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A COMPLETE GUIDE TO HERALDRY

having marches, or provinces, and the latter a similar jurisdiction. Windsor, likewise, was a local title, but it is doubtful whether that officer was ever a King of Arms. Marche also assumed 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 title, being the only one in England taken from the local situation of his province, unless Marche should be derived from the same cause. The title 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 principal heralds, or Kings of Arms, although their titles at that early age cannot now be ascertained.

Norroy had not the title 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 title 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 title of Norroy. But in the Statute of Resumptions,

  1. "Norreys and Surreis, that service aught the kyng,
    With horse and harneis at Carlele, made samning."
    See Langtoft's Chronicle treating of the Wars of Edward I. against the Scots.
    "Bot Sir John de Waleis taken was, in a pleyne,
    Throgh Spring of Norreis men that were certeyn."
    Ibid., Australes se Norensibus opposuerunt. M. Oaris, under the year 1237.