Part 3 (1/2)
However heraldry is looked upon, it must be admitted that from its earliest infancy armory possessed two essential qualities. It was the definite sign of hereditary n.o.bility and rank, and it was practically an integral part of warfare; but also from its earliest infancy it formed a means of decoration. It would be a rash statement to a.s.sert that armory has lost its actual military character even now, but it certainly possessed it undiminished so long as tournaments took place, for the armory of the tournament was of a much higher standard than the armory of the battlefield. Armory as an actual part of warfare existed as a means of decoration for the implements of warfare, and as such it certainly continues in some slight degree to the present day.
Armory in that bygone age, although it existed as the symbol of the lowest hereditary rank, was worn and used in warfare, for purposes of pageantry, for the indication of owners.h.i.+p, for decorative purposes, for the needs of authenticity in seals, and for the purposes of memorials in records, pedigrees, and monuments. All those uses and purposes of armory can be traced back to a period coeval with that to which our certain knowledge of the existence of armory runs. Of all those usages and purposes, one only, that of the use of armorial bearings in actual battle, can be said to have come to an end, and even that not entirely so; the rest are still with us in actual and extensive existence. I am not versed in the minutiae of army matters or army history, but I think I am correct in saying that there was no such thing as a regular standing army or a national army until the reign of Henry VIII. Prior to that time the methods of the feudal system supplied the wants of the country. The actual troops were in the employment, not of the Crown, but of the individual leaders. The Sovereign called upon, and had the right to call upon, those leaders to provide troops; but as those troops were not in the direct employment of the Crown, they wore the liveries and heraldic devices of their leaders. The leaders wore their own devices, originally for decorative reasons, and later that they might be distinguished by their particular followers: hence the actual use in battle in former days of private armorial bearings. And even yet the {25} practice is not wholly extinguished, for the tartans of the Gordon and Cameron Highlanders are a relic of the usages of these former days. With the formation of a standing army, and the direct service of the troops to the Crown, the liveries and badges of those who had formerly been responsible for the troops gave way to the liveries and badges of the Crown. The uniform of the Beefeaters is a good example of the method in which in the old days a servant wore the badge and livery of his lord. The Beefeaters wear the scarlet livery of the Sovereign, and wear the badge of the Sovereign still. Many people will tell you, by the way, that the uniform of a Beefeater is identical now with what it was in the days of Henry VIII. It isn't. In accordance with the strictest laws of armory, the badge, embroidered on the front and back of the tunic, has changed, and is now the triple badge--the rose, the thistle, and the shamrock--of the triple kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Every soldier who wears a scarlet coat, the livery of his Sovereign, every regiment that carries its colours, every saddle-cloth with a Royal emblem thereupon, is evidence that the use of armory in battle still exists in a small degree to the present day; but circ.u.mstances have altered. The troops no longer attack to the cry of ”A Warwick! a Warwick!” they serve His Majesty the King and wear his livery and devices. They no longer carry the banner of their officer, whose servants and tenants they would formerly have been; the regiment cherishes instead the banner of the armorial bearings of His Majesty. Within the last few years, probably within the lifetime of all my readers, there has been striking evidence of the manner in which circ.u.mstances alter everything.
The Zulu War put an end to the practice of taking the colours of a regiment into battle; the South African War saw khaki subst.i.tuted universally for the scarlet livery of His Majesty; and to have found upon a South African battlefield the last remnant of the armorial practices of the days of chivalry, one would have needed, I am afraid, to examine the b.u.t.tons of the troopers. Still the scarlet coat exists in the army on parade: the Life Guards wear the Royal Cross of St. George and the Star of the Garter, the Scots Greys have the Royal Saltire of St. Andrew, and the Gordon Highlanders have the Gordon crest of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon; and there are many other similar instances.
There is yet another point. The band of a regiment is maintained by the officers of the regiment, and at the present day in the Scottish regiments the pipers have attached to their pipes banners bearing the various _personal_ armorial bearings of the officers of the regiment. So that perhaps one is justified in saying that the use of armorial bearings in warfare has not yet come to an end. The other ancient usages of armory exist now as they existed in the earliest times. So that it is {26} foolish to contend that armory has ceased to exist, save as an interesting survival of the past. It is a living reality, more _widely_ in use at the present day than ever before.
Certainly the military side of armory has sunk in importance till it is now utterly overshadowed by the decorative, but the fact that armory still exists as the sign and adjunct of hereditary rank utterly forbids one to a.s.sert that armory is dead, and though this side of armory is also now partly overshadowed by its decorative use, armory must be admitted to be still alive whilst its laws can still be altered. When, if ever, rank is finally swept away, and when the Crown ceases to grant arms, and people cease to use them, then armory will be dead, and can be treated as the study of a dead science. {27}
CHAPTER III
THE HERALDS AND OFFICERS OF ARMS
The crown is the Fountain of Honour, having supreme control of coat-armour.
