The Right Honorable Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Bt.

Our next armorial memorial is dedicated to the memory of Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, 1st Baronet (1868-1931).

In memory of

The Right Honourable

Sir Laming Worthington-Evans

Bart GBE MP

1868 - 1931

For twenty-two years a Member

of Parliament and for ten years

a Cabinet Minister

Secretary of State for War

1921-1922 and 1924-1929

He served his country in war and peace

throughout his life and died serving

Glorious is the fruit of good labours

and the root of wisdom shall never fall away

Sir Laming has a good-sized paragraph in my 1938 Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, which outlines in more detail his political career as Member of Parliament for Colchester, his government offices during World War I, his being made Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire on June 3, 1922, and his assuming by Royal License the additional name of Worthington the day before he was created Baronet on November 15, 1916, among other things.

But, naturally, it was the heraldry that attracted my eye.

At the center top of the memorial are the arms of Worthington-Evans, flanked by the arms of the Borough of Westminster (where he spent so much of his career) (Azure a portcullis on a chief or on a pale azure between two Tudor roses gules and argent a cross flory between five martlets or) and the Borough of Colchester (for whom he served as MP) (Or four pieces of wood raguly conjoined in cross vert each side arm transfixed with a nail palewise sable ensigned by an ancient crown or the arm in base enfiling an ancient cross or and transfixed by a nail bendwise sable).

(As an aside, it seems to me that it would be less convoluted to simply blazon the main charge in the arms of Colchester as a cross raguly vert, but maybe that's just me.)

The arms of Worthington-Evans are blazoned: Quarterly: 1 and 4, Per pale argent and gules a lion passant regardant between two fleurs-de-lis and a bundle of rods banded all counterchanged (Evans); 2 and 3, Azure a saltire engrailed argent between three tridents one in chief and two in fess or (Worthington). The crests are: 1, A lion passant regardant argent the body charged with three crosses moline and resting its dexter forepaw upoin a bundle of rods banded gules (Evans); and 2, A demi-goat proper charged on the shoulder with a saltire engrailed argent (Worthington). The motto is Libertas (Liberty).

Sir Laming was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son, Sir William Shirley Worthington-Evans.

A Memorial to a Husband From His Wife

It's neither one of the biggest nor one of the fanciest armorial memorials in St. Margaret's Chapel, but it's certainly one of the more touching ones, the memorial to Austen Henry Layard erected by his wife, Enid.

I pray you remember
Henry Austen Layard PC GCB
Discoverer of Nineveh
He served his Queen and his country with all lhis
heart and with all his might while representing
the Boroughs of Aylesbury and Southwark in
Parliament as Under Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs as First Commissioner of Works
as Minister at Madrid and as
Ambassador at Constantinople
Born 5 March 1817 Died 5 July 1894
Enid L

Sir Henry Austen Layard, PC [Privy Council], GCB [Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath] was, as his Wikipedia article notes, a traveler, archaeologist, cuneiformist, art historian, draftsman, collector, politician, and diplomat. he is best-known, though, as the excavator of Nimrud and Nineveh, where he uncovered a large portion of the Assyrian palace reliefs and, in 1851, the library of Ashurbanipal.

He married in London on March 9, 1869, his first cousin once removed, Mary Enid Evelyn Guest, daughter of Sir Josiah John Guest and Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie. Henry and Enid Layard had no children.

The heraldic portion of the memorial shows two shield accolée (embracing), the husband's alone on the left encircled by the insignia of the Order of the Bath, and the right with the impaled arms of husband and wife. At the top, on either side of the crest, are his initials (HAL) and hers (EL).

His arms are blazoned: Gules a chevron between in chief two mullets of six points or pierced of the field and in base a crescent argent on a chief azure three mullets or. The crest is Out of a ducal coronet a mullet of six points or. The motto (below the shield) is Juvante deo (By the help of God). A second motto (not the wife's from all that I can find) appears above the crest in Scottish fashion, Perseverando (By persevering).

Enid's paternal arms are Azure on a chevron or between three swan's heads erased proper three crosses moline sable.

It's a beautiful little memorial with some very nicely done heraldry upon it.

