides of the
helmet and the scalloped edges developed, in accordance with the
romantic ideas of the period, into the slashes and cuts of the bold and
artistic mantlings of Plantagenet armorial art.
Slowly decreasing in strength, but at the same' time increasing in
elaboration, this mantling and type continued until it had reached its
39 8 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY
highest pitch of exuberant elaboration in Stuart and early Georgian
times. Side by side with this over-elaboration came the revulsion to a
Puritan simplicity of taste which is to be found in other manifestations
of art at the same time, and which made itself evident in heraldic
decoration by the use as mantling of the plain uncut cloth suspended
behind the shield. Originating in Elizabethan days, this plain cloth
was much made use of, but towards the end of the Stuart period came
that curious evolution of British heraldry which is peculiar to these
countries alone. That is the entire omission of both helmet and
mantling. How it originated it is difficult to understand, unless it be
due to the fact that a large number, in fact a large proportion, of
English families possessed a shield only and neither claimed nor used
a crest, and that consequently a large number of heraldic represen-
tations give the shield only. It is rare indeed to find a shield sur-
mounted by helmet and mantling when the former is not required to
support a crest. At the same time we find, among the official records
of the period, that the documents of chief importance were the Visita-
tion Books. In these, probably from motives of economy or to save
needless draughtsmanship, the trouble of depicting the helmet and
mantling was dispensed with, and the crest is almost universally found
depicted on the wreath, which is made to rest upon the shield, the
helmet being omitted. That being an accepted, official way of repre-
senting an achievement, small wonder that the public followed, and
we find as a consequence that a large proportion of the bookplates
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had no helmet or
mantling at all, the elaboration of the edges of the shield, together with
the addition of decorative and needless accessories bearing no relation
to the arms, fulfilling all purposes of decorative design. It should also
be remembered that from towards the close of the Stuart period onward,
England was taking her art and decoration almost entirely from Con-
tinental sources, chiefly French and Italian. In both the countries
the use of crests was very limited indeed in extent, and the elimination
of the helmet and mantling, and the elaboration in their stead of the
edges of the shield, we probably owe to the effort to assimilate French
and Italian forms of decoration to English arms. So obsolete had
become the use of helmet and mantling that it is difficult to come across
examples that one can put forward as mantlings typical of the period.
Helmets and mantlings were of course painted upon grants and
upon the Stall plates of the knights of the various orders, but whilst
the helmets became weak, of a pattern impossible to wear, and small
in size, the mantling became of a stereotyped pattern, and of a design
poor and wooden according to our present ideas.
Unofficial heraldry had sunk to an even lower style of art, and
FIG. 665. Carriage Panel of Georgiana, Marchioness
of Cholmondeley.
THE MANTLING OR LAMBREQUIN 399
the regulation heraldic stationer's types of shield, mantling, and helmet
are awe-inspiring in their ugliness.
The term "mantle" is sometimes employed, but it would seem
hardly quite correctly, to the parliamentary robe of estate upon which
the arms of a peer of the realm were so frequently depicted at the
end of the eighteenth and in the early part of the nineteenth centuries.
Its popularity is an indication of the ever-constant predilection for
something which is denied to others and the possession of which is a
matter of privilege. Woodward, in his " Treatise on Heraldry," treats
of and dismisses the matter in one short sentence : " In England the
suggestion that the arms of peers should be mantled with their Parlia-
ment robes was never generally adopted." In this statement he is
quite incorrect, for as the accepted type in one particular opportunity
of armorial display its use was absolutely universal. The opportunity
in question was the emblazonment of arms upon carriage panels. In
the early part of the nineteenth and at the end of the eighteenth
centuries armorial bearings were painted of some size upon carriages,
and there were few such paintings executed for the carriages, chariots,
and state coaches of peers that did not appear upon a background of
the robe of estate. With the modern craze for ostentatious unosten-
tation (the result, there can be little doubt, in this respect of the
wholesale appropriation of arms by those without a right to bear these
ornaments), the decoration of a peer's carriage nowadays seldom
shows more than a simple coronet, or a coroneted crest, initial, or
monogram ; but the State chariots of those who still possess them
almost all, without exception, show the arms emblazoned upon the
robe of estate. The Royal and many other State chariots made or
refurbished for the recent coronation ceremonies show that, when an
opportunity of the fullest display properly arises, the robe of estate is
not yet a thing of the past. Fig. 665 is from a photograph of a
carriage panel, and shows the arms of a former Marchioness of Chol-
mondeley displayed in this manner. Incidentally it also shows a
practice frequently resorted to, but quite unauthorised, of taking one
supporter from the husband's shield and the other (when the wife was
an heiress) from the arms of her family. The arms are those of
Georgiana Charlotte, widow of George James, first Marquess of Chol-
mondeley, and younger daughter and coheir of Peregrine, third Duke
of Ancaster. She became a widow in 1827 and died in 1838, so the
panel must have been painted between those dates. The arms shown
are : " Quarterly, i and 4, gules, in chief two esquires' helmets proper,
and in base a garb or (for Cholmondeley) ; 2. gules, a chevron between
three eagles' heads erased argent ; 3. or, on a fesse between two
chevrons sable, three cross crosslets or (for Walpole), and on an
400 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY
escutcheon of pretence the arms of Bertie, namely : argent, three
battering-rams fesswise in pale proper, headed and garnished azure. "
The supporters shown are : " Dexter, a griffin sable, armed, winged,
and membered or (from the Cholmondeley achievement) ; sinister, a
friar vested in russet with staff and rosary or " (one of the supporters
belonging to the Barony of Willoughby D'Eresby, to which the
Marchioness of Cholmondeley in her own right was a coheir until
the abeyance in the Barony was determined in favour of her elder
sister).
