"Facsimile of an Ancient Heraldic Manuscript"

I clearly don't have enough free time to go out and scour the internet the way that I'd like to.  (Having a full-time job really interferes with my pursuing my hobbies!  I really need to win the lottery, or have a rich uncle die and leave me everything, or get some kind of large monetary windfall, so that I wouldn't have to work and could stay home and look at and look for heraldry all day, every day, like I'd like to do.)  Nonetheless, there are a lot of other folks out there looking around for stuff, and sometimes when they run across something good, they'll post it where I can see it (in the time that I do have for web surfing), and then I can share it with you, and we can all bask in the glory of finding, and downloading, another really cool heraldic resource.

In this specific instance, a link was posted on Facebook to a digital copy of a book entitled Facsimile of an Ancient Heraldic Manuscript Emblazoned by Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount Lyon King of Arms 1542, published in 1822, engraved by W.H. Lizars.

And you know, just from seeing the title page, that it's going to be a really great book for heraldry.

It is, in fact, a copy of the roll of arms known today as the Lindsay of the Mount Roll. It contains 400 Scottish coats of arms, and is a seminal document in the history of Scottish heraldry.

Here's one of the pages from the facsimile, showing Stewart Earl of Moray, Montgomery Earl of Eglinton, Cunningham Earl of Glencairn, and Kennedy Earl of Cassilis.

So if you have an interest in Scottish heraldry, or 16th Century heraldic manuscripts, or just like looking a drawings of coats of arms, feel free to drop on over to the website of the Internet Text Archive at https://archive.org/details/facsimileofancie00lind and check it out for yourself.

And give thanks to the many fine folks on the internet who run across such things and share their findings with the rest of us.

A Light, But Accurate, Article on Acquiring a Coat of Arms

With the annual publication of the New Year's Honours list in Great Britain, The Mirror took it upon itself to let its readers know that even though they might have not made that list (the overall odds of being so honored by the Queen in any given year being only 1 in 64,000), they estimate that one out of every three adult Britons is eligible to acquire a coat of arms.

And the article briefly goes through who is eligible, lists some of the things you might have on your coat of arms (e.g., a kangaroo, "hedgehogs, computer components, personal mottos"), and does mention the "one hitch" to getting a coat of arms: "you have to pay £5,250 for a new coat of arms."  They also note that "you should really leave the specifics to the herald. And less is more when it comes to cramming references in, recommends the College of Arms: 'Simplicity and boldness make for the best heraldic design and it is a mistake to seek the inclusion of too many references.'"

It's a nice article, lighthearted in tone but accurate in its information.  You can find it on-line on the website of The Mirror at http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/missed-out-new-years-honours-4897332

160 Years of Heraldic Meanings

I didn't run across this November 21, 2014 article (The Ottawa Citizen's "Ottawa's coat of arms - a mix of local symbolism and ancient tradition") until very recently, but found it to be of interest for a several reasons.

First, it gave a nice overview of the origin and changes to the arms of the City of Ottawa in Canada over the 160 years since its founding.

Second, it's not often that you can find detailed explanations for all of the charges on a coat of arms, and this article does that.  (For a greater discussion of the difficulty of determining the meaning of charges in heraldry, see the Most Frequently Asked Questions page at Francois Velde's Heraldica website, http://www.heraldica.org/faqs/mfaq)

Third, it has a picture of a large metal sculpture which is an interpretation of the City's achievement of arms that doesn't slavishly follow the original artist's depiction of the arms, as so many people seem to think needs to happen.

The City turns 160 this year, and it's current coat of arms turns 60.  So 2015 is a banner year for both the city and its coat of arms, and this article and accompanying narrated video is a nice adjunct to that.  If you'd like to learn more about the City's history and its coats of arms, this article can be found on-line at http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/king-ottawas-coat-of-arms-a-mix-of-local-symbolism-and-ancient-tradition-with-video

Another Heraldic Acquisition from Washington, DC

The other heraldic object I found at Ronald Reagan International Airport in Washington, DC had not one, but two, coats of arms on it.  And was considerably easier to get home than the glass coffee mug without worrying about breaking it!

The obvious heraldry is, of course, the full color version of the Seal of the President of the United States.  (Fortunately, I don't think that I could ever be mistaken for the actual holder of that office, so I should be safe from prosecution for impersonating him.)

The heraldry there is, of course, the full achievement of arms of the United States, with the shield (Paly of thirteen argent and gules a chief azure) on the breast of a bald eagle displayed, grasping in its dexter talon an olive branch and in its sinister a sheaf of 13 arrows, holding a motto scroll in its beak, and with the crest of a glory breaking through clouds over its head.

