SIXTEENTH AND FOLLOWING CENTURIES.
Before entering upon our subject during this period, it is necessary to consider the great changes, social and legal, which passed over England from say 1450 to the end of the reign of Henry VIII.
Events for thirty years before the accession of Henry VII. (1485) had been gradually reducing the power of the nobility. Enactments had been passed which facilitated the transfer of lands; and the disastrous wars of the Roses, in which the blood of the nobility flowed like water, brought also the dispersion of a large portion of their estates, and the consequence was that when Henry VII. began his reign, and the conflicts between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster were completely hushed [say 1485], he found himself in possession of the sole power. The great nobles who had hampered the actions of his predecessors had disappeared from the scene. At his first Parliament Henry VII. only summoned twenty-eight peers; and so gradually did this class recover itself that we find at the first Parliament of Henry VIII. only thirty-eight peers were summoned to attend.
We can thus understand how those seals of exceeding size and magnificence, which we found prevailing during the middle and third quarter of the fifteenth century, entirely disappear. The greater nobility, as an assertion of their dignity and importance, had then attached to their charters seals of great pretensions, and gradually increasing in size until, as Sandford [Genealogical History, p. 108] remarks of those of the Dukes of Lancaster, they rivalled or even exceeded in size what were used by the crown itself. Had their embarrassed affairs allowed them to enter again into mutual rivalry, the stern government of Henry VII. would have regarded such an assumption of dignity as treason to the throne, and therefore we can fix the date 1485 for the disappearance of such large and splendid seals. Only occasionally do they continue to appear, and within the limit of ten years after this time.
The landed gentry, the descendants in many instances of a much earlier feudal aristocracy, had suffered almost as much from the rivalries and conflicts which had devastated the country. They, too, laboured under the same depression and necessity for retirement; and hence, if we take up a bundle of deeds, say of the third quarter of the fifteenth century, we shall find them loaded with large and beautiful seals, while in a similar parcel, dated early in the sixteenth, small bits of wax only are found, many of them bearing one or more initials, or a crest surrounded by a circle of large dots, and the coats of arms, which do occur, are altogether small and insignificant: in fact, personal seals are now reduced in size to what may be conveniently hung on a watch chain, or worn as a somewhat large signet ring. I annex some heraldic seals just to show what after this time are looked upon as unusually fine. They are a very great contrast to those we have been considering.
| Ivory Thumb-ring Signet of Francis, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, 1545. [Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries, 22nd December, 1859.] | Robert Ap Rece, 1548. Engraved in Visit. of Hunts, 1613 [Camden Soc.], p. 32. |
| Seal engraved by Thomas Simon for Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary to Charles I., circa 1649. [Collect. Gen. et Topog., vol. viii, p. 214.] | Thomas Bate, of Ashby-de-la-Zouche; born 1648, died 1707. |
But still further reasons have to be considered. The ancient form of drawing charters was gradually disappearing, which after declaring the transaction, ended with the all-important seal, put on in the presence of such responsible witnesses as could be got together, and who were afterwards always to be found to come forward and vouch for the transaction. Writing also now, early in the sixteenth century, was becoming much more common, and the sense of the nation showed that a deed signed and sealed by the parties was much more satisfactory than any number of witnesses, the limit of whose testimony was bounded by that of their lives. I am only putting into few words what is ably pointed out by Williams in his work on Real Property, ed. 1882, p. 153, and by Blackstone in his Commentaries, ed. 1823, book ii, p. 305. But the curious thing is that this change seems to have gradually taken place without any enactment directing it. The Statute of Frauds and Perjuries, 29 Charles II. (1677-8, cap. 5), is the first instance where it is expressly declared by act of Parliament that all devises of lands or tenements must be in writing and signed by the party and three or four credible witnesses. Such had already been occasionally the practice for at least two hundred years, for I find a deed of gift of Thomas Hoo to the Abbot of the Monastery of Battle is thus established "Sigillum meum, una cum subscriptione propria manu et signo manuali apposito"; the date is 21st September, 1480 [Thorpe's Battle Abbey Deeds, 1835, p. 124]. Occasional instances occur of the old system of sealing only before a number of witnesses, but after say 1520 the almost universal method of executing deeds was by sign manual and seal, and two or three attesting witnesses.