This control in all civilised countries is one of the appanages of sovereignty, but from an early period much of the actual control has been delegated to the Heralds and Kings of Arms. The word Herald is derived from the Anglo-Saxon--_here_, an army, and _wald_, strength or sway--though it has probably come to us from the German word _Herold_.
In the last years of the twelfth century there appeared at festal gatherings persons mostly habited in richly coloured clothing, who delivered invitations to the guests, and, side by side with the stewards, superintended the festivities. Many of them were minstrels, who, after tournaments or battle, extolled the deeds of the victors. These individuals were known in Germany as _Garzune_.
Originally every powerful leader had his own herald, and the dual character of minstrel and messenger led the herald to recount the deeds of his master, and, as a natural consequence, of his master's ancestors. In token of their office they wore the coats of arms of the leaders they served; and the original status of a herald was that of a non-combatant messenger. When tournaments came into vogue it was natural that some one should examine the arms of those taking part, and from this the duties of the herald came to include a knowledge of coat-armour. As the Sovereign a.s.sumed or arrogated the control of arms, the right to grant arms, and the right of judgment in disputes concerning arms, it was but the natural result that the personal heralds of the Sovereign should be required to have a knowledge of the arms of his princ.i.p.al subjects, and should obtain something in the nature of a cognisance or control and jurisdiction over those arms; for doubtless the actions of the Sovereign would often depend upon the knowledge of his heralds.
The process of development in this country will be more easily understood when it is remembered that the Marshal or Earl Marshal was in former times, with the Lord High Constable, the first in _military_ rank under the King, who usually led his army in person, and to {28} the Marshal was deputed the ordering and arrangement of the various bodies of troops, regiments, bands of retainers, &c., which ordering was at first facilitated and at length entirely determined by the use of various pictorial ensigns, such as standards, banners, crests, cognisances, and badges. The due arrangement and knowledge of these various ensigns became first the necessary study and then the ordinary duty of these officers of the Marshal, and their possession of such knowledge, which soon in due course had to be written down and tabulated, secured to them an important part in mediaeval life. The result was that at an early period we find them employed in semi-diplomatic missions, such as carrying on negotiations between contending armies on the field, bearing declarations of war, challenges from one sovereign to another, besides arranging the ceremonial not only of battles and tournaments, but also of coronations, Royal baptisms, marriages, and funerals.
From the fact that neither King of Arms nor Herald is mentioned as officiating in the celebrated Scrope and Grosvenor case, of which very full particulars have come down to us, it is evident that the control of arms had not pa.s.sed either in fact or in theory from the Crown to the officers of arms at that date. Konrad Grunenberg, in his _Wappencodex_ (”Roll of Arms”), the date of which is 1483, gives a representation of a _helmschau_ (literally helmet-show), here reproduced (Fig. 12), which includes the figure of a herald. Long before that date, however, the position of a herald in England was well defined, for we find that on January 5, 1420, the King appointed William Bruges to be Garter King of Arms. It is usually considered in England that it would be found that in Germany armory reached its highest point of evolution. Certainly German heraldic art is in advance of our own, and it is curious to read in the latest and one of the best of German heraldic books that ”from the very earliest times heraldry was carried to a higher degree of perfection and thoroughness in England than elsewhere, and that it has maintained itself at the same level until the present day. In other countries, for the most part, heralds no longer have any existence but in name.” The initial figure which appears at the commencement of Chapter I. represents John Smert, Garter King of Arms, and is taken from the grant of arms issued by him to the Tallow Chandlers'
Company of London, which is dated September 24, 1456.
Long before there was any College of Arms, the Marshal, afterwards the Earl Marshal, had been appointed. The Earl Marshal is now head of the College of Arms, and to him has been delegated the whole of the control both of armory and of the College, with the exception of that part which the Crown has retained in its own hands. {29} After the Earl Marshal come the Kings of Arms, the Heralds of Arms, and the Pursuivants of Arms.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.--_Helmschau_ or Helmet-Show. (From Konrad Grunenberg's _Wappencodex zu Munchen_.) End of fifteenth century.]
The t.i.tle of King of Arms, or, as it was more anciently written, King of Heralds, was no doubt originally given to the chief or princ.i.p.al officer, who presided over the heralds of a kingdom, or some princ.i.p.al province, which heraldic writers formerly termed _marches_; or else the t.i.tle was conferred upon the officer of arms attendant upon some particular order of knighthood. Garter King of Arms, who is immediately attached to that ill.u.s.trious order, is likewise Princ.i.p.al King of Arms, and these, although separate and distinct offices, are and have been always united in one person. Upon the revival and new modelling of the Order of the Bath, in the reign of George the First, a King of Arms was created and attached to it, by the t.i.tle of Bath King of Arms; and King George III., upon the inst.i.tution of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order of Knighthood, annexed to that order a King of Arms, by the appellation of Hanover. At the time of the creation of his office, Bath King of Arms was given Wales as his province, the intention being that he should rank with the others, granting arms in his own province, but he was not, nor was Hanover, nor is the King of Arms of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, a member (as such) of the corporation of the College of Arms. The members of that corporation considered that the gift of the province of Wales, the jurisdiction over which they had previously possessed, to Bath King was an infringement of their chartered privileges. The dispute was referred to the law officers of the Crown, whose opinion was in favour of the corporate body.
