A Complete Guide to Heraldry

by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

manuscript (M. 3, 67b) of the reign of Henry VII., now in the College of Arms, probably dating from about 1506, an instance of this character can be found, however. It is a representation of the crest of Stourton (Fig. 664) as it was borne at that date, and was a black Benedictine demi-monk proper holding erect in his dexter hand a scourge. Here the proper black Benedictine habit (it has of later years been corrupted into the russet habit of a friar) is continued to form the mantling.

PLATE VII.

Fig. 664.—The Crest of Stourton.

By what rules the colours of the mantlings were decided in early times it is impossible to say. No rules have been handed down to us—the old heraldic books are silent on the point—and it seems equally hopeless to attempt to deduce any from ancient armorial examples. The one fact that can be stated with certainty is that the rules of early days, if there were any, are not the rules presently observed. Some hold that the colours of the mantling were decided by the colours of the actual livery in use as distinct from the "livery colours" of the arms. It is difficult to check this rule, because our knowledge of the liveries in use in early days is so meagre and limited; but in the few instances of which we now have knowledge we look in vain for a repetition of the colours worn by the retainers as liveries in the mantlings used. The fact that the livery colours are represented in the background of some of the early Garter plates, and that in such instances in no single case do they agree with the colours of the mantling, must certainly dissipate once and for all any such supposition as far as it relates to that period.

A careful study and analysis of early heraldic emblazonment, however, reveals one point as a dominating characteristic. That is, that where the crest, by its nature, lent itself to a continuation into the mantling it generally was so continued. This practice, which was almost universal upon the Continent, and is particularly to be met with

in German heraldry, though seldom adopted in England, certainly had some weight in English heraldry. In the recently published reproductions of the Plantagenet Garter plates eighty-seven armorial achievements are included. Of these, in ten instances the mantlings are plainly continuations of the crests, being "feathered" or in unison. Fifteen of the mantlings have both the outside and the inside of the principal colour and of the principal metal of the arms they accompany, though in a few cases, contrary to the present practice, the metal is outside, the lining being of the colour. Nineteen more of the mantlings are of the principal colour of the arms, the majority (eighteen) of these being lined with ermine. No less than forty-nine are of some colour lined with ermine, but thirty-four of these are of gules lined ermine, and in the large majority of cases in these thirty-four instances neither the gules nor the ermine are in conformity with the principal colour and metal (what we now term the "livery colours") of the arms. In some cases the colours of the mantling agree with the colours of the crest, a rule which will usually be found to hold good in German heraldry. The constant occurrence of gules and ermine incline one much to believe that the colours of the mantling were not decided by haphazard fancy, but that there was some law—possibly in some way connected with the sumptuary laws of the period—which governed the matter, or, at any rate, which greatly limited the range of selection. Of the eighty-seven mantlings, excluding those which are gules lined ermine, there are four only the colours of which apparently bear no relation whatever to the colours of the arms or the crests appearing upon the same Stall plate. In some number of the plates the colours certainly are taken from a quartering other than the first one, and in one at least of the four exceptions the mantling (one of the most curious examples) is plainly derived from a quartering inherited by the knight in question though not shown upon the Stall plate. Probably a closer examination of the remaining three instances would reveal a similar reason in each case. That any law concerning the colours of their mantlings was enforced upon those concerned would be an unwarrantable deduction not justified by the instances under examination, but one is clearly justified in drawing from these cases some deductions as to the practice pursued. It is evident that unless one was authorised by the rule or reason governing the matter—whatever such rule or reason may have been—in using a mantling of gules and ermine, the dominating colour (not as a rule the metal) of the coat of arms (or of one of the quarterings), or sometimes of the crest if the tinctures of arms and crest were not in unison, decided the colour of the mantling. That there was some meaning behind the mantlings of gules lined with ermine there can be little doubt, for it is noticeable that in a case in

which the colours of the arms themselves are gules and ermine, the mantling is of gules and argent, as by the way in this particular case is the chapeau upon which the crest is placed. But probably the reason which governed these mantlings of gules lined with ermine, as also the ermine linings of other mantlings, must be sought outside the strict limits of armory. That the colours of mantlings are repeated in different generations, and in the plates of members of the same family, clearly demonstrates that selection was not haphazard.

Certain of these early Garter plates exhibit interesting curiosities in the mantlings:—