Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/722

688 HERALDRY [DIVISIONS OF ARMS. personally or by deputy, visited the capital town of each county in his division, and summoned the surrounding gentry to record their pedigrees, and show a title to their armorial bearings. The earl marshal s court survived the fall of the house of Stuart, and a few causes relative to a right to particular arms were decided in the course of the last cen tury, but its powers fell into disuse, and not long since it was finally abolished, and with it fell any pretence on the part of the- college to regulate, by compulsory authority, the heraldry of the kingdom. At present, however, notwith standing the democratic tendencies of the age, armorial bearings are in greater demand than ever in England, and more or less coveted in the United States, and a good deal of the proper business of heraldry is still transacted within the college of arms, and a good deal more, irregu larly and improperly, outside it. A considerable number of persons still bear arms derived from an ancestor who bore them before the institution of the college ; others bear them under grants and patents from that body ; and others still more numerous, who or whose fathers have risen from obscurity, have assumed arms according to their fancy, or under the uninstructed advice of some silversmith or finder of arms. The Smiths, said a distinguished member of the family, had no arms ; they sealed their letters with their thumbs. It is to avoid so inconvenient a signet that the new men have recourse to the demi-lions and demi-griffins now so much in vogue, and possibly because they are not aware that Garter and his colleagues are still willing to grant arms, crest, and motto, on terms within reach of almost every aspirant to chivalry. There is no college or corporation of heralds in Scotland or Ireland ; but in Scotland heraldry has been to the full as much considered, and at least as well regulated as in England. " Lyou-king at-arms," " Lyon rex armorum," or " Leo fecialis," called from the lion on the royal shield, is the head of the office of arms in Scotland. When first the dignity was constituted is not known, but Lyon was a prominent figure in the coronation of Robert II. in 1371. The office was at first, as in England, attached to the earl marshal, but it has long been conferred by patent under the great seal, and is held direct from the crown. Lyon is also king-at-arms for the national order of the Thistle. He is styled "Lord Lyon," and the office has always been held by men of family, and frequently by a peer. His powers have been declared by statute, and extend to fine and imprisonment. He is supreme in all matters of heraldry in Scotland. Besides the "Lyon depute," there are the Scottish heralds, Islay, Rothesay, Marchmount, Albany, Ross, and Snowdown, with precedence according to date of appointment ; and six pursuivants, Kintyre, Dingwall, Carrick, Bute, Ormond, and Unicorn. Heralds and pur suivants are appointed by Lyon. In Ireland also there is but one king-at-arms, Ulster. The office was instituted by Edward VI. in 1553. The patent is given by Rymer, and refers to certain emoluments as "praedicto officio . . . . ab antique spectantibus." The allusion is to an Ireland king-at-arms mentioned in the reign of Richard II. and superseded by Ulster. Ulster holds office by patent, during pleasure; under him are two heralds, Cork and Dublin ; and four pursuivants, Athlone, and St Patrick Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Ulster is king-at-arms to the order of St Patrick. He held visitations in parts of Ireland from 1568 to 1G20, and these and other records, including all grants of arms from the institution of the office, are kept in the Birmingham Tower, Dublin, under the charge of the present most courteous and learned Ulster, Sir B. Burke. The precedence of the three chiefs has been the subject of dispute, but is now generally arranged, Garter being followed by Lyon, and he by Ulster. Heraldry should be studied with reference to the period in which it was a useful art, and in the simple examples of the 14th and 15th centuries. Before that period it was in a changing and elementary state ; after it, it became merely ornamental, and its examples are complicated and debased. In a general treatise on the subject notice must of course be taken of the later as well as the earlier conditions of the art, but the greater number of the illustrations in the follow ing pages are taken from the earlier and best examples. A curious evidence of the vitality of heraldry, and of the desire of all mankind for ancestral distinctions, is afforded by its extension among the republics of the New World. The United States boast some excellent genealogical societies, and a great and very general desire is shown by individuals to trace their pedigrees to the stocks of the Old World, and to assume the arms proper to their name. The national emblem of the stars and stripes, now so widely and honourably known throughout the world, has been traced back to the paternal coat of the first and greatest president, George Washington, whose English ancestors bore " argent, 2 bars gules, in chief 3 mullets of the second." In Canada, Australia, and other English colonies, the assumption of arms by individuals and by the community is not less general ; and the re publics of South America, of Spanish origin, almost all have adopted coats of arms. The Peak of Teneriffe, the Beaver, the Red Indian, contribute to the list of charges, and the clear firmament of Chili is indicated by a star. "Coupe d azur sur gules, a une dtoile d argent en abime." DIVISIONS OF ARMS. Armorial bearings may be conveniently divided into those of dominion, of a community, of office, of concession, family or paternal arms, and arms of alliance. To these may perhaps be added arms of attribution. There is also another division, or rather peculiarity, called canting arms, of which many of the former divisions present examples. 1. Arms of Dominion are those of a kingdom or a feudal lordship. The origin of such arms is often obscure. Those of the Isle of Man are three legs conjoined in triangle at the thigh (fig. 11G), probably borrowed from the emblem of Sicily, the ancient Trinacria, found upon Greek vases. The Irish harp is an emblem probably allusive to the instrument of Brian Boroimhe. The origin of the lion of Scotland is also obscure, and of the tressure equally so, though fabled to be " First by Achaius borne." Not unfrequently the arms of kingdoms were those of an early sovereign, adopted by succeeding dynasties to the exclusion of their own coat. The lions of England were certainly personal to the Plantagenet kings, if not to Henry I. ; but they have become national to the exclusion of the arms of the Tudor, Stuart, Brunswick, and Saxon dynasties, just as neither the arms of Baliol, Bruce, nor Stuart ever became the arms of Scotland. The lion rampant azure, crowned gules, so long borne by the head of the German empire, belonged originally to the house of Hapsburg, and was not used by such of the early emperors as were not members of it; and the bend and alerionsof Lorraine only became a part of the arms of the empire after the marriage of Francis of Lorraine with Maria Theresa. It seems indeed to have been the custom of elected sovereigns, as those of the empire and of Poland, to place their paternal arms on a shield of pretence over those of the dominion. Cromwell so placed his arms over those of the commonwealth, and William of Nassau over those of England, but they dis appeared with the individual who introduced them. On the other hand the arms of kingdoms and lordships are sometimes continued to be used as personal arms by the descendants of their former lords. The great shield of

Mary of Burgundy quarters the arms of a number of