A note on two Grants of Arms

ARMS. CREST AND MANTLING, GRANTED TO ROBERT KNIGHT OF BROMLEY, KENT. BY HAWLEY, CLAR ; 1548. From original grant in the Public Record Office. ( 153 ) A NOTE ON TWO GRANTS OP ARMS. BY RALPH GRIFFIN, F.S.A. In the numerous interesting documents of various kinds preserved at the Public Record Office are a few original grants of arms. How these documents given to private persons by the heralds as evidence that such private persons bad a right to use certain arms came into the public archives does not appear, and is not very material. For us it is a subject of congratulation that they are now safely preserved. Only two of these documents—as pointed out to me by Mr. M. S. Giuseppi, F.S.A., to whom for his kindly assistance I would record my best thanks—are grants to persons in Kent. Documents of this kind have frequently been reproduced in their proper colours, and are in that form very decorative. No such reproductions so far as I am aware have adorned the pages of Archceologia Cantiana. In the present times it is impossible to begin, and indeed it is not essential in most cases, because the blazon given by the herald, helped by the representation which he put " in the margent," is sufficient for practical purposes. The earlier grant is one to Wm. Weldisshe of Lynton Kent, dated 19 March U Hen. VIII. [1542-53], It is made' by Chris. Barker, Garter, and nas bis two seals: one his private seal, the other his official seal. As arms he grants Vert iii ronninge houndes argent gouted ainire the cJmfe golds a Fosse passant golds, and as cre&t, a dymie Foxe raced, gouh gouted argent set upon a- wreath argent and vabfo mantell gouts; lyn&d silver bottonett golde. The arms in a more modern form of blazon would be Vert, three hounds courant argent goidttj de larmes, on a chief ifei A NOTE ON TWO GRANTS 0£ ARMS. or a fox passant gules, and the crest a demi fox erect and erased gules, goutty d'eau. In the drawing in the margin the fox of the crest is erect, as was to be expected, and perhaps it is scarcely necessary to mention it except as a matter of caution. The grant is printed with an illustration in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th Series, vol. i., p. 245. On reference to Hasted (vol. ii, 142, under Linton) it is found that Barker must have confirmed rather than granted these arms, but he probably granted the crest as a new one. The second grant of arms is later, being dated 14 July 2 Edw. VI. [1548]. It is to Robert Knight of Bromley, co. Kent, and is made by " Thomas Hawley al's Clarencieulx principall Heraulde & Kynge of armes of the south east & west parties of this Realme of Englande from the river of the Trent Southwarde." It is sealed with his private seal, a saltire engrailed (no doubt Vert, a saltire engrailed argent, for Hawley), and with his official seal, a cross and in the first quarter a fleur-de-lis and on a chief an indistinct charge (it should be a lion of England crowned). The arms granted are, Silver a cheveron engrayled asure freted golde betwene three trogodites hedds rased guyles the tonge apparant asure upon his helme on a torse sylver and asure a Trogodite guyles staunding upon a mounteyne vert betwene twoo hawthome trees vert homed and unguled golde on his syde three droppes of the same mantled asure doubled sylver as more playnelye depicted in this mergent." The italics are not of course in the original. The picture in the margin is reproduced, so far as it can be reproduced by photography, in the plate. The colours in the original cause some photographic difficulties, but subject to this it seemed worth while to get a reproduction in this form, as the trogodite is one of the rariora of heraldry. As will be seen, it is a deer with the horns curving downwards at the side of the face: such au animal is blazoned at times as a reindeer, as in the case of the arms of Bowet, though in that case the attires are doubled. The question arises as to what Hawley meant by the word. On reference to the great Oxford English Dictionary the A HOTIB O!N TWO GRANTS OF ARMS. 15& word is not found, nor is trogodice, which is a possible reading of the word iu the grant, but s.v. Troglodyte is a quotation from Lovell's Hist. Anim. and Min. (1661) : "The homes in the stagge are various . . . the Phrygian have moveable homes, the Troglodyte direct to the earth." No special reference is made, however, to its heraldic use. It is therefore useful to have an illustration shewing the exact presentment of the animal intended. Besides this general point of interest, it may be noted that the arms do not occur in Hasted so far as the index of the heraldry in his four volumes is a correct guide. Nor are they in the Visitations of Kent printed by the Harleian Society, nor in any others so far as I know. But the coat did not escape Mr. Streatfeild. It is carefully tricked with the crest in vol. i. of his interleaved Hasted, at p. 93 (Add. MS. 33,879). He obtained his information from the 2nd vol. of the grants in the College of Arms. He notes the hawthorn trees as proper, i.e., vert, fructed gules, a detail not in the grant. There is a copy of the grant at the British Museum in Stowe MS. 677, fol. 6, and another in the MSS. at Queen's College, Oxford. It is printed with an illustration in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th Series, vol. i., p. 287. [Thanks are due to the authorities of the Public Record Office for permission to reproduce the arms as shewn on the grant; also to Mr. Mill Stephenson, P.S.A., who has kindly worked up the original photograph so as to make it possible to reproduce it with clearness. Mr. A. W. Hughes Clarke, the editor of Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, was good enough to call attention to the fact that the grants had been printed in that work.]