[152] These seem originally to have been arms of office. Their “character was strictly emblematical, and their import obvious, consisting, as they generally did, of a representation of the various official implements or ensigns.” “Little doubt can be entertained but that much of our personal heraldry is derived from such a source.” (Woodham’s Application of Heraldry to the Illustration of Collegiate Antiquities, p. 79.)
[153] Between 1240 and 1245. (LXIV in Coll. Arm.)
[154] Chaffinch.
[155] Sphere of Gentry.
[156] Vide cut at the head of the present chapter.
[157] Vide English Surnames, p. 72, second edit.
[158] Gibbon, Bluemantle pursuivant, who flourished subsequently to Camden, made a collection of “Allusive Arms” containing some thousands of such coats. His MS. is in the College of Arms.
[159] Vide the Chapter of Rebuses, appended to my ‘English Surnames,’ second edit. p. 261.
[160] It is a fact not unworthy of notice that Nicholas Breakspeare (Pope Adrian IV) and William Shakspeare both bore canting-arms; the former, ‘Gu, a broken spear, or;’ and the dramatist, ‘Argent, on a bend sable, a spear of the first.’
[161] Debrett, edited by Wm. Courthope, Esq. [now Rouge-Croix.]