The Curiosities of Heraldry

by Mark Antony Lower

The two Markhams, Gervase and Francis, were brothers, and flourished in the early part of this century. The former republished the Boke of St. Albans, under the title of ‘The Gentleman’s Academy;’ and the latter wrote a ‘Booke of Honour,’ one of the dullest of books upon a very dull subject.

The ‘Titles of Honour’ of the celebrated Selden demands for him a place among heraldric authors.[296]

Hitherto, a review of our sixteenth and seventeenth century armorists presents us with the names of men of erudition or of professional heralds, but another class of authors now occasionally demands, each in his turn, a passing remark. This is composed of the persons, who, possessed of few qualifications beyond a knowledge of the technicalities of blazon and an ardent zeal in the pursuit, have ventured to add to the already extensive stock of heraldric lore. The earliest writer of the class alluded to is James Yorke, the Blacksmith of Lincoln, who in 1640 published ‘The Union of Honovr,’ containing the arms, matches, and descents of the nobility from the Conquest. Appended to it are the arms of the gentry of Lincolnshire, and an account of all the battles fought by the English. It is dedicated to Charles I; and there is also an epistle dedicatory to Henry, son and heir of Thomas, earl of Arundel, earl-marshal, in which Yorke very candidly avows his lack of erudition. “My education,” says he, “hath made me but just so much a Scholler as to feele and know my want of learning.” He hopes, however, that his noble patron will find the work “decent.” “I undertooke it not for vaine-glory, nor assume the credit of mine authours to my selfe, onely am proud nature inclin’d me to so Noble a study: long was I forging and hammering it to this perfection, and now present it to your Lordship, as a master-piece, not yet matched by any of my trade.” In his address to the courteous reader he expresses his apprehensions that “some will smutch his labours with a scorne of his profession.” There was, however, little to fear on this head, for the book is really a very ‘decent’ production.

Fuller includes Yorke among the ‘Worthies’ of Lincolnshire, and gives the following quaint account of him and his work:—“James Yorke, a blacksmith of Lincoln, and an excellent workman in his profession, insomuch that if Pegasus himself would wear shoes, this man alone is fit to make them, contriving them so thin and light, as that they would be no burden to him. But he is a servant as well of Apollo as Vulcan, turning his Stiddy into a Study, having lately set forth a Book of Heraldry, called the Union of Honour, &c. and although there be some mistakes (no hand so steady as always to hit the nail on the head) yet it is of singular use, and industriously performed, being set forth anno 1640.”

The plain common-sense of our unlettered blacksmith presents a singular contrast to the inflated and bombastic style of Edward Waterhouse, a gentleman, and a man of education, who, twenty years later, published ‘A Discourse and Defense of Armory.’ Anthony a Wood speaks of this writer and of his works in terms of the highest contempt, characterizing the former as “a cock-brained man,” and the latter as “rhapsodical, indigested and whimsical.” Dallaway says, “The most severe satyrist whose intention might be to bring the study of heraldry into contempt could not have succeeded better than this author, who strove to render it fashionable by connecting it with the most crude conceits and endless absurdities.” Waterhouse is supposed to have contributed the principal portion of the two works published under the name of Sylvanus Morgan, an arms-painter of London.

The character of this last-named author must have been already inferred from the quotations I have made from his works. The ponderous volume, entitled ‘The Sphere of Gentry,’ and its successor, ‘Armilogia, or the Language of Armes,’ may be safely pronounced two of the most absurd productions of the English press. That the former contains much useful information is proved by the eagerness with which it is sought after in the formation of an heraldrical library; but this is so overlaid with crude, unconnected, and irrelevant jargon, that although I have had the volume many times upon my table, I never could muster the patience to read three consecutive pages of it. Of the ‘Armilogia,’ we are told on the title-page that it is “a work never yet extant!” This volume has the imprimatur of Sir E. Walker and Sir W. Dugdale, kings of arms; but, singularly enough, the terms of the license are so disparaging that the printer has very judiciously placed it on the last page; for had it been on the first, no judicious reader would have proceeded beyond it. “In this book are such strange conceits and wild fancies, that I do not know of what advantage the printing of it can be to any that soberly desires to be instructed in the true knowledge of arms,”—is one of the severe things said of it by Dugdale.

Morgan died in 1693, at the age of 73. He seems to have been countenanced by the members of the College of Arms. Gibbon, Bluemantle, who knew him well, describes him as “a witty man, full of fancy [too full], very agreeable company ... and the prince of arms-painters.”[297]

Almost equal to Camden, in a literary point of view, and perhaps his superior in his qualifications as a herald, stands the name of Sir William Dugdale. Independently of his great works, ‘The Baronage of England,’ and the ‘Monasticon,’ his ‘Antiquities of Warwickshire,’ and ‘History of St. Paul’s Cathedral,’ would have served to hand down his name to posterity among the literary worthies of his country. Sir William died in 1685, at the age of 80 years, nearly thirty-two of which he was a member of the College of Arms, having passed through all the gradations of office to the post of Garter, king of arms. It would be supererogatory, even if I had space, to give the simplest outline of his life, by no means an uneventful one; as his memoirs have been often written, and are accessible to every reader.

Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), the friend and son-in-law of Dugdale, was the son of a tradesman of Litchfield. His talents, which were of the most versatile order,[298] raised him into notice and procured him many offices of honour and trust, among which was that of Windsor herald. This situation he obtained at the restoration of Charles II, and resigned, from motives of jealousy, in 1676. His great work is the ‘History of the Order of the Garter.’ He was an eminent collector of rarities, and founded the Museum at Oxford which bears his name.

Francis Sandford, Esq., Lancaster, published, besides several other works of great value, ‘A Genealogical History of the Kings of England,’ one of the most lordly tomes that ever appeared in connexion with our subject. It was originally published in 1677, and was reprinted in 1707. It is well executed, and Charles II pronounced it “a very useful book.” The fine plates, by Hollar and others, of the royal arms, seals, and monuments, with which it is embellished, give it charms to a larger circle than that which includes the mere students of heraldry.