Two Modern Armorial Memorials

I found these next two armorial memorials in St. Margaret's Chapel, Westminster, to be especially interesting because they appear to be of a new pattern of such memorials. They are dated 1978 and 1990, respectively, but are certainly of a particular type, a horizontal rectangular stone slate (I think. they look like slate, but I suppose they could just as easily be molded concrete stained or colored to mimic slate) containing the memorial language with a square notch extending from the center of the upper edge on which the coat of arms is carved and painted.

The first one is a memorial to Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot, 1905-1978. He served as a Member of Parliament, for Dundee (1931-1945) and for Ipswich (1957-1970), and was Solicitor General for England and Wales (1964-1967) under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Sadly, he died on June 18, 1978 in a hotel in Hong Kong after choking on a bone in a chicken sandwich.

His arms are beautifully carved and painted:

The arms would be blazoned Or on a chevron engrailed sable between three lion's jambes erased gules three wheels or. The crest is something like Atop a tower sable sustained by a pair of lion's jambes gules a Cornish chough proper (that is, sable beaked and legged gules). The motto is Pro lege et libertate (For law and liberty).

The other memorial of this type is that of Eric George Molyneux, Baron Fletcher of Islington, 1903-1990. He was a Member of Parliament for Islington East from 1945 to 1970, as well a Minister Without Portfolio from 1964 to 1966 under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. On July 9, 1970, he was created a life peer as Baron Fletcher of Islington in Greater London.

The arms (surmounted by the coronet of a baron), and once again beautifully carved and painted, have echoes of the ancient arms of Molyneux, Azure a cross moline or, as the well as the crest, which here (as then) issues from a cap of maintenance, or chapeau.

The arms here would be blazoned Azure two arrows in saltire points to chief between four crosses moline or. The crest is Issuant from a chapeau gules turned up ermine a cubit arm proper vested sable the hand holding a rolled scroll bendwise sinister argent surmounted by an arrow bendwise point to chief or. His supporters are bowmen from two different periods of English history, and the motto is Labor ipse voluptas (Labor itself is a pleasure).

I always find it interesting to see the various styles, and the evolution of styles, of armorial memorials, and these two are, I think, lovely examples of a modern form of such. Don't you?

The Idea Wasn't a Bad One, But ...

... the implementation fell a little short.

This is the story of Jordan Webb and his wife-to-be, Kristen Onkka.

In discussing their upcoming nuptials, they - as many couples facing marriage do these days - talked about their options and their preferences. Would she take his surname? Would he take hers? Would they do a hyphenated combination name?

In the course of that discussion, they noted that both of their surnames came to them from their respective fathers. Father from whom they were estranged, and of whom they had memories they would rather not remember.

So they decided to create a new surname for their new family, and came up with Dhacroi, an Irish-Gaelic combination of "two" and "hearts".

So far, so good. (Not necessarily a choice I would have made, but this story isn't about me, so there's that.)

However, and this is where it goes awry, having created a new surname, they thought, "why not dive in and make a family coat-of-arms?"

I mean, he's an avid reader of fantasy novels, many of which have noble houses with their own coats of arms, and what an author of a fantasy novel can do in a book, he could do in real life, right?

Alas, as happens so many times with people who know very little about actual heraldry, its history, its rules, and its meanings, they came up with something that I feel sure has lots of "meaning" for them, but which comes across as something I call "kitchen sink heraldry," since it seems to have been designed by including just about everything, including the proverbial "kitchen sink."

I am not going to go into all of the things that I can find "wrong" about this design. Suffice it say that there are "problems" with it.

It would have been ever so much better if they had consulted with someone (anyone!) who has an understanding of and feeling for heraldry. (It does appear that they looked at one or more of those books or websites which purports to explain the "meanings" of the colors and charges used in a coat of arms, which probably only served to lead them even further astray. For some accurate information about such things, I recommend the MFAQ of the rec.heraldry newsgroup, which can be found at http://www.heraldica.org/faqs/mfaq.)

