AN INTRODUCTORY TALK ABOUT HERALDRY

What is heraldry?

The art of heraldry, or armoury, as the old writers called it, consists in blazoning the arms and telling the descent and history of families by certain pictorial signs. Thus from age to age an authenticated register of genealogies has been kept and handed on from generation to generation. The making and keeping of these records have always been the special duty of a duly appointed herald.

Perhaps you think that explanation of heraldry sounds rather dull, but you will soon find out that very much that is interesting and amusing, too, is associated with the study of armorial bearings.

For heraldry, which, you know, was reckoned as one of the prime glories of chivalry, is the language that keeps alive the golden deeds done in the world, and that is why those who have once learnt its secrets are always anxious to persuade others to learn them too.

"Although," says the old writer, Montague; "our ancestors were little given to study, they held a knowledge of heraldry to be indispensable, because they considered that it was the outward sign of the spirit of chivalry and the index also to a lengthy chronicle of doughty deeds."

Now, it is in a language that is all its own that heraldry tells its stories, and it is unlike any other in which history has been written.

This language, as expressed in armorial bearings, contains no words, no letters, even, for signs and devices do the work of words, and very well they do it. And as almost every object, animate and inanimate, under the sun was used to compose this alphabet, we shall find as we go on that not only are the sun, moon and stars, the clouds and the rainbow, fountains and sea, rocks and stones, trees and plants of all kinds, fruits and grain, pressed into the service of this heraldic language, but that all manner of living creatures figure as well in this strange alphabet, from tiny insects, such as bees and flies and butterflies, to the full-length representations of angels, kings, bishops, and warriors. Mythical creatures—dragons and cockatrices, and even mermaidens—have also found their way into heraldry, just as we find traditions and legends still lingering in the history of nations, like the pale ghosts of old-world beliefs.

And as though heavenly bodies and plants and animals were not sufficient for their purpose, heralds added yet other "letters" to their alphabet in the shape of crowns, maces, rings, musical instruments, ploughs, scythes, spades, wheels, spindles, lamps, etc.

Each of these signs, as you can easily understand, told a story of its own, as did also the towers, castles, arches, bridges, bells, cups, ships, anchors, hunting-horns, spears, bows, arrows, and many other objects, which, with their own special meaning, we shall gradually find introduced into the language of heraldry.

But perhaps by now you are beginning to wonder how you can possibly learn one-half of what all these signs are meant to convey, but you will not wonder about that long, for heraldry has its own well-arranged grammar, and grammar, as you know, means fixed rules which are simple guides for writing or speaking a language correctly.

Moreover, happily both for teacher and learner, the fish and birds and beasts (as well as all the other objects we have just mentioned) do not come swarming on to our pages in shoals and flocks and herds, but we have to do with them either singly or in twos and threes.

Now, even those people who know nothing about heraldry are quite familiar with the term, "a coat of arms." They know, too, that it means the figure of a shield, marked and coloured in a variety of ways, so as to be distinctive of individuals, families, etc.

But why do we speak of it as a coat of arms when there is nothing to suggest such a term?

I will tell you.

In the far-away days of quite another age, heraldry was so closely connected with warlike exploits, and its signs and tokens were so much used on the battle-field to distinguish friends from foes, that each warrior wore his own special badge, embroidered on the garment or surcoat which covered his armour, as well as, later on, upon the shield which he carried into battle.

And this reminds us of the poor Earl of Gloucester's fate at the Battle of Bannockburn. For, having forgotten to put on his surcoat, he was slain by the enemy, though we are told that "the Scottes would gladly have kept him for a ransom had they only recognized him for the Earl, but he had forgot to put on his coat of armour!"

On the other hand, we have good reason to remember that the "flower of knighthood," Sir John Chandos, lost his life because he did wear his white sarcenet robe emblazoned with his arms. For it was because his feet became entangled in its folds (as Froissart tells us) in his encounter with the French on the Bridge of Lussac, that he stumbled on the slippery ground on that early winter's morning, and thus was quickly despatched by the enemy's blows.

"Now, the principal end for which these signs were first taken up and put in use," says Guillim, "was that they might serve as notes and marks to distinguish tribes, families and particular persons from the other. Nor was this their only use. They also served to describe the nature, quality, and disposition of their bearer."

