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.
LINES FOR TINCTURES.
The first English examples of seals with lines in the engraving, to indicate the tinctures, are said to be on some of those attached to the death warrant of Charles I., 1648-9 [Planché's Pursuivant of Arms]. Now, as this system was unquestionably first devised by Father Silvester de Petra Sancta—whose two books, L'Armorial ou la Science du Blason, 4to, and Soumaire Armorial, 4to, were both published in Paris 1638—it seems curious that within ten years we should find such conventional lines in use in England; and it follows, also, that such of these seals as were so treated in 1648 must all have been recently cut! A diagram, showing the colours so indicated, is given by Sir Edward Bysse in his edition of Nicholas Upton's work, De Usu Militari, published in 1654. The earlier works on heraldry, which I have been able to consult, have the illustrations in somewhat rough wood blocks—it would have been difficult and expensive at that time to have got finer work in wood; but we must remember that Sylvanus Morgan, in his Armilogia, published 1666, refers to Silvester de Petra Sancta's Epistles, and elaborately describes—as if they were something quite startling and new—why the several conventional lines were selected. John Gibbon, in his Introductio ad Latinam Blazoniam, published London 1682, p. 152, says, "for the distinction of colours in arms [which was devised by the Rev. Father S. de Petra Sancta]," and he (Gibbon) frames some Latin verses for the better remembering thereof; but in the woodcuts which adorn his book he does not follow the system which he recommends. The earliest English book which shows them in the copper plate engravings is Bysse's edition of Nicholas Upton, published, as already noticed, in 1654. I am aware that Boutell, in his Heraldry, chap. v, says that such lining may be occasionally found before 1630. Now there seems no manner of doubt as to the inventor; and any references with dates, which Mr. Boutell could have given, would have been valuable indeed! At present we are involved in a paradox: if Father Silvester invented the idea; did he discuss it for years, perhaps before committing it to print, and having his own beautiful copper plate illustrations so drawn in 1638? I point out this interesting question. Any instance of a seal or engraving so treated with the proper lines to represent tinctures and occurring before 1638 should be carefully noted with the exact dates; and I venture to think any such solitary instance would prove to be purely accidental. The seal of Sir Edward Nicholas, secretary to Charles II., engraved for him by the celebrated Thomas Simon, does not show any tincture lines (see the woodcut at p. 45). In this seal the second and third quarters are the paternal arms of Nicholas, while in the first and fourth are displayed that honourable augmentation granted to Sir Edward in 1649. We may safely conclude that this seal was cut immediately after he received that distinction. Particulars of Sir Edward's career may be learned from Manning and Bray's History of Surrey, vol. iii, p. 40; also from Hoare's South Wiltshire, p. 88. He was Secretary to Charles I., followed Charles II. into exile, and was continued by him in his post of Secretary. He eventually returned with him, and died in 1669, at the age of seventy-seven.
I regret I have never had the opportunity to examine for myself the original death-warrant which was carried out on that chill thirtieth day of January, 1648-9; and so I am not able to say with exactness which of the seals show tincture lines, as it is said they do.
Chaplets or Wreaths.
About the end of the fifteenth century, arms are frequently found surrounded by a wreath of laurel or bay leaves, usually, at this date, divided into four parts by ribbands. Menestrier gives the date 1480 as the earliest instance he has found [his most learned works seem too little known by English heralds: the Origine des Armoiries was published in Paris 1679, and the Origine des Ornemens des Armoiries in Paris 1680]. We see an example in the tomb of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, 1509, in Westminster Abbey (engraved Sandford's Genealogical History, 1677, p. 326)—see No. 74. We find similar wreaths or garlands in Sylvanus Morgan's Sphere of Gentry, published 1661, vol. i, p. 22, and vol. ii, p. 68; and engravings of several fanciful varieties are also there given. Wreaths of olive, formed of two branches tied at the top and bottom with ribbands, appear several times surrounding coats of arms in W. Hollar's beautiful engravings in Thoroton's History of Nottinghamshire, published 1677 (see pages 199, 200, 203, 310, 486 and 487).