Anyway, if you have the heart for it, you can find an article with more detail, and a photograph of the loving couple, on-line at https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/03/my-wife-and-i-wanted-nothing-to-do-with-our-dads-so-we-made-our-own-family-name-and-coat-of-arms-7675877/

An Armorial "Antiques Roadshow" Find

I pretty regularly watch the television series Antiques Roadshow, both the English and the American versions. Partly because of my interest in history, partly because I learn a lot from listening the appraisers, and, yes, a little bit because I hope that someday soon something I own (besides my heraldry books) will be found to be worth  lot of money. (The fact that this latter has not yet happened, and realistically, probably never will, has done nothing to dampen my enthusiasm.)

Anyway, we were watching the latest episode of the American version of the series on our local Public Broadcasting Service station, KERA, and one of the items that had been brought in for an appraisal was one that immediately caught my eye: a piece of armorial china. So I whipped out my cell phone (whatever did we do in the olden days when we didn't have telephones in our pockets that would also take pictures?) and took a shot of the screen:

The appraiser spent a fair bit of the few minutes he had on-screen talking about the Chinese export trade and the figures in the white cartouches on the gold circle inside the rim of the plate. (My memory of what he said about them is that on china for use in China, there would be four, or perhaps six, different figures. On this plate, for the European trade, there are only two, which are repeated. This last was apparently something that would never have been done for use in China. The feeling that I got from his description was of a number of Chinese porcelain painters sitting around discussing among themselves that they didn't have to put in more effort than necessary, because the "foreign devils" would buy anything. Hahahahahahaha. But maybe I'm reading too much into a sixty to ninety second appraisal.)

Anyway, my interest, of course, was to see if I could identify the martial arms on the plate. And, sure enough, a quick review of Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials, Burke's General Armory, and Fairbairn's Crests came up with the following:

The husband's arms (on the dexter, or left for the viewer, side of the shield):

Martin: Azure two bars or in chief a rose between two bugle-horns (no tincture given; on this plate they are argent). (Papworth)

Martin: Azure two bars or in chief a rose between two bugle-horns of the first. (Nope, nope, nope. That makes the charges in chief azure on azure, and thus effectively invisible. That cannot be correct.) (Burke)

The wife's arms (on the sinister, or right for the view, side of the shield):

Peck: Or on a chevron gules three crosses patty of the first. (Papworth)

Peck (Samford Hill, co. Essex, and Wood-Pelling and Methwould, co. Norfolk, temp. Charles II.). Or on a chevron gules three crosses formée of the field. Crest – Two lances or in saltire headed argent pennons hanging to them gold each charged with a cross formée gules the spears enfiled with a chaplet vert. (Burke)

The crest, An anchor or surmounted by a bugle-horn sable does not appear in Fairbairn’s Crests.

I have been unable to find which Mr. Martin married which Miss Peck, or when, or where, but it's nice to know that they were able to set their dinner table with a setting of nice chinaware with their marital coat of arms upon it.

And as I have noted many times before, you can find heraldry everywhere, even when you're just sitting of an evening relaxing while watching TV, with no expectation of seeing a coat of arms.

An Armorial Memorial to Two Brothers

The number of questionable coats of arms on memorials in St. Margaret's Chapel, Westminster, continues to mount. For example:

This beautifully carved memorial to two brothers, Edward and Owen Reynolds, which has carved and painted arms at the top and bottom.

The memorial plaque reads:

Here lieth interred y^e bodie of Edward

Reynoldes Esq., late Clarke of his ma^ties

Privie Seale & Register of y^e Court of Re-

quests who departed this life y^e 18 day

of Decemb^r, An^o Dni 1623. By him also lieth

y^e bodie of his brother M^r Owen Reynolds,

who deceased y^e 16 of April, 1610. To whose

memories Edward, & Lancelot Reynolds Gent:

have here placed these ensving verses made

by y^e said Edward Reynolds in his life time.

Gloria, vita, decor, thesaurus, fama, voluptas,

Vana, breuis, fragilis, fluxus, temeraria, mollis,

Fumus, bulla, jris, fax, ventus, dulce venenu,

Vanescit, perit, arescit, liquefit, fugit, angit.