" In later times the arms of sovereigns the German Electors, &c.
were -mantled, usually with crimson velvet fringed with gold, lined
with ermine, and crowned ; but the mantling armoy was one of the
marks of dignity used by the Pairs de France, and by Cardinals resident
in France ; it was also employed by some great nobles in other
countries. The mantling of the Princes and Dukes of Mirandola was
chequy argent and azure, lined with ermine. In France the mantling
of the Chancelier was of cloth of gold ; that of Presidents, of scarlet,
lined with alternate strips of ermine and petit gris. In France,
Napoleon I., who used a mantling of purple seme of golden bees,
decreed that the princes and grand dignitaries should use an azure
mantling thus seme ; those of Dukes were to be plain, and lined with
vair instead of ermine. In 1817 a mantling of azure, fringed with
gold and lined with ermine, was appropriated to the dignity of Pair de
France."
The pavilion is a feature of heraldic art which is quite unknown
to British heraldry, and one can call to mind no single instance of its
use in this country ; but as its use is very prominent in Germany and
other countries, it cannot be overlooked. It is confined to the arms
of sovereigns, and the pavilion is the tent-like erection within which
the heraldic achievement is displayed. The pavilion seems to have
originated in France, where it can be traced back upon the Great
Seals of the kings to its earliest form and appearance upon the seal of
Louis XI. In the case of the Kings of France, it was of azure sem-
de-lis or. The pavilion used with the arms of the German Emperor
is of gold sem alternately of Imperial crowns and eagles displayed
sable, and is lined with ermine. The motto is carried on a crimson
band, and it is surmounted by the Imperial crown, and a banner of
the German colours gules, argent, and sable. The pavilion used by
the German Emperor as King of Prussia is of crimson, sem of black
eagles and gold crowns, and the band which carries the motto is blue.
The pavilions of the King of Bavaria and the Duke of Baden, the
King of Saxony, the Duke of Hesse, the Duke of Mecklenburg-
Schwerin, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the Duke of Saxe-
THE MANTLING OR LAMBREQUIN 401
Meiningen-Hildburghausen, the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, and the
Duke of Anhalt are all of crimson.
In German heraldry a rather more noticeable distinction is drawn
than with ourselves between the lambrequin (Helmdecke) and the mantle
(Helmmantel). This more closely approximates to the robe of estate,
though the helmmantel has not in Germany the rigid significance of
peerage degree that the robe of estate has in this country. The
German helmmantel with few exceptions is always of purple lined with
ermine, and whilst the mantel always falls directly from the coronet
or cap, the pavilion is arranged in a dome-like form which bears the
crown upon its summit. The pavilion is supposed to be the invention
of the Frenchman Philip Moreau (1680), and found its way from
France to Germany, where both in the Greater and Lesser Courts it
was enthusiastically adopted. Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Spain,
Portugal, and Wurtemberg are the only Royal Arms in which the
pavilion does not figure.
2 C
CHAPTER XXV
THE TORSE, OR WREATH
THE actual helmet, from the very earliest heraldic representations
which have come down to us, would sometimes appear not to
have had any mantling, the crest being affixed direct to the (then)
flat top of the helmet in use. But occasional crests appear very early in
the existence of "ordered" armory, and at much about the same time we
find the " textile " covering of the helmet coming into heraldic use. In
the earliest times we find that frequently the crest itself was continued
into the mantling. But where this was not possible, the attaching of
the crest to the helmet when the mantling intervened left an unsightly
joining. The unsightliness very soon called forth a remedy. At first
this remedy took the form of a coronet or a plain fillet or ribbon
round the point of juncture, sometimes with and sometimes without
the ends being visible. If the ends were shown they were represented
as floating behind, sometimes with and sometimes without a represen-
tation of the bow or knot in which they were tied. The plain fillet
still continued to be used long after the torse had come into recog-
nised use. The consideration of crest coronets has been already
included, but with regard to the wreath an analysis of the Plantagenet
Garter plates will afford some definite basis from which to start
deduction.