The earliest instance I have noticed of executing a deed by sign manual is as above, in 1480. The latest which I have met with, in which the ancient form of execution had been followed, is a charter printed in the Salop Archæological Society's vol. x, p. 222:—"Thomas Scriven, armig., grants a yearly payment of 8/ sterling out of his meadow at Coleham, juta sive prope Ville Salop, hiis testibus &c. &c., dat. Salop 25th Sept., 10 Henry VIII., 1518"; but probably yet later instances may be found.
The further reason, lying at the root of the whole matter, was the wonderful expansion of trade, wealth, and intelligence which broke upon England at this time,—the English renaissance, as it is called, and which culminated in the brilliant company of poets and authors of Elizabeth's reign. Following upon the breaking-up of the old nobility, and the resumption of peace at home, wealth was rapidly accumulated by many self-made men, and by many younger sons of old families, who entered into trade. These purchased lands and became the county gentry. So expansive was this spirit of trade, that ancient towns like York, Chester, Lancaster, Coventry, and Lincoln, where long-established guilds restricted trading to the burghers alone, fell off in population and importance, while new districts without such restrictions, such as Manchester and Birmingham, as rapidly increased. In an act, 33 Henry VIII., c. 15 [1541], it is stated that the people of Manchester were then "well set to work in making of cloths, as well of linen as of woollen, whereby the inhabitants of the said town have gotten and come into riches and wealthy livings: and by reason of great occupying, good order, strict and true dealing of the inhabitants of the said town, many strangers, as well of Ireland as of other places, had resorted thither."
Plate V.
Over all this boiling-up of busy-ness sat Henry VII. and Henry VIII., as almost irresponsible sovereigns, and out of it grew the Commons of England! The population meantime increased with wonderful strides. In 1377 the population of England and Wales did not exceed 2,500,000. By the military musters, taken 1574-5, there were 1,172,674 of able men for service, which it is estimated would give a total population of about 4,700,000. This astonishing revolution of trade and learning is so remarkable that I must quote a portion of what old Harrison says on the changes he had noticed within fifty years. His most curious Description of Britain was printed with Hollingshed's Chronicle in 1586, but was probably written some ten years earlier: an exacter date I have not yet been able to fix. "There are old men yet dwelling in the village where I remaine which have noted three things to be marvellouslie altered in England within their sound remembrance: and other three things too, too much increased. One is the multitude of chimnies latelie erected, whereas in their young daies there were not abouve two or three, if so many, in most uplandish townes of the realme [the religious houses and manor places of their lords alwaies excepted, and peradventure some great personages], but eche one made his fire against a reredosse in the haull where he lived and dressed his meat; secondly, the bedding [now feathers and comfort, &c., then straw or wood only, &c.]; thirdly, the exchange of vessells as of treene platters into pewter, and wooden spoones into silver or tin. So common were all sorts of treene stuff in old time, that a man should hardlie find four pieces of pewter [of which one was peradventure a salt] in a good farmer's house, &c., &c., &c. Whereas, in my time, altho' peradventure £4 of old rent be improved to £40, £50 or £100, yet will the farmer, as another palm or date tree, think his gaines verie small toward the end of his term if he have not six or seven years' rent lieng by him, therewith to purchase a new lease, besides a faire garnish of pewter on his cupbord, with so much more in od vessell going about the house, three or four feather bedds, so many coverlids and carpets of tapistrie, a silver salt, a bowle for wine [if not an whole neast], and a dozzen of spoones to furnish up the sute."
But, alas, there is another side to all this national prosperity. From this time, also, agriculturists—required in fewer numbers under the new styles of cultivation (which aimed at grazing and the production of wool)—crowded into the towns in hope of work, and large portions of the population began to sink into the lowest depths of poverty.