Sir G. Mackenzie goes farther, and declares that heraldry was invented, or, at any rate, kept up, for two chief purposes:

First, in order to perpetuate the memory of great actions and noble deeds. Secondly, that governors might have the means of encouraging others to perform high exploits by rewarding their deserving subjects by a cheap kind of immortality. (To our ears that last sentence sounds rather disrespectful to the honour of heraldry.)

Thus, for example, King Robert the Bruce gave armorial bearings to the House of Wintoun, which represented a falling crown supported by a sword, to show that its members had supported the crown in its distress, while to one Veitch he gave a bullock's head, "to remember posterity" that the bearer had succoured the King with food in bringing some bullocks to the camp, when he was in want of provisions.

Some derive their names as well as their armorial bearings from some great feat that they may have performed. Thus:

"The son of Struan Robertson for killing of a wolf in Stocket Forest by a durk—dirk—in the King's presence, got the name of Skein, which signifies a dirk in Irish, and three durk points in pale for his arms."

We shall meet with numbers of other instances in heraldry where armorial bearings were bestowed upon the ancestors of their present bearers for some special reason, which is thereby commemorated.

Indeed, it is most interesting and amusing to collect the legends as well as the historical facts which explain the origin and meaning of different coats of arms.

Here are a few instances of some rather odd charges. (A charge is the heraldic term given to any object which is charged, or represented, on the shield of a coat of arms.)

To begin with the Redman family:

They bear three pillows, the origin of which Guillim explains—viz.: "This coat of arms is given to the Redman family for this reason: Having been challenged to single combat by a stranger, and the day and the place for that combat having been duly fixed, Redman being more forward than his challenger, came so early to the place that he fell asleep in his tent, whilst waiting for the arrival of his foe.

"The people being meanwhile assembled and the hour having struck, the trumpets sounded to the combat, whereupon Redman, suddenly awakening out of his sleep, ran furiously upon his adversary and slew him. And so the pillows were granted to him as armorial bearings, to remind all men of the doughty deed which he awakened from sleep to achieve."

In many cases the charges on a coat of arms reflect the name or the calling of the bearer.

When this happens they are called "allusive" arms, sometimes also "canting," which latter word is a literal translation of the French term, armes chantantes, although, as a matter of fact, armes parlantes is a more usual term. Here are some examples of allusive arms.

The Pyne family bear three pineapples, the Herrings bear three herrings, one, Camel of Devon, bears a camel passant; the Oxendens bear three oxen; Sir Thomas Elmes bears five elm-leaves; three soles figure on the coat of arms of the Sole family, and to the description of the last armorial charge, old Guillim quaintly adds:

"By the delicateness of his taste, the sole hath gained the name of the partridge of the sea."

The arms of the Abbot of Ramsey furnish, perhaps, one of the most glaring examples of canting heraldry, for on his shield a ram is represented struggling in the sea!

On the shield of the Swallow family we find the mast of a ship with all its rigging disappearing between the capacious jaws of a whale, whilst the Bacons bear a boar.

But whoever designed the coat of arms of a certain Squire Malherbe must have surely been in rather a spiteful mood, and certainly had a turn for punning. For on that gentleman's shield we find three leaves of the stinging-nettle boldly charged!

In the armorial bearings of the Butler family we see allusion made to their calling in the charge of three covered cups, which commemorates the historical fact that the ancestor of the present Marquis of Ormonde, Theobald Walter by name, was made Chief Butler of Ireland by Henry II. in 1171, an office which was held by seven successive generations of the Ormonde family. The family of Call charge their shield very appropriately with three silver trumpets.

The Foresters bear bugle horns; the Trumpingtons, three trumpets.

Three eel-spears were borne by the family of Strathele, this being the old name given to a curious fork, set in a long wooden handle, and used by fishermen to spear the eels in mud.

The Graham Briggs charge a bridge upon their coat of arms.

A tilting spear was granted as his armorial bearings to William Shakespeare, which he bore as a single charge; a single spear was also borne appropriately by one Knight of Hybern.

As a last example of allusive arms, we may quote a comparatively modern example—viz., the coat of arms of the Cunard family.

Here we find three anchors charged upon the field, in obvious allusion to Sir Samuel Cunard, the eminent merchant of Philadelphia and the founder of the House of Cunard.