Of the eighty-six achievements reproduced in Mr. St. John Hope's
book, five have no crest. Consequently we have eighty-one examples
to analyse. Of these there are ten in which the crest is not attached
to the lambrequin and helmet by anything 'perceptible, eight are
attached with fillets of varying widths, twenty-one crests are upon
chapeaux, and twenty-nine issue from coronets. But at no period
governed by the series is it possible that either fillet, torse, chapeau,
or coronet was in use to the exclusion of another form. This remark
applies more particularly to the fillet and torse (the latter of which
undoubtedly at a later date superseded the former), for both at the
beginning and at the end of the series referred to we find the fillet
and the wreath or torse, and at both periods we find crests without
either coronet, torse, chapeau, or fillet. The fillet must soon after-
wards (in the fifteenth century) have completely fallen into desuetude.
403
THE TORSE, OR WREATH 403
The torse was so small and unimportant a matter that upon seals it
would probably equally escape the attention of the engraver and the
observer, and probably there would be little to be gained by a syste-
matic hunt through early seals to discover the date of its introduction,
but it will be noticed that no wreaths appear in some of the early
Rolls. General Leigh says, "In the time of Henry the Fifth, and
long after, no man had his badge set on a wreath under the degree
of a knight. But that order is worn away." It probably belongs to
the end of the fourteenth century. There can be little doubt that its
twisted shape was an evolution from the plain fillet suggested by the
turban of the East. We read in the old romances, in Mallory's
11 Morte d' Arthur " and elsewhere, of valiant knights who in battle or
tournament wore the favour of some lady, or even the lady's sleeve,
upon their helmets. It always used to be a puzzle to me how the
sleeve could have been worn upon the helmet, and I wonder how
many of the present-day novelists, who so glibly make their knightly
heroes of olden time wear the tl favours " of their lady-lovers, know
how it was done ? The favour did not take the place of the crest.
A knight did not lightly discard an honoured, inherited, and known
crest for the sake of wearing a favour only too frequently the mere
result of a temporary flirtation ; nor to wear her colours could he
at short notice discard or renew his lambrequin, surcoat, or the
housings and trappings of his horse. He simply took the favour
the colours, a ribbon, or a handkerchief of the lady, as the case
might be and twisted it in and out or over and over the fillet
which surrounded the joining-place of crest and helmet. To put
her favour on his helmet was the work of a moment. The wearing
of a lady's sleeve, which must have been an honour greatly prized,
is of course the origin of the well-known " maunch," the solitary
charge in the arms of Conyers, Hastings, and Wharton. Doubtless the
sleeve twined with the fillet would be made to encircle the base of
the crest, and it is not unlikely that the wide hanging mouth of the
sleeve might have been used for the lambrequin. The dresses of
ladies at that period were decorated with the arms of their families,
so in each case would be of the " colours " of the lady, so that the
sleeve and its colours would be quickly identified, as it was no doubt
usually intended they should be. The accidental result of twining a
favour in the fillet, in conjunction with the pattern obviously sug-
gested by the turban of the East, produced the conventional torse or
wreath. As the conventional slashings of the lambrequin hinted at
past hard fighting in battle, so did the conventional torse hint at past
service to and favour of ladies, love and war being the occupations of
the perfect knight of romance. How far short of the ideal knight of
404 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY
romance the knight of fact fell, perhaps the frequent bordures and
batons of heraldry are the best indication. At first, as is evident from
the Garter plates, the colours of the torse seem to have had little or
no compulsory relation to the " livery colours " of the arms. The
instances to be gleaned from the Plantagenet Garter plates which
have been reproduced are as follows : .
Sir John Bourchier, Lord Bourchier. Torse : sable and vert.
Arms : argent and gules.
Sir John Grey, Earl of Tankerville. Torse : vert, gules, and argent.
Arms : gules and argent.
Sir Lewis Robsart, Lord Bourchier. Torse : azure, or, and sable.
Arms : vert and or. [The crest, derived from his wife (who was a
daughter of Lord Bourchier) is practically the same as the one first
quoted. It will be noticed that the torse differs.]
Sir Edward Cherleton, Lord Cherleton of Powis. Torse : gules
and sable. Anns : or and gules.
Sir Gaston de Foix, Count de Longueville. Torse : or and gules.
Arms : or and gules.
Sir William Nevill, Lord Fauconberg. Torse : argent and gules.
Arms : gules and argent.