Not quite as obvious, though lightly visible in the picture above, is another, simpler depiction of the achievement on the brim of the cap, done in black on black.

There are also the words "Washington DC" curving around the brim to the right (heraldic sinister).  (Just in case you forgot where you bought it, I guess!)

Anyway, I thought it would make a nice addition to my growing collection of heraldic caps, and it fit easily into my carry-on luggage, so it's home with me now, and worn as the mood strikes.

An Heraldic Acquisition from Washington, DC

We recently spent a little time in Washington, DC.  We were actually there for a presentation I was giving to the Virginia Beach Genealogy Society, but it was unbelievably less expensive to fly into DC and then drive the three hours to Virginia Beach than it was to fly into Norfolk (the nearest major airport to Virginia Beach), and we thought we could use and afternoon in DC to visit a couple of places (well, okay, three: there was a painting I've long wanted to see in the National Gallery of Art; the World War II memorial; and as an added bonus, the monument to the Grand Army of the Republic was right across the street from the Metro station from which we would be exiting for the other two.)

There was, of course, a bit of heraldry (mostly the national arms) to be seen as we made our way between these three places.  But it was when we got back to the airport awaiting our flight back to Texas that I found some heraldry that I could not only see, but buy and bring home with me.

The item I'm sharing in this post is a deep blue coffee mug with the emblem of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, made famous by the long-running and well-known CBS television series "NCIS."

The emblem of the NCIS is based on the arms of the United States, with the addition of the emblem of the U.S. Navy on the field and the words "US NCIS" amid 13 small stars on the blue chief; here's a full-color version of it.

Even if I didn't watch NCIS on TV (which I do), I don't think I could have resisted buying this mug because, well, it's heraldry (of a sort), don't you know?

Next time, I'll share the other heraldic item I found at Ronald Reagan International Airport in DC.  It has two coats of arms on it!

A New Take on Some Old Arms

It's the beginning of a new year, and I thought it appropriate to share with you an updated take on some old arms that we ran across in the windows of Temple Church in greater London.

The church had suffered a lot during WWII, what with most of the the windows being blown out and an incendiary bomb having caused the roof to collapse and all that.  So, naturally enough, the many windows needed replacement.

One set of windows in particular caught my eye, containing as they do modern takes on some coats of arms with a relationship to the church: the Royal Arms of Great Britain and the arms of the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple.

Here's an overview of the windows:

As you can see, on the left is a modern somewhat artistic take on the arms of the Inner Temple, Azure a Pegasus segreant argent, and on the right the arms of the Middle Temple, Gules a Paschal lamb argent.

But it was the unusual depiction of the Royal Arms in the central window that really drew my attention.

(The dates 1608 and 2008, with the Royal Crown, refer to the fact that in 1608 King James I by letters patent granted the Honourable Societies of the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple the freehold of the Temple lands. The 400th anniversary of this royal charter was celebrated in 2008 with a multi-disciplinary festival.  The 1608 charter imposed a number of conditions on the Inner and Middle Temples for them to retain the freehold in perpetuity: some of these conditions included the accommodation and legal training of students, the maintenance of the Temple Church as a place of worship, and the provision of lodging for its Master.)

The heraldic symbols, and the lines alluding to a heater shield shape, refer to the Royal Arms of Great Britain as used by James I (James VI of Scotland), shown in a more conventional depiction here:

You can see in the window the individual quarterings that make up the Stuart Royal arms: the three lions passant guardant of England; the rampant lion of Scotland; the gold harp on blue of Ireland; and the three golden fleurs-de-lis of France.  And, of course, in both the window and in the image immediately above, James's motto of Beati pacifici (blessed are the peacemakers).

None of the windows here contains a coat of arms in the traditional sense.  Yet it is easy to see that each one is based on, and alludes to, a coat of arms, in what might be considered a new way of looking at heraldry.

Something that I thought I would share with new at the beginning of this new year.

May your new year be filled with happiness.  And heraldry!

Heraldic Porcelain

In the same room where I had spotted the colonial American heraldic embroidery that I shared in the post before last, there were also a couple of large plates with a coat of arms on them.  In the usual fashion of giving the general visitor, but not one with a special heraldic interest, about the plates, the explanatory signs with the plates read:

PAIR OF CHARGERS WITH THE ARMS OF

THE OKEOVER FAMILY OF ENGLAND

Jingdezhen, China, 1739-1742

Hard-paste porcelain

A very terse description for these:

A search through the heraldic reference books back home discovered the following:

From Burke’s General Armory:

Okeover (London; Rowland Okeover, merchant, third son of Philip Okeover. Visit. London. 1508).  Ermine on a chief gules three bezants, the centre one charged with a mullet sable.  Crest - An oak tree vert acorned or.

