Thursday, October 10, 2024

The Hidden Heraldic Jewel in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton


Please read all the way (or just go) to the end to read the moral of this post.

Tucked away in the vestry of All Saints Church in Kirk Deighton, and thus out of sight to the visiting public, was this heraldic gem.


I recommend that you click on the image above to see the full-size version; there's a lot of detail that you're going to miss just looking at the photo above.

The two central panels contain the Ten Commandments.

Below the panel, and attached to the frame of the door into the Vestry is this:


It reads: “The Panel above was restored in 1957. The Ten Commandments are in a version earlier than 1611. The Arms on the left are of ‘Manners’ and those on the right are of ‘Manners and DeRoos’ [properly, ‘De Ros’]. The castles are in France and were besieged by Henry VIII.”


The Manners arms on the left are blazoned: Or two bars azure a chief gules, a crescent for difference. (Yes, I am aware that the azure portions of this shield, and the azure portions of the other shield, look more vert. But they are supposed to azure, so that's how I've blazoned them) The crest is: A peacock in his pride proper.


The Manners-DeRos arms on the right are blazoned: Quarterly of sixteen: 1, Or two bars azure a chief quarterly azure and gules in the first and fourth two fleur-de-lis or on the second and third a lion passant guardant or (Manners); 2, Gules three water bougets argent (de Ros); 3, Gules three Catherine wheels argent (Espec); 4, Azure a Catherine wheel or (Belvoir); 5, Gules a fess between six crosses crosslet or (Beauchamp); 6, Checky or and azure a chevron ermine (Bellomonte [Newburgh]*); 7, Gules a chevron between ten crosses patty argent (Berkeley); 8, Or a fess between two chevrons sable (Lisle); 9, Gules a lion passant argent (Fitzgerald [Lynsley]); 10, Gules in pale three lions passant guardant or a bordure argent (Holland, Earl of Kent); 11, Argent a saltire engrailed gules (Tiptoft); 12, Or a lion rampant gules (Charleton, Baron Powys); 13, Argent a fess between two bars gemels gules (Badlesmere); 14, Checky argent and gules (Vaux [Vaux of Gillesland]); 15, Gules an eagle displayed within a bordure argent (Todeni [Albini ancient]); and 16, Or two chevrons within a bordure gules (Albini [Daubeney]).**

The De Ros crest (Fitz-Gerald-De Ros, Baron De Ros) is: [On a chapeau gules turned up ermine] A peacock in his pride proper.

The green (or blue?) triangle things around the crest in each painting is simply a cord from which the shiels "hangs", running through two golden rings at the top and then down to behind the helm.

* Bellomonte is an old or latinized form of Beaumont, and this great family was associated with a lordship in Normandy called ‘le Neubourg’ which was owned by Henry Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick, who was alternatively known as Henry de Newburgh.

** The identification of all of these quarters was assisted by reference to the website of Bottesford Living History, specifically the page on Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland (https://www.bottesfordhistory.org.uk/content/catalogue_item/bottesford-local-history-archive/heraldry-st-mary-virgin-botteford/edward-manners-3rd-earl-rutland), which has a key to all of the quarters on this shield. (That said, I had already been able to identify 11 of the quarters by my own research, but it was nice to have confirmation that I had correctly identified those quarters.)

The change of the chief from gules to quarterly was an honorable augmentation by King Henry VIII to Thomas Manners at the time of his creation as Earl of Rutland, in recognition of his descent in the maternal line from Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, a descendant of King Edward III on both his father’s and his mother’s sides.


And now, the Moral of this post:

Always talk to the people who work in a building that has heraldry on display, in this case, the Rector and his wife. Because they know where some of these "hidden gems" are located, out of the public view, and if you express an interest, they are generally more than happy to share them with you. If I hadn't mentioned, while taking photographs of just about everything in the church interior for my wife, that I personally was interested in the heraldry displayed there, I never would have been offered to see this heraldic Ten Commandments panel. And what a loss for me, and for you, that would have been!

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