In our researches as to the shapes of shields we have now, therefore, lost that rich body of evidence supplied by the seals on charters, which extended to nearly the end of the fifteenth century, and the MS. pictures of knights and tournaments. The evidences now available consist of pedigrees, the smaller heraldic seals attached to documents and deeds, heraldic visitations and grants of arms, printed books on heraldry, which begin 1496, stained glass, the stone carvings on buildings, tombs, and ledger stones, and, from the end of the seventeenth century or a little earlier, book-plates. Coins, too, now prove of some value to us, showing what were prevailing types of shields.
But inasmuch as there were no shields actually in use, the shapes prevailing now became entirely a matter of fashion and taste. Randle Holme prints sixty-five varieties of shields, and remarks (p. 10 in his Academy of Armoury, Chester, 1688):—"But [as to the former shield] so to this, a question may be made, whether such an one was used by him, or only the invention of the cutter? If so, then the shapes and forms of shields, targets, and bucklers would be as many as carvers, stone cutters, engravers, and painters please." Gerard Legh gets the credit of having greatly multiplied, in his Accedens of Armoury, 1562, the fanciful shapes of shields; and later writers on heraldry seem to have followed him. [Herald and Genealogist, vol. i, p. 191.] But an examination of the Wappenbüch, published in Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and similar heraldic drawings of Italian coats, have opened out to me a vastly wider field for variety than old Randle Holme ever supposed. I have before me a copy of Virgil Solis, which was published at Nurnberg in 1555. This contains hundreds of coats, in shields of an endless variety of shapes and great boldness of design; and when we come to critically compare these shields with one another, we discover that their outlines depend upon the charges! These were first laid down with grotesque boldness, and the outline of the shield to bear them was then drawn around them, to the artist's fancy of what best suited the bearings and would most reduce the amount of empty field. This is, after all, only reversing the ancient method, where a lion was distorted to suit a pointed heater; and it is suggested that a pale, for a similar reason, might sometimes be pointed into a pile. With this revelation from Virgil Solis, we can detect that the same method of designing prevails elsewhere. We must therefore multiply Randle Holme's carvers, stone cutters, engravers, and painters by the possible variety of their fancies, and then multiply the quotient by the number of all the heraldic bearings—plus all the positions and forms they may be made to assume—if we wish to arrive at the variety of shields possible during the period we are now about to consider.
In deference to this unanswerable position, I find it necessary to alter entirely the classification pursued in the earlier centuries—to take Mr. Rylands' drawings seriatim, and to give for each shape the earliest and latest dates at which, in my limited researches, I have found them in use. This method of treatment eliminates from our enquiry all strictly fanciful shields which did not gain a hold on public taste, and leaves us still with a sufficiently heavy list of variations to which it is possible, from their frequent recurrence, to attach the dates.
A few leading remarks on points bearing on our subject will prove useful at this stage of our enquiry.
Before watches became common, seals were sometimes attached to the arms, like bracelets. In Mercurius Rusticus, No. 30 (for 19/20 July, 1660), an advertisement appears for "a gold seal, being a coat of arms, cut in a piece of gold, in the form of a lozenge, fastened to a black ribband to tye about the wrist." In the Visitation of Essex, 1634 [Harleian Society, p. 455], appears the following certificate:—"This coate is certiffied by Thomas Scott to bee by him seen on a seale some 40 years since, and to be the seale of armes of Thomas Moore Esq. father of the said Hunting Moore, and that Robert Scott his father did weare the same about his neck in a scarffe about xx yeares—in witnes whearof I have sett to my hand. Tho. Scott." [Robert Scott had married Anne, daughter of Richard Hunting and relict of Thomas Moore, of Orsett, co. Essex.] This seal was, of course, a ring.
Watches, which naturally suggest small attached seals, were, however, in pretty general use in Queen Elizabeth's reign. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Malvolio says:—"I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel." A watch was found upon Guy Fawkes, 3 James I. (1605/6), which he and Percy had bought the day before, "to try conclusions for the long and short burning of the powder."—Stow's Chronicle, p. 878, and introduction to Mr. Reuben Burrow's Almanac for 1778.