Now, "the table" given by the writer himself (p. 210) disproves this statement, for it rightly shows us Say as descended from Mandeville, but not descended from De Vere. It is, therefore, shown by his own "table" that this must have been a case of the "collateral adoption" of arms, the very practice against which he here strenuously argues.[1144] Thus the very case he adduces against the existence of the practice is itself proof absolute that the practice did exist. I am compelled to emphasize this point because it is the pivot on which the question turns. If "all the families in the table" who bore the quarterly coat were indeed descended from De Vere, Mr. Ellis's theory would account for the facts. But, by his own showing, they were not. Some other explanation must therefore be sought.
That which had originally occurred to myself, and to which I am still compelled to adhere, is that "the original bearer" of this quarterly coat was the central figure of this family group, Geoffrey de Mandeville himself. It being, as I have shown, absolutely clear that there must have been collateral adoption, the only question that remains to be decided is from which of the two family stems, Mandeville or De Vere, was the coat adopted? My first reason for selecting the former is that the first Earl of Essex was far and away, at the time, the greatest personage of the group. Aubrey de Vere figures, at Oxford, as his dependant rather than as his equal. On this ground, then, it seems to me far more probable that Aubrey should have adopted his arms from Geoffrey than that Geoffrey should have adopted his from Aubrey. The second reason is this. Science and analogy point to the fact that the simplest form of the coat is, of necessity, the most original. Now, the simplest form of this coat, its only "undifferenced" variety, is that borne by the Earls of Essex. We do not obtain recorded blazons till the reign of Henry III., but when we do, it is as "quartele de or & de goulez" that the coat of the Earl of Essex, the namesake of Geoffrey de Mandeville, first meets us.[1145] But all the descendants of De Vere, it would seem, bear this coat "differenced," that of De Vere itself being charged with a mullet in the first quarter, the tinctures also (perhaps for distinction) being in this case reversed.[1146] Thus heraldry, as well as genealogy, favours the claim of Mandeville as the original bearer of the coat.
It has been generally asserted in works on Heraldry that Geoffrey de Mandeville added an escarbuncle to his simple paternal coat, and that it is still to be seen on the shield of his effigy among the monuments at the Temple Church. But antiquaries have now abandoned the belief that this is indeed his effigy, and the original statement is taken only from that Chronicle of Walden which is in error in its statements on his foundation, on his creation, on his marriage, and on his death. Nor is there a trace of such a charge on the shields of any of his heirs.[1147]
But the consequences of the theory here laid down have yet to be considered. A little thought will soon show that no hypothesis can possibly explain the adoption of the quarterly coat by these various families at any other period than this in which they all intermarried. If we wish to trace to its origin such a surname as Fitz-Walter, we must go back to some ancestor who had a Walter for his father. So with derivative coats-of-arms. By Mr. Ellis's fundamental principle we ought to find the house of De Vere imparting its coat, for successive generations, to those families who were privileged to ally themselves to it. Yet we can only trace this principle at work in this particular generation. If Mandeville, and Mandeville's kin, adopted, as he holds, the coat of De Vere, why should not De Vere, in the previous generation, have adopted that of Clare? Nothing, in short, can account for the phenomena except the hypothesis that these quarterly coats all originated in this generation and in consequence of these intermarriages. The quarterly coat of the great earl would be adopted by his sister's husband De Say, and by his wife's brother De Vere, and by those other relatives shown in the pedigree. Once adopted they remain, till they meet us in the recorded blazons of the reign of Henry III.
The natural inference from this conclusion is that the reign of Stephen was the period in which heraldic bearings were assuming a definite form. Most heralds would place it later: Mr. Ellis would have us believe that we ought to place it earlier. The question has been long and keenly discussed, and, as with surnames, we may not be able to give with certainty the date at which they became generally fixed. But, at any rate, in this typical case, the facts admit of one explanation and of one alone.
If, as I take it, heraldic coats were mainly intended (as at Evesham) to distinguish their bearers in the field, it is not improbable that these kindred coats may represent the alliance of their bearers, as typified in the Oxford charters, beneath the banner of the Earl of Essex.[1148]
[1121] See p. 45.
[1122] Baronage, i. 203 b.
[1123] Ibid., i. 201.
[1124] "m. Rohaise, d. of Aubrey de Vere, (afterwards) Earl of Oxford" (i. 682).