The Visitation of London, 1568, gave basically identical information:

Ermine on a chief gules three bezants, the centre one charged with a mullet sable.  Crest - An oak tree vert acorned or.

The Visitation of Staffordshire, 1583 had some additional information:

Okeover of Okeover.  Quarterly, 1 and 4, Ermine on a chief gules three bezants (Okeover); 2, Per pale indented sable and argent (Atlowe); 3, Azure a bend of lozenges argent (Grin).  Crest - In a ducal coronet or a demi-dragon ermine armed gules.

With no quarter for Grin, but with the second quarter for Atlowe named, I went back to Burke and found:

Atloe.  Per pale indented sable and argent.

With no information on the other two quarters or the impaled arms on the sinister side of the shield, I  pulled out my copy of Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials and found the following information:

Gules a fess between three annulets or.  Petit.  Pettus, Rackheath, Norfolk.  Thomas Petyte.

Argent on a saltire engrailed sable nine annulets or.  Leake, co. Nottingham, co. Derby, and co. Yorkshire.  John de Leyke.  John Lake, Bishop of Bristol, 1084-5, afterwards Chichester.  Sir John Leyke, Sutton in the Dale, co. Derby.  Leeke, Newark-on-Trent, co. Nottingham.

Sable three pheons argent. Apreece, Archer, Egerton, Foster or Forstall, Nichell, Nicholl, Nicholls, Nicolls, O’Shee, Rednes, Rees, Sotham.

My 1939 copy of Burke's Landed Gentry gives the explanation for these arms. Under the entry for Okeover of Okeover, amongst others members of this family it cites a Rowland Okeover (1651-1730) who married "Elizabeth, dau. and heir of Sir Thomas Pettus, Bt., of Blackheath, Norfolk."  Their son, Thomas (1679-1710), married "Catherine, dau. and heir of William Leake, Baron of the Exchequer."  Thomas and Catherine's son, Leake Okeover, 1701-1765, who succeeded his grandfather Rowland, married Mary, daughter of John Nichol.

So, with the earlier quartering for Atloe/Atlow, the arms on the chargers (and presumably the chargers themselves) belong to Leake Okeover of Okeover (1701-1765) and his wife Mary (d. 1764), and represent as follows:  Quarterly Okeover, Atlow, Pettus, and Leake, marshalling Nichol.

As Leake Okeover died without issue, the estates were left to his great nephew Edward Walhouse.  When Edward died also without issue, the estates passed to the heir male, Haughton Farmer Okeover, of Okeover, and thence to his descendants.  In the interim, the arms have dropped the Pettus and Leake quarters (presumably because the current heirs are unrelated to them) but kept the Atlow quartering.

Okeover Hall, the seat of Okeover of Okeover, is in Ashbourne, county Derby.

But what I really don't know is why the National Gallery in Washington, DC couldn't, or didn't, put at least some of that information with the explanatory cards with these plates.

Merry Christmas to Me!

What a great Christmas this is!  I have been able to order, and have received (just in time for Christmas!), two heraldic books that I have been looking forward to for some time now.  

First, the fourth, and final, volume of the Dictionary of British Arms: Medieval Ordinary is now available, and has arrived at my door early last week.  (An ordinary is a collection of coats of arms arranged according to their designs, as opposed to an armorial, which is arranged alphabetically by surname.)

I’ve been looking forward to this final volume for quite a while.  I bought Volume 1 when it was first published in 1992; Volume 2 was acquired in 1996 when it became available; Volume 3 was added to my heraldic bookshelves in 2009; and now I have Volume 4, published this year, to go with them.

The four-volume set is the result of a bequest to the Society of Antiquaries in 1926 for a new edition of Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials, for many years the primary resource for the identifying English coats of arms.  (Papworth is another book that graces my shelves, and is well-thumbed through.  At the time I bought it in the mid-1980s, it was only available as a fairly expensive book that had to be shipped across the Atlantic from England.  Now, of course, it is possible to read or download a copy in .pdf format from the internet, from either the Internet Archive or Google Books.)

The four volumes of the Dictionary cover English heraldry in the period before the beginning of the heraldic visitations in 1530, so there is a lot of later heraldry that it does not cover. Its publication means that people interested in medieval arms will be able to identify accurately the arms that they may run across. Even more helpful, each volume contains a surname index, making it useful as an armorial, too.

