ON THE MODERN PRACTICE OF ASSUMING ARMS.
"If any person be advanced into an office or dignity of publique administration, be it eyther ecclesiasticall, martiall, or ciuill: so that the same office comprehendeth in it dignitatem vel dignitatis titulum, either dignitie or (at the least) a title of dignitye: the Heralde must not refuse to devise to such a publique person, upon his instant request and willingnes to beare the same without reproche, a coate of armes: and thenceforth to matriculate him, with his intermarriages, and issues descending, in the register of the Gentle and Noble."
Thus wrote Sir John Ferne in The Blazon of Gentrie, printed in the year 1586. So also Coates, in his additions to Gwillim, writing in 1724, says:
"For though arms, in their first acceptation, were (as is shewed) taken up at any gentleman's pleasure, yet hath that liberty for many ages been deny'd, and they, by regal authority, made the rewards and ensigns of merit, &c., the gracious favours of princes; no one being, by the law of gentility in England, allowed the bearing thereof, but those that either have them by descent, or grant, or purchase from the body or badge of any prisoner they in open and lawful war had taken."
He proceeds to adduce various authorities on this subject, for which I would refer to the Introduction to the last edition of Gwillim's Heraldry, p. 16. &c.
Porny defines assumptive arms to be—
"Such as are taken up by the caprice or fancy of upstarts, who, being advanced to a degree of fortune, assume them without having deserved them by any glorious action. This, indeed (he adds), is great abuse of heraldry; but yet so common, and so much tolerated, almost everywhere, that little or no notice is taken of it."
This was written in 1765. Archdeacon Nares, in his very amusing Heraldic Anomalies, printed in 1823, says:
"At present, similarity of name is quite enough to lead any man to conclude himself to be a branch of some very ancient or noble stock, and, if occasion arise, to assume the arms appropriate to such families, without any appeal to the Heralds' office; nor would any Alderman Gathergrease, living in affluence, be without such marks and symbols on his plate, seals, carriages, &c., with no higher authority, perhaps, than his own fancy and conceit."
It must be confessed that the middle of the nineteenth century offers the most ample facilities for the would-be aristocrats of the age, and that without troubling Sir Charles Young or the College of Arms; witness the following advertisement cut from a newspaper of the day:—
"The Family Livery.—Arms and Crests correctly ascertained, and in any case a steel die expressly cut for the buttons, free of cost," &c.
There can, indeed, be no doubt that this foolish practice of assuming arms without right has of late years grown to an absurd height; and I fear the assumption is by no means confined to persons who have risen by trade, or by some lucky speculation in railways &c.; even those who have been "advanced into an office or dignity of publique administration" have but seldom made their "instant request" to the heralds "to devise a coate of armes to be borne by them without reproch."
The episcopal bench, in particular, are very generally faulty in this respect, and, for the greater part, content themselves (if not by birth entitled to bear arms) by assuming the coat of some old-established family of the same, or nearly the same, name. In the case of temporal peerages, which are not seldom, thanks to the ancient constitution of England, renovated from the middle and lower classes, the practice is more in accordance with the precepts of The Blazon of Gentrie; but I believe there is at least one instance, that of a lawyer of the greatest eminence, who was last year advanced to a peerage, and to the highest rank in his profession, who has assumed both arms and supporters without the fiat of the College of Arms. The "novi homines" of a former age set a better example to those of the present day, and were not ashamed to go honestly to the proper office and take out their patent of arms, thus "founding a family" who have a right to the ensigns of honour which they assume.
Spes.