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82 THE ANCESTOR which will be found in the Worthies of England^ should have been enough to convince Mr. Fox Davies that it will not bear such an interpretation. The original order will be found on the back of the Close Roll, 5 Henry V., membrane 15. It is made in view of a particular event, namely the expedition which was then being prepared. It is not general, but applies only to four counties, that is to say Hampshire, Wiltshire, Sussex and Dorset. The penalties laid down are exclusion from the voyage, loss of wages, and the ' rasure and rupture * of the ' Coat Armours ' in question. There is a curious exception — exceptis illis qui nobiscum apud helium de Agencourt arma portahant — which seems to be a license to all who took part in that battle, not only to continue the use of arms borne without authority, but even to devise new coats for themselves. The proclamation admits that in former expeditions many persons had assumed armorial bearings at their pleasure, and had displayed them openly without interference on the part of the royal officers, and that old usage, or the grant from some person (not necessarily a herald^) having power to make such a grant, gave a sufficient title. The Crown evidently began in the fifteenth century to regulate more strictly the display of arms at musters and arrays ; but there was as yet no claim to govern the use of them in private houses, in churches, or on seals. It is a matter of common knowledge among antiquaries that at this period armorial seals were used by many husband- men or yeomen, and in some cases by persons who did not even pretend to have a right to the achievements represented upon them. I believe that such a claim was never heard of before the reign of Henry VIII. In the age when heraldry was first introduced, ' men took what arms they pleased, directed by their own fancy.' ^ The Assize of Arms in 1181 directed that every free layman having sixteen marks in rent or chattels should provide himself with a hauberk, a helm, a lance and a shield ; and if he chose to decorate the latter with an escar- buncle or a fleur-de-lis, with bends or chevrons or crosses, no law or custom stood in his way. In the thirteenth century, as Camden and Spelman frankly acknowledge, knights and ^ Upton, and the author of the treatise upon heraldry contained in the Book of 5/. AlhanSy assert that arms may lawfully be granted by a * Prince or other lord' ^ Gwillim.