of foreign origin who bear supporters or claim them by the assertion of foreign right. Where this right can be established their use has been confirmed by Royal Licence in this country in some number of cases; for example, the cases of Rothschild and De Salis. In other cases (for example, the case of Chamier) no official record of the supporters exists with the record of the arms, and presumably the foreign right to the supporters could not have been established at the time of registration.
With regard to impersonal arms, the right to supporters in England is not easy to define. In the case of counties, crests and supporters are granted if the county likes to pay for them.
In the case of towns, the rule in England is that an ordinary town may not have supporters but that a city may, and instances are numerous where supporters have been granted upon the elevation of a town to the dignity of a city. Birmingham, Sheffield, and Nottingham are all recent instances in point. This rule, however, is not absolutely rigid, and an exception may be pointed to in the case of Liverpool, the supporters being granted in 1797, and the town not being created a city until a subsequent date. In Scotland, where, of course, until quite recently supporters were granted practically to anybody who chose to pay for them, a grant will be found for the county of Perth dated in 1800, in which supporters were included. But as to towns and cities it is no more than a matter of fees, any town in Scotland eligible for arms being at liberty to obtain supporters also if they are desired. In grants of arms to corporate bodies it is difficult to draw the line or to deduce any actual rule. In 23rd of Henry VIII. the Grocers' Livery Company were granted "two griffins per fess gules and or," and many other of the Livery Companies have supporters to their arms. Others, for no apparent reason, are without them. The "Merchant Adventurers' Company or Hamburg Merchants" have supporters, as had both the old and the new East India Companies. The arms of Jamaica and Cape Colony and of the British North Borneo Company have supporters, but on the other hand no supporters were assigned to Canada or to any of its provinces. In Ireland the matter appears to be much upon the same footing as in England, and as far as impersonal arms are concerned it is very difficult to say what the exact rule is, if this is to be deduced from known cases and past precedents.
Probably the freedom—amounting in many cases to great laxity—with which in English heraldic art the positions and attitudes of supporters are changed, is the one point in which English heraldic art has entirely ignored the trammels of conventionalised officialism. There must be in this country scores of entrance gates where each