Sir Richard Wydville, Lord Rivers. Torse : vert. Arms : argent
and gules.
Sir Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex. Torse : sable and vert. Arms :
argent and gules. [This is the same crest above alluded to.]
Sir Thomas Stanley, Lord Stanley. Torse : or and azure. Arms :
or and azure.
Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners. Torse : gules and argent. Arms:
argent and gules. [This is the same crest above alluded to.]
Sir Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers. Torse : argent and sable.
Arms : argent and gules. [The crest really issues from a coronet upon
a torse in a previous case, this crest issues from a torse only.]
Sir Francis Lovel, Viscount Lovel. Torse : azure and or. Arms :
or and gules.
Sir Thomas Burgh, Lord Burgh. Torse : azure and sable. Arms :
azure and ermine.
Sir Richard Tunstall, K.G. Torse : argent and sable. Arms :
sable and argent.
I can suggest no explanation of these differences unless it be, which
is not unlikely, that they perpetuate " favours " worn ; or perhaps a
more likely supposition is that the wreath or torse was of the " family
colours," as these were actually worn by the servants or retainers of
each person. If this be not the case, why are the colours of the wreath
termed the livery colours ? At the present time in an English or Irish
THE TORSE, OR WREATH 405
grant of arms the colours are not specified, but the crest is stated to
be " on a wreath of the colours." In Scotland, however, the crest
is granted in the following words : " and upon a wreath of his liveries
is set for crest." Consequently, I have very little doubt, the true state
of the case is that originally the wreath was depicted of the colours of
the livery which was worn. Then new families came into prominence
and eminence, and had no liveries to inherit. They were granted arms
and chose the tinctures of their arms as their "colours," and used
these colours for their personal liveries. The natural consequence
would be in such a case that the torse, being in unison with the livery,
was also in unison with the arms. The consequence is that it has
become a fixed, unalterable rule in British heraldry that the torse shall
be of the principal metal and of the principal colour of the arms. I
know of no recent exception to this rule, the latest, as far as I am
aware, being a grant in the early years of the eighteenth century.
This, it is stated in the patent, was the regranting of a coat of foreign
origin. Doubtless the formality of a grant was substituted for the
usual registration in this case, owing to a lack of formal proof of
a right to the arms, but there is no doubt that the peculiarities of
the foreign arms, as they had been previously borne, were preserved in
the grant. The peculiarity in this case consisted of a torse of three
tinctures. The late Lyon Clerk once pointed out to me, in Lyon
Register, an instance of a coat there matriculated with a torse of three
colours, but I unfortunately made no note of it at the time. Wood-
ward alludes to the curious chequy wreath on the seals of Robert
Stewart, Duke of Albany, in 1389. This appears to have been repeated
in the seals of his son Murdoch.
The wreath of Patrick Hepburn appears to be of roses in the
Gelre " Armorial," and a careful examination of the plates in this
volume will show many curious Continental instances of substitutes
for the conventional torse. Though by no means peculiar to British
heraldry, there can be no manner of doubt that the wreath in the
United Kingdom has obtained a position of legalised necessity and
constant usage and importance which exists in no other country.
As has been already explained, the torse should fit closely to the
crest, its object and purpose being merely to hide the joining of crest
and helmet. Unfortunately in British heraldry this purpose has been
ignored. Doubtless resulting first from the common practice of de-
picting a crest upon a wreath and without a helmet, and secondly
from the fact that many English crests are quite unsuitable to place
on a helmet, in fact impossible to affix by the aid of a wreath to a
helmet, and thirdly from our ridiculous rules of position for a helmet,
which result in the crest being depicted (in conjunction with the
406 A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY
representation of the helmet) in a position many such crests never
could have occupied on any helmet, the effect has been to cause the
wreath to lose its real form, which encircled the helmet, and to become
considered as no more than a straight support for and relating only
to the crest. When, therefore, the crest and its supporting basis is
transferred from indefinite space to the helmet, the support, which
is the torse, is still represented as a flat resting-place for the crest, and
it is consequently depicted as a straight and rigid bar, balanced upon
the apex of the helmet. This is now and for long has been the only
accepted official way of depicting a wreath in England. Certainly
this is an ungraceful and inartistic rendering, and a rendering far
removed from any actual helmet wreath that can ever have been
actually borne. Whilst one has no wish to defend the " rigid bar,"
which has nothing to recommend it, it is at the same time worth while
to point out that the heraldic day of actual helmets and actual usage
is long since over, never to be revived, and that our heraldry of to-day
is merely decorative and pictorial. The rigid bar is none other than
a conventionalised form of the actual torse, and is perhaps little more
at variance with the reality than is our conventionalised method of
depicting a lambrequin. Whilst this conventional torse remains the