Orbe nihil toto stabile est cito corruer orbis

Et vafti jn nihilu uanescet fabrica mundi.

Sola fides firman parit, æternad corna

Sola fides Christi meritis, sunt catera nugæ.

Hac vici, hac morior fide

Mihi Christ, in vita

Et morte lvcrv.

(And, no, my knowledge of Latin is not nearly good enough to translate the lower parts for you. Sorry!)

It was, of course, the arms which attracted me.

The History of the Parish Church of Saint Margaret, Westminster, published in 1847 (and which I have been quoting in many of these posts of heraldry in St. Margaret's), blazons these arms as: Argent; a chevron lozengy gules and sable between three crosses fitchée of the third.

Before we get into the difficulty of the colors, let me discuss a couple of other issues with that blazon. First, the chevron is not "lozengy;" it is checky. "Charges, whether placed on, or in, an ordinary, always incline in the direction of that ordinary.  It would, therefore, be incorrect to draw the four billets, in the fourth quarter [of the arms of Panmure, Per pale argent and gules, on a saltire between four herrings naiant five billets all counterchanged], in the same manner as the centre one." (John E. Cussans, The Grammar of Heraldry, 1866, p. 50 (see also, Handbook of Heraldry, by the same author, 1882, p. 160)) This rule applies to ordinaries which are divided, as for example, checky. On a chevron, as here, the checks should follow the line of the chevron. So the chevron is properly blazoned as checky, and not lozengy.

Second, the crosses are clearly carved as crosses crosslet fitchy.

Okay, now that I've got that off my chest, let's discuss the tinctures. The chevron here is painted checky gules and or. I have no idea where The History got "sable" from. Further, looking closely (and you can click on the image above to see a larger picture), the crosses are painted azure, not sable.

Unfortunately, Burke's General Armory does not shed much light on the question of how these arms should be painted, though it does point to some possibilities. If we ignore (as I think we should) those Reynolds arms which bear a chevron ermine, we still have:

Reynolds (Carshalton, co. Surrey). Argent a chevron checky gules and azure between three crosses crosslet fitchy of the third.

Reynolds (borne by Sir Joshua Reynolds, as appears from a grant of the Freedom of a London Company to him). Argent a chevron lozengy gules and azure between three crosses crosslet azure.

Reynolds (Shotley, co. Suffolk). Argent a chevron checky azure and gules between three crosses formy fitchee vert, on a chief embattled sable as many [three] mullets or.

Reynolds (co. Suffolk, and Great Yarmouth, co. Norfolk). Argent a chevron lozengy gules and azure on a chief of the third [azure] a cross formy fitchy between two mullets or.

Reynolds. Argent a chevron lozengy gules and azure between three crosses formy fitchy vert on a chief sable three mullets of the field [argent].

So none of these arms match those (as painted) on the memorial here.

There is an Owen Reynolds of Westminster in the Visitations of Surrey, but only in a genealogy noting that Celina, daughter and co-heir of Owen Reynolds of Westminster married William Engler of Carsalton, Surrey. No arms are mentioned for Owen.

So, once again I find myself at a bit of a loss, here to determine the arms' correct tinctures of brothers Edward and Owen Reynolds. It may very well be that the author of The History mistook what was supposed to be azure for sable on the chevron and crosses of the arms, and that a later painter got the correct tincture for the crosses, but substituted gold for the blue on the chevron. At least that's the hypothesis I'm going with for now, unless and until additional evidence surfaces.

In any event, it's another really nice monument with some good heraldry, whatever the correct colors may be.

An Old Memorial With Confused (or, at least, Confusing) Arms

This next memorial in St. Margaret's is an older one to a father and young daughter who predeceased him. It's a lovely monument, though time hasn't always treated it well; the head and feet of the father (on the left) are now missing.

If you look carefully (and you can click on the image above to see a larger picture), you will note that the eldest daughter (kneeling right behind her mother) is carrying a skull in her hands, as a mark of her being deceased.