Berry in his _Encyclopaedia Heraldica_ further remarks: ”The Kings of Arms of the provincial territories have the t.i.tles of _Clarenceux_ and _Norroy_, the jurisdiction of the former extending over the south, east, and west parts of England, from the river Trent southwards; and that of the latter, the remaining part of the kingdom northward of that river. Kings of Arms have been likewise a.s.signed other provinces over different kingdoms and dominions, and besides Ulster King of Arms for Ireland, and Lyon King of Arms for Scotland, others were nominated for particular provinces abroad, when united to the Crown of England, such as _Aquitaine_, _Anjou_, and _Guyenne_, who were perhaps at their first creation intended only for the services of the places whose t.i.tles they bore, when the same should be entirely subdued to allegiance to the Crown of England, and who, till that time, might have had other provinces allotted to them, either provisionally or temporarily, within the realm of England.
There were also other Kings of Arms, denominated from the dukedoms or earldoms which our princes enjoyed before they came to the throne, as _Lancaster_, _Gloucester_, _Richmond_, and _Leicester_, the three first {30} having marches, or provinces, and the latter a similar jurisdiction.
Windsor, likewise, was a local t.i.tle, but it is doubtful whether that officer was ever a King of Arms. _Marche_ also a.s.sumed that appellation, from his provincial jurisdiction over a territory so called.
But although anciently there were at different periods several Kings of Arms in England, only two provincial Kings of Arms have, for some ages, been continued in office, viz. Clarenceux and Norroy, whose provinces or marches are, as before observed, separated by the river Trent, the ancient limits of the escheaters, when there are only two in the kingdom, and the jurisdiction of the wardens of the forests.
_Norroy_ is considered the most ancient t.i.tle, being the only one in England taken from the local situation of his province, unless _Marche_ should be derived from the same cause. The t.i.tle of _Norroy_ was anciently written _Norreys_ and _Norreis_, King of Arms of the people residing in the north; _Garter_ being styled _Roy des Anglois_, of the people, and not _d'Angleterre_, of the kingdom, the inhabitants of the north being called _Norreys_,[1] as we are informed by ancient historians.
It appears that there was a King of Arms for the parts or people on the north of Trent as early as the reign of Edward I., from which, as Sir Henry Spelman observes, it may be inferred that the southern, eastern, and western parts had princ.i.p.al heralds, or Kings of Arms, although their t.i.tles at that early age cannot now be ascertained.
_Norroy_ had not the t.i.tle of King till after the reign of Edward II. It was appropriated to a King of Heralds, expressly called _Rex Norroy_, _Roy d'Armes del North_, _Rex Armorum del North_, _Rex de North_, and _Rex Norroy du North_; and the term _Roy Norreys_ likewise occurs in the Pell Rolls of the 22nd Edward III.; but from that time till the 9th of Richard II. no farther mention is made of any such officer, from which it is probable a different person enjoyed the office by some other t.i.tle during that interval, particularly as the office was actually executed by other Kings of Arms, immediately after that period. _John Otharlake, Marche King of Arms_, executed it in the 9th of Richard II., Richard del Brugg, Lancaster King of Arms, 1st Henry IV., and _Ashwell_, _Boys_, and _Tindal_, successively _Lancaster Kings of Arms_, until the end of that monarch's reign.
Edward IV. replaced this province under a King of Arms, and revived the dormant t.i.tle of _Norroy_. But in the Statute of Resumptions, {31} made 1st Henry VII., a clause was inserted that the same should not extend to _John Moore_, otherwise _Norroy_, chief Herald King of Arms of the north parts of this realm of England, so appointed by King Edward IV. by his Letters Patent, bearing date 9th July, in the eighteenth year of his reign. It has since continued without interruption.
_Falcon King of Arms_ seems the next who had the t.i.tle of King conferred upon him, and was so named from one of the Royal badges of King Edward III., and it was afterwards given to a herald and pursuivant, under princes who bore the falcon as a badge or cognisance, and it is difficult to ascertain whether this officer was considered a king, herald, or pursuivant. _Froissart_ in 1395 calls _Faucon_ only a herald, and in 1364 mentions this officer as a King of Arms belonging to the King of England; but it is certain that in the 18th Richard II. there was a King of Arms by that appellation, and so continued until the reign of Richard III., if not later; but at what particular period of time the officer was discontinued cannot be correctly ascertained.
_Windsor_ has been considered by some writers to have been the t.i.tle of a King of Arms, from an abbreviation in some old records, which might be otherwise translated. There is, however, amongst the Protections in the Tower of London, one granted in the 49th Edward III. to _Stephen de Windesore, Heraldo Armorum rege dicto_, which seems to favour the conjecture, and other records might be quoted for and against this supposition, which might have arisen through mistake in the entries, as they contradict one another.