Armorial de Gelre. The title of Blue Mantle pursuivant, as old as the reign of Edward III., suggests a like usage in England. When the tight-laced coat of arms went out of fashion among the knighthood the loose tabard of arms with its wide sleeves was at once taken in England as the armorial dress of both herald and cavalier, and the fashion of it has changed but little since those days. Clad in such a coat the herald was the image of his master and, although he himself was rarely chosen from any rank above that of the lesser gentry, his person, as a messenger, acquired an almost priestly sacredness. To injure or to insult him was to affront the coat that he wore.
We hear of kings of arms in the royal household of the 13th century, and we may compare their title with those of such officers as the King of the Ribalds and the King of the Minstrels; but it is noteworthy that, even in modern warrants for heralds’ patents, the custom of the reign of Edward III. is still cited as giving the necessary precedents for the officers’ liveries. Officers of arms took their titles from their provinces or from the titles and badges of their masters. Thus we have Garter, Norroy and Clarenceux, March, Lancaster, Windsor, Leicester, Leopard, Falcon and Blanc Sanglier as officers attached to the royal house; Chandos, the herald of the great Sir John Chandos; Vert Eagle of the Nevill earls of Salisbury, Esperance and Crescent of the Percys of Northumberland. The spirit of Henry VII.’s legislation was against such usages in baronial houses, and in the age of the Tudors the last of the private heralds disappears.
In England the royal officers of arms were made a corporation by Richard III. Nowadays the members of this corporation, known as the College of Arms or Heralds’ College, are Garter Principal King of Arms, Clarenceux King of Arms South of Trent, Norroy King of Arms North of Trent, the heralds Windsor, Chester, Richmond, Somerset, York and Lancaster, and the pursuivants Rouge Croix, Bluemantle, Rouge Dragon and Portcullis. Another king of arms, not a member of this corporation, has been attached to the order of the Bath since the reign of George I., and an officer of arms, without a title, attends the order of St Michael and St George.
There is no college or corporation of heralds in Scotland or Ireland. In Scotland “Lyon-king-of-arms,” “Lyon rex armorum,” or “Leo fecialis,” so called from the lion on the royal shield, is the head of the office of arms. When first the dignity was constituted is not known, but Lyon was a prominent figure in the coronation of Robert II. in 1371. The office was at first, as in England, attached to the earl marshal, but it has long been conferred by patent under the great seal, and is held direct from the crown. Lyon is also king-of-arms for the national order of the Thistle. He is styled “Lord Lyon,” and the office has always been held by men of family, and frequently by a peer who would appoint a “Lyon depute.” He is supreme in all matters of heraldry in Scotland. Besides the “Lyon depute,” there are the Scottish heralds, Albany, Ross and Rothesay, with precedence according to date of appointment; and the pursuivants, Carrick, March and Unicorn. Heralds and pursuivants are appointed by Lyon.
In Ireland also there is but one king-of-arms, Ulster. The office was instituted by Edward VI. in 1553. The patent is given by Rymer, and refers to certain emoluments as “praedicto officio ... ab antiquo spectantibus.” The allusion is to an Ireland king-of-arms mentioned in the reign of Richard II. and superseded by Ulster. Ulster holds office by patent, during pleasure; under him the Irish office of arms consists of two heralds, Cork and Dublin; and a pursuivant, Athlone. Ulster is king-of-arms to the order of St Patrick. He held visitations in parts of Ireland from 1568 to 1620, and these and other records, including all grants of arms from the institution of the office, are kept in the Birmingham Tower, Dublin.
The armorial duties of the ancient heralds are not clearly defined. The patent of Edward IV., creating John Wrythe king of arms of England with the style of Garter, speaks vaguely of the care of the office of arms and those things which belong to that office. We know that the heralds had their part in the ordering of tournaments, wherein armory played its greatest part, and that their expert knowledge of arms gave them such duties as reckoning the noble slain on a battlefield. But it is not until the 15th century that we find the heralds following a recognized practice of granting or assigning arms, a practice on which John of Guildford comments, saying that such arms given by a herald are not of greater authority than those which a man has taken for himself. The Book of St Albans, put forth in 1486, speaking of arms granted by princes and lords, is careful to add that “armys bi a mannys proper auctorite take, if an other man have not borne theym afore, be of strength enogh,” repeating, as it seems, Nicholas Upton’s opinion which, in this matter, does not conflict with the practice of his day. It is probable that the earlier grants of arms by heralds were made by reason of persons uncunning in armorial lore applying for a suitable device to experts in such matters—and that such setting forth of arms may have been practised even in the 14th century.
The earliest known grants of arms in England by sovereigns or private persons are, as a rule, the conveyance of a right in a coat of arms already existing or of a differenced version of it. Thus in 1391 Thomas Grendale, a squire who had inherited through his grandmother the right in the shield of Beaumeys, granted his right in it to Sir William Moigne, a knight who seems to have acquired the whole or part of the Beaumeys manor in Sawtry. Under Henry VI. we have certain rare and curious letters of the crown granting nobility with arms “in signum hujusmodi nobilitatis” to certain individuals, some, and perhaps all of whom, were foreigners who may have asked for letters which followed a continental usage. After this time we have a regular series of grants by heralds who in later times began to assert that new arms, to be valid, must necessarily be derived from their assignments, although ancient use continued to be recognized.
An account of the genealogical function of the heralds, so closely connected with their armorial duties will be found in the article Genealogy. In spite of the work of such distinguished men as Camden and Dugdale they gradually fell in public estimation until Blackstone could write of them that the marshalling of coat-armour had fallen into the hands of certain officers called heralds, who had allowed for lucre such falsity and confusion to creep into their records that even their common seal could no longer be received as evidence in any court of justice. From this low estate they rose again when the new archaeology included heraldry in its interests, and several antiquaries of repute have of late years worn the herald’s tabard.
In spite of the vast amount of material which the libraries catalogue under the head of “Heraldry,” the subject has as yet received little attention from antiquaries working in the modern spirit. The old books are as remarkable for their detachment from the facts as for their folly. The work of Nicholas Upton, De studio militari, although written in the first half of the 15th century, shows, as has been already remarked, no attempt to reconcile the conceits of the author with the armorial practice which he must have seen about him on every side. Gerard Leigh, Bossewell, Ferne and Morgan carry on this bad tradition, each adding his own extravagances. The Display of Heraldry, first published in 1610 under the name of John Guillim, is more reasonable if not more learned, and in its various editions gives a valuable view of the decadent heraldry of the 17th century. In the 19th century many important essays on the subject are to be found in such magazines as the Genealogist, the Herald and Genealogist and the Ancestor, while Planché’s Pursuivant of Arms contains some slight but suggestive work which attempts original enquiry. But Dr Woodward’s Treatise on Heraldry, British and Foreign (1896), in spite of many errors arising from the author’s reliance upon unchecked material, must be counted the only scholarly book in English upon a matter which has engaged so many pens. Among foreign volumes may be cited those of Menestrier and Spener, and the vast compilation of the German Siebmacher. Notable ordinaries of arms are those of Papworth and Renesse, companions to the armorials of Burke and Rietstap. The student may be advised to turn his attention to