The inscription below the carving of the kneeling family reads (I have substituted an "f" for the "long ess", since my keyboard does not have the long ess on it):

Heere resteth in afsured hope to rife in Christ the Body of Hugh

Haughton fourth Sonne of thomas Haughton of Haughton in y^e Count

y of Chefter gent: who married Fraunces daughter of William Cooth of Sher

borne in the County of Dorfet gent: and by her had issue two

daughters, Elizabeth & Fraunces  Hee departed this life y^e 17^th day of

october 1616 aged 50 yeares & Elizabeth departed this life y^e 28^th day

of August 1615 aged 7 yeares and lieth here also interred.

Just above the kneeling figures of the family members is the inscription:

Frances Haughton in token of her love to her
husbande caused this monument to be erected

The monument bears two coats of arms: the paternal arms with crest at the top, and a marital shield impaling the husband's arms with his wife's at the bottom.

The History of the Parish Church of Saint Margaret's, Westminster, published in 1847, blazons these arms as: Sable, in chief for distinction, a martlet argent, three bars of the same. (A martlet is the difference for a fourth son.)

A more typical blazon for these arms would be: Sable three bars argent in chief a martlet (also argent) for difference.)

Unfortunately, the martlet seems to be missing here, and the bars are painted gold, or or.

Burke's General Armory gives the arms of "Houghton, or Haughton (Haughton, co. Chester ...)" as: Sable three bars argent, with the crest A bull's head sable attired argent charged on the neck with three bars of the last. Haughton of Haughton appears in The Visitation of Cheshire of 1580, with the arms Sable three bars Argent, and showing Hugh as the fourth son of Thomas Haughton of Haughton, Esq. and his wife Alice Steventon.

So it would appear that the bars being gold here is a (comparatively) recent error. The bull's head crest listed in Burke may have lost all of it its paint, nothing remaining of either the black on the head or the horns and bars in white.

Of the marital arms at the base of the memorial, the husband's arms are blazoned in The History as cited above, while the wife's paternal arms (Cooth) are blazoned there as: Gules a fess argent between three escallop shells of the same. (Nowadays we'd just say: Gules a fess between three escallops argent.)

But while the bars of the husband's arms are here closer to their correct argent, and if you look closely you can see something in the chief that might be a martlet (now overpainted black) (again, you can click on the picture above to see the larger image), the wife's arms only retain the red of the field, the fess having become black and the escallop shells gold.

Burke's General Armory has only one entry for Cooth, and he gives no county (we'd be looking for Cooth or Coothe in Sherbourne, co. Dorset): Gules a fess between three escallops or. Cooth does not appear at all in the Visitation of Dorset conducted in 1623.

So it may be that the modern painter followed Burke's blazon for the color of the shells, but that fess here is quite clearly black, and not either white (as it was blazoned in 1847) or gold (as it appears in Burke).

So there you have it; an early 17th Century memorial to a beloved husband and daughter, but with the arms of both husband and wife mispainted in one way or another in the years since.

Still, it's a beautiful monument, with a great use of heraldry.

An Ornate Memorial With Complex Heraldry

There is quite a range of heraldic memorials in St. Margaret's Chapel, Westminster, from those just about a hundred years old to those much older. This next memorial is one of the latter, in addition to being one of the more ornate memorials there.

This is the memorial to Blanche Parry, daughter of Henry Parry of New-Court, Hereford, who died February 12, 1589, aged 82. She was Chief Gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth's Most Honourable Privy Chamber and Keeper of Her Majesty's Jewels.

That death date makes her a contemporary of my 11th great-grandmother, Margaret (Haslonde) Bray, who was buried at St. Margaret's on March 28, 1588, and of my 10th great-grandparents, Thomas and Mary (Bray) Whitney, who were married at St. Margaret's on May 12, 1583, and who were both buried there (in 1637 and 1629, respectively). It is entirely possible that Thomas and Mary Whitney watched this memorial being erected in 1595. How cool is that?

Anyway, it was, of course, that great coat of arms at the top which really caught my eye.

The arms are blazoned in The History of the Parish Church of Saint Margaret, Westminster, as: Quarterly: 1 and 8, Argent a fess between three lozenges azure; 2, Argent a lion rampant azure; Gules; 4, Azure three hands couped or; 5, Gules a fess azure between three escallops or; 6, Sable a fess gules between three pellets; 7, Gules a bend or between six crosses crosslet sable.