If you are interested in more information about this volume (or the earlier ones), please feel free to drop by the website of publisher Boydell & Brewer (the only relationship I have with this firm is that I’ve given them a fair bit of money over the years) at http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=14643

Second, the companion book to the Folger Shakespeare Library's recent (July-October 2014) exhibition on Symbols of Honor: Heraldry and Family History in Shakespeare's England has finally been made available to the public.  Not having had the opportunity to visit the exhibition (and the Library's gift shop!), as soon as I saw that it was available, I got on-line and ordered my copy of Heralds and Heraldry in Shakespeare's England, a collection of essays by various authors about aspects of the title subject, edited by Nigel Ramsay.

Alas, I was going to recommend that if you wanted a copy of this wonderful volume for your own heraldic libraries, that you go to the website of the Folger Shakespeare Library (http://www.folger.edu/), click on the "Shop" tab at the top of the page, search for "heraldry," and get your own copy from them.  But a quick search of my own to verify those steps came up with three results, none of which are Heralds and Heraldry in Shakespeare's England.  It is possible that it was a comparatively limited run of this title and that sometime after I bought one, they ran out.  Or, hopefully, it's just a temporary problem, and you'll be able to find them there in the near future.

For now, all I can recommend if you would like to learn more about this book, or acquire a copy of your own, to do a search for the title on-line; I did find a few copies available for sale that way (one on eBay; another listing was from a bookseller in New York).

In any case, it looks to be an interesting and informative volume, and I'm looking forward to reading through it over the next little while.

American Colonial Heraldic Embroidery

We very recently had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in Washington, DC (yes, I know that an afternoon is not nearly enough time to see much of anything; but it was the time we had available, and so we had a very short - just three - list of things we wanted to visit).

One of the items on that short list was a painting in the National Gallery that I have wanted to see for a very long time.  And the last time that I was in DC, many years ago, it was unfortunately in a set of four gallery rooms that were temporarily closed to the public, so I missed my chance.  (Made it this time, though!)

Be that as it may, while we were walking through the Gallery to find the room with this particular painting, we saw this little heraldic item:

The explanatory card with this item describes it as follows:

Silk needlework coats of arms, primarily made by young women in Boston, exemplified the girls' accomplishments and education.  This one was probably worked by Martha Williams, daughter of Henry Howell Williams (1768-1828) and Elizabeth Bell (d. 1820).  She left her needle at the bottom, perhaps as a final good-bye to a job well done.  Such coats of arms were often displayed in handsome carved frames.  This elaborate example is attributed to John Welch, who made similar frames for paintings by John Singleton Copley.

The card is a bit confusing: according to Ancestry.com, Henry Howell Williams was born in 1736 and died in 1802.  His second child, daughter Martha, was born in 1768 and died in 1828.  His wife, Elizabeth nee Bell, was born in 1740.  Henry H. Williams was the son of Joseph and Martha (Howell) Williams.

A short stint of research in Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials, Burke's General Armory, and Foster's Grantees of Arms 1687-1898 produced the following information on the two coats of arms contained in this embroidery:

From Papworth:

Or a lion rampant gules on a chief azure two doves rising argent.  Williams, Boston, New England; granted 1767.
Azure a fess between three church bells or.  Bell.

Clearly, either the colors of the silk used for the arms have changed drastically over the years (certainly a possibility), or the colors of silk chosen do not match the blazon of the arms (given the often "bucket shop" nature of the patterns made in Boston for these embroideries, also a possibility).

From Burke:

Williams (Boston, America; granted 1767).  Or a lion rampant gules on a chief azure two doves rising argent.  Crest: An eagle wings expanded proper reposing the dexter foot on a mound or.

If you look carefully at the crest in the embroidery (you may need to click on the picture to open a larger version to do so), you can see that the eagle in the crest does in fact have his dexter foot on a small mound.

And from Foster:

Williams, John, of Boston, alias Salem, New Zealand, 1767, Vol. XI, fol. 224 (Berry).

There was a John Williams (1744-1809), the youngest brother of Henry Howell Williams, who could perhaps be the John Williams mentioned in Foster.  He would, however, only have been 23 at the time of the grant of arms, and I see no indication that he ever went to New Zealand, so I don't know how likely he is to have been the grantee.

Questions of identification and authenticity aside, it was an unexpected pleasure to see this bit of colonial American heraldic art.

Another Heraldic Memorial in Temple Church

Another very impressive heraldic monument in Temple Church is that of Richard Martin (1570-1618), which bears not only a beautifully carved image but is also surmounted by his remarkably simple arms.

