Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/126

86 THE ANCESTOR Guildford have escaped notice, and they are so much to the point that I cannot resist the temptation to quote them in full In the fourth place we have those Arms which we bear assumed upon our own authority, as in these days we openly see how many poor men, labouring in the French wars, are become noble ; one by prudence, another by valour, a third by endurance, a fourth by other virtues which, as we have already said, ennoble mankind ; of whom many of their own authority have assumed Arms to be borne by themselves and their heirs, whose names it is not necessary here to recall. I say, however, that Arms so assumed, though they are borne freely and lawfully, yet cannot be of such dignity or authority as those which are daily bestowed by the authority of Princes or lords. Yet Arms taken by a man's own authority, if another have not borne them before, are valid enough. . . . Nor dare I approve of the opinion of certain men who say that Heralds can give Arms ; but I say, if such Arms are borne by any Herald given, that these Arms are not of greater authority than those which are taken by a man's own authority. Upton's book is dedicated to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the king's uncle, and gives us therefore the opinions upon this point generally entertained at the Court of Henry VI. In referring to the ^ many poor men ' who assumed arms on their own authority in the French wars, he is speaking of what he had actually seen, for he served in France for some years and was present at the siege of Orleans in 1428.^ The unfortunate ' X ' tells us in his book that he ' takes his stand ' upon the proclamation of 141 7, and that since that time 'the sole power and authority concerning arms has remained with, and has been asserted by, the Crown.' But here we have the evidence of an eye-witness proving that ten years after the date of that proclamation unauthorized arms were still displayed without question in the English armies which fought at Verneuil or Orleans. The four authors whom I have quoted — Upton, John of Guildford, Francis de Foveis, and Bartolus — are agreed that any man may lawfully devise a coat for himself, and it would be difficult to find a single writer of the fourteenth or fifteenth century who expresses a different view. ' Sicily Herald,' who wrote his Blason des Couleurs about or before 1450, does indeed speak of the arms of persons of low estate and not noble, who ' without discretion take or make shields and 1 Bysshe, Upton (1654), PP- ^57- 2 His book is supposed to have been written while he was serving in France. He may have entered the army in 1421 or 1422. /