Obviously, there are several discrepancies between that blazon and what we see on the shield above.

Burke's General Armory lists two slightly different coats of arms for Parry of Hereford: Argent a fess between three lozenges sable and Argent a fess between three lozenges within a bordure azure. The lion in the second quarter appears to be langued and crowned gules. The gules of the third quarter is carved and painted here as Gules three bars paly argent and (sable/azure). The "fesses" in quarters five and six are pretty clearly carved as chevrons, and that in the sixth quarter is charged with a crescent (which here may be be the mark of a second son). The bend in the seventh quarter is painted as cotised, and the crosses crosslet fitchy are painted or rather than sable.

In a complete turnabout from the usual situation (finding a reasonable amount of information on the father, but much, much less on his daughter), I've been having a hard time tracking down Henry Parry of New-Court (or New Court), Hereford. The family does not appear in the Visitation of Hereford of 1569, nor in that of London of 1568. Most of the references on-line to him relate to his daughter Blanche (she apparently died a very well-regarded, and wealthy, woman! See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Parry, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-42805908, and https://books.google.com/books?id=BXOSaJMcymcC&pg=PT339&lpg=PT339&dq=blanche+%22henry+parry%22&source=bl&ots=SELP089y6y&sig=d_yycyPAshhPzFuCGq8RalhasU4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWjcinp_TbAhURR6wKHXw1BpMQ6AEIVDAG#v=onepage&q=blanche%20%22henry%20parry%22&f=false, among others), and I've not found his coat of arms anywhere, so it is very hard to discover how many of these discrepancies are due to mistaken overpainting in the centuries since the monument was erected and how many to other factors.

Still and all, it's a beautiful monument to a woman who spent much of her life serving her Queen, and who died in service to that monarch.

Another Carved Marble Heraldic Memorial

I have managed to find (and download) a .pdf copy of The History of the Parish Church of Saint Margaret, in Westminster by Rev. Mackenzie Edward Charles Walcott, published in 1847, which, among other things, gives a brief (very brief!) description many of the memorials and monuments in St. Margaret's Chapel. This is going to save me ever so much time in tracking down exactly who is being memorialized and how their coats of arms are blazoned. (It is by no means a panacea, but still, some of the basic research is already encapsulated in this little volume, and I hope that we all will gain something from that.)

Continuing my "amble" through the ambulatory of the chapel, I ran across this particularly nice carved marble memorial.

Underneath

Lieth Interred the Body of

JOHN CHURCHILL

Late of this Parish, Esquire

Who departed this life

the Twenty eighth Day of

November 1715.

Aged 49 years.

His coat of arms, carved in relief and painted, are blazoned in the book above as: Party per pale. Sable; a lion rampant argent debruised with a bendlet gules. 2. Sable; on a cross or, four pellets between four fleurs-de-lys argent.

I would change the blazon a little to better conform with current practices: Per pale: 1, Sable a lion rampant argent debruised by a bendlet gules; 2, Sable on a cross or between four fleurs-de-lys argent five roundels sable.

Someone has clearly painted the lion and the fleurs-de-lys as gold since 1847! But they really should be argent (or white).

The Churchill arms (to dexter, on the viewer's left) are given in Burke's General Armory as: Sable a lion rampant argent debruised with a bendlet gules.

The arms on the sinister side of the shield (to the viewer's right) are given by Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials as Banks (London, baronetcy 1661-99), Sable on a cross or between four fleurs-de-lys argent five ogresses.

I have not been able to find John Churchill, d. 1715, in the Dictionary of National Biography or any of the usual on-line sources. (There is a plethora of information about John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, but though a contemporary, he is not the John Churchill we're looking for here.)

Nor have I found a likely identification for his wife, who seems not to be either of the daughters of Sir John Banks, baronet. Mary Banks married John Seville, and her sister Elizabeth Banks married Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Aylesford.

Still, though, it's a beautiful monument, with its little "garden" of flowers beneath the shield.