An equally significant Augmentation of an earlier date is borne in the Arms of Howard. These Arms before the battle of Flodden were—Gu., a bend between six crosses crosslets fitchée arg. To commemorate the great victory won by him at Flodden Field, Sept. 9, 1513, when James IV. of Scotland was defeated and slain, Henry VIII. granted to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and to his descendants, as an Augmentation of Honour, the Royal Shield of Scotland ([No. 138]), but having a demi-lion only, which is pierced through the mouth with an arrow, to be borne in the middle of the bend of his proper arms. This Shield is represented in No. 374; and in No. 374A the augmentation is shown on a larger scale.

No. 374.— Howard, after Flodden. No. 374A.—The Howard Augmentation.

A small group of additional examples will be sufficient to illustrate this most interesting class of historical Arms, and at the same time will not fail to excite in students a desire very considerably to extend the series through their own inquiries and researches. In memory of the devoted courage and all-important services of Jane Lane, after the disastrous battle of Worcester, Charles II. granted as an Augmentation a Canton of England ([No. 187] marshalled on a canton), to be added to the hereditary Coat of Lane, which is—Per fesse or and az., a chevron gu. between three mullets counterchanged. The Crest of the family of De la Bere is said to have been conferred by the Black Prince upon Sir Richard de la Bere, as a memorial of the good service rendered by that gallant knight on the memorable field of Cressi. This Crest is—Out of a crest-coronet a plume of five ostrich feathers per pale arg. and az., the Plantagenet colours—the device (as Mr. Lower observes) being evidently derived from the Prince’s own Badge, and also forming a variety of the “panache,” the Crest then held in such high estimation. The heart charged upon the shield of Douglas (see Nos. [156], [157], p. 74) is another remarkable Augmentation. So also is the adoption of the armorial insignia of the Confessor, [No. 2], by Richard II., and his marshalling it upon his own Royal Shield, impaled to the dexter with the quartered arms of France and England.

English Heraldry has been required to recognise another and a perfectly distinct class of “Augmentations,” which consist of additions to the blazonry of a Shield or of additional quarterings or accessories, granted as tokens of Royal favour, for heraldic display, but without any particular “merit” in the receiver, or any special historical significance in themselves. Augmentations of this order may be considered to have been first introduced by Richard II., when he granted, “out of his mere grace,” to his favourite Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Marquess of Dublin and Duke of Ireland, a differenced Coat of St. Edmund (No. [3])—Az., three crowns or, within a bordure argent, to be quartered with the De Vere arms as the arms of Ireland. In the same spirit, Richard II. granted, as similar Augmentations, the arms of the Confessor to be marshalled, with Differences, on their Shields by Thomas and John Holland, Dukes of Surrey and Exeter, and by Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. It will be remembered that it was one of the capital charges against the then Earl of Surrey, a lineal descendant of this Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, in 1546, that he had assumed, without the special licence of Henry VIII., the same arms of the Confessor as an augmentation.

By Edward IV. similar augmentations, “by grace” and not “for merit,” were granted; and by Henry VIII. the system was carried to excess in the grants made to augment the armorial blazonry of Anne Boleyn, and of his English consorts, her successors.

Abatement is a term which was unknown until it made its appearance in certain heraldic writings of the sixteenth century, when it was used to denote such marks or devices as, by the writers in question, were held to be the reverse of honourable Augmentation—Augmentations of dishonour indeed, and tokens of degradation. True Heraldry refuses to recognise all such pretended abatements, for the simple reason that they never did exist, and if they could exist at all, they would be in direct antagonism to its nature, its principles, and its entire course of action. Honourable itself, Heraldry can give expression only to what conveys honour, and it records and commemorates only what is to be honoured and held in esteem.

The very idea of an heraldic Abatement implies, if not a complete ignorance, certainly a thorough misconception of the character and the office of Heraldry. Even if Heraldry were to attempt to stigmatise what is, and what ought to be esteemed, dishonourable, who would voluntarily accept insignia of disgrace, and charge and display them upon his Shield, and transmit them to his descendants? And the believers in Abatement must hold that Heraldry can exert a compulsory legislative power, which might command a man to blazon his own disgrace, and force him to exhibit and to retain, and also to bequeath, any such blazonry. A belief in heraldic Abatement, however, is by no means singular or rare. A curious example of its existence was recently brought under my notice, in connection with one of the most renowned of the historical devices of English Heraldry. The bear, the badge of the Beauchamps, Earls of Warwick, which appears at the feet of the effigy of Earl Richard in the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick, in accordance with a special provision to that effect, is “muzzled”; and, wearing a muzzle has this bear been borne, as their Badge, by the successors of the Beauchamps in the Warwick Earldom, the Earls of the houses of Neville, Dudley, Rich, and Greville. But, it would seem that a legend has found credence at Warwick Castle itself, which would associate the muzzle of the bear with some dishonourable action of an Earl of the olden time; and, consequently, it was proposed that at length this Abatement should be removed from the bears still at Warwick! Earl Richard de Beauchamp was not exactly the man to have displayed upon his bear any ensign of dishonour; nor were his son-in-law, the “King-maker,” and Queen Elizabeth’s Robert Dudley, at all more probable subjects for any similar display; still, it is quite certain that they bore the muzzled bear, as he appears on the seal of the great Earl, [No. 448].[7] That muzzle, doubtless, has its becoming heraldic significance, without in the slightest degree partaking in the assumed character of an Abatement. I hope eventually to be able to trace out conclusively what the muzzle may really imply, and I commend the research to other inquirers: meanwhile, neither at Warwick nor elsewhere is there any such thing as “Abatement” in English Heraldry.

[7.] See Frontispiece.

[CHAPTER XIV]
CRESTS

“On high their glittering crests they toss.” —Lord of the Isles.