Burke’s General Armory, cf. Martin: Martin (Baron Martin, abeyance 1325; William Martin, descended from Robert Martin, temp. Henry I., son of Martin de Tours, a Norman, was summoned to Parliament, 1295).  Argent two bars gules.

Also, Martin (Athelhampson, co. Dorset).  Argent two bars gules.

Burke gives a number of other closely related arms, some with a cadency mark, some with a charged canton, some with charges of various types on the bars, one with the bars engrailed accompanied by a charged chief, and one with three bars.

According to Wikipedia, Richard Martin was a member of a group of intellectual men, poets, and playwrights including John Donne and Ben Jonson who met the first Friday of every month at the Mermaid Tavern in Bread Street.  Martin was "universally well regarded for his warmth of nature, personal beauty, and graceful speech", and was elected "prince of Love" to preside over the Christmas grand revels of the Middle Temple in the winter of 1597/98.

In 1603, Martin was chosen to give a speech welcoming the new King James to London on behalf of the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex as part of the celebrations of the royal entry on 7 May.

He died of the smallpox, on Sunday morning 2 November 1618, and was buried in the Temple Church, London.

Here's a woodcut portrait of him done by Simon de Passe.

He has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography which gives a lot more details of his life (I especially like the part about Sir John Davies writing a dedicatory sonnet to Martin but then later assaulting him with a cudgel.  :

MARTIN, RICHARD (1570-1618), recorder of London, born at (Merton, Devonshire, in 1570, was the son of William Martin by his wife Anne, daughter of Richard Parker of Sussex. He became a commoner of Broadgates Hall (Pembroke College), Oxford, at Michaelmas 1585, and was 'a noted disputant,' though he left without a degree. He entered the Middle Temple, but was temporarily expelled from the society in February 1591 for a riot at the prohibited festival of the Lord of Misrule (Archæologia, xxi. 109). Sir John Davies (1669-1626) [q. v.] prefaced his 'Orchestra,' published in 1598, with a dedicatory sonnet to Martin, but, provoked it is supposed by Martin's raillery, assaulted him with a cudgel in February 1597-8, while at dinner in the common hall of the Middle Temple. In 1601 Martin was M.P. for Barnstaple (Willis, Notitia Parl.) He was called to the bar in 1602. In 1603, on the progress of James I from Theobalds to London, he made at Stamford Hill 'an eloquent and learned oration' on the king's accession (Nichols, Progresses of James I, i. 113), which was printed (London, 1603, 4to) as 'A Speech delivered to the King's . . . Majestie in the name of the Sheriffes of London and Middlesex' (reprinted in Nichols, op. cit. p. *128f ; cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1803-10, p. 7). From 1604 tilt 1611 he was M.P. for Christchurch. In February 1612-13, on the occasion of the Princess Elizabeth's marriage, he organised a masque at the Middle Temple. Martin was Lent reader of the Temple in the thirteenth year of James I (1615-16), and on 1 Oct. 1618 was chosen recorder of London. He died on 31 Oct, 1618 (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1811-18, pp. 589, 591). Aubrey says his end was hastened by excessive drinking (but cf. Whitelocke, Liber Famelicus, p. 63). Martin was buried in the Temple Church, and has an alabaster monument on the north wall, representing his figure kneeling beneath a canopy (Malcolm, Londinium Rediv. ii. 292). The monument was repaired in 1683. A portrait of Martin, engraved by Simon Passe in 1620, is in the Ashmolean Museum, and is reproduced in Nichols's 'Progresses of James I,' 1, *128, By his will (in the Prerogative Office of Canterbury) Martin left 5l. to Otterton, and 5l. to Calliton Raleigh, Devonshire, where he had a house. The mayor of Exeter was his executor (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 168), Martin had a reputation as a wit, and 'there was no person,' says Wood, 'more celebrated for ingenuity . . . none more admired by Selden, Serjeant Hoskins, Ben Jonson, &c., than he.' Jonson dedicated his 'Poetaster' to him, Wood states that Martin was the author of 'Various Poems,' of which, however, he had seen no copy. A verse 'Epistle to Sir Hen. Wotton' by Martin is in 'Coryat's Crudities.'
    [Wood's Athenæ) (Bliss), ii. 260-1 ; Foster's Alumni Oxon. (1600-1714) ; Chamberlain's Letters, temp. Eliz, p. 112; authorities cited above.]


All in all, a remarkable man, who has left us a similarly remarkable monument and a bit of classic heraldry.