A very curious illustration of some antient heraldric usages is furnished by an examination of the armorial bearings of families connected with the county of Cornwall.
1. The arms of the county of Cornwall are SABLE, FIFTEEN BEZANTS—5. 4. 3. 2 AND 1., with two lions as supporters, and the motto ‘One and all.’[331] This coat is pretended to be derived from Cadoc, or Cradock, earl or duke of Cornwall in the fifth century.
2. The families of Moreton and De Dunstanville, successively earls of Cornwall after the Norman Conquest, bore personal arms totally different from these; yet on the marriage of Roger Valetorte with Joan, daughter of Reginald de Dunstanville, he surrounded his paternal arms (argent, three bendlets gules,) with a bordure sable bezantee.
3. Whalesborough of Cornwall, temp. Henry III, bore the same arms, with the bordure sable bezantee, whence he is presumed to have been a cadet of Valetorte.
4. Henry II took the earldom into his own hands, and gave it to his youngest son John, and John, on coming to the throne, gave it to his second son, Richard, afterwards king of the Romans and earl of Poictou. “Richard, 2nd son of king John, in the 9th year of king Henry III, his brother, being crowned king of the Romans, writ himself Semper Augustus, and had his arms carved on the breast of the Roman eagle. He bare argent, a lyon rampant gules, crowned or, within a bordure sable bezantee.”[332] “He had,” says Nisbet, “nothing of his father’s royal ensigns [his arms being] composed of his two noble Feus, viz. Argent, a lion rampant gules, crowned or (the arms of Poictiers), surrounded with a border sable bezantée, or, (the arms of Cornwall,) and which were on his seal of arms appended to instruments, anno 1226.”[333]
5. Edmund, his son and successor, bore the same arms, only omitting the imperial supporter.
6. The same arms are borne as the ensigns of the borough of Grampound. Boroughs usually took the arms of their over-lords.