The Curiosities of Heraldry

by Mark Antony Lower

“If supporters had been esteemed formerly (as at this time) the marks and ensigns of nobility, there could be no doubt but there would have been then, as now, particular supporters appropriated to each nobleman, exclusive of all others; whereas, in the seals of noblemen affixed to a paper wrote to the Pope, in the year 1300, the shields of arms of twenty-seven of them are in the same manner supported (if that term may be used) on each side by a wivern, and seven of the others by lions; that of John de Hastings hath the same wivern on each side of his shield of arms, and also on the space over it; in the manner as is the lion in the seals of Hache, Beauchamp, and De Malolacu. The seals of Despencer, Basset, and Baddlesmere, pendent to the same instrument, have each two wiverns, or dragons, for supporters; and that of Gilbert de Clare, three lions, placed in the form above mentioned. The promiscuous usage of wiverns to fill the blank in the seals is obvious to all who are concerned in these matters.

“But what is a stronger argument is, that the same sort of supporters as those here mentioned is placed in the seals of divers persons whose families were never advanced to the peerage, and who, not styling themselves knights, doubtless were not bannerets; persons of which degree (if I mistake not) now claim supporters during their lives, as well as knights of the Garter, and some great officers of state. Instances of this kind are often met with; nay, the engraver hath frequently indulged his fancy so far as to insert figures which do not seem proper, according to the present notion of supporters to arms; as two swords on each side the arms of Sir John de Harcla; and St. George fighting with the Dragon on one side, and the Virgin with Our Saviour in her arms on the other side, of a seal affixed to a deed executed by Lord Ferrers, whose arms, on the impress of a seal pendent to a deed, dated 17th May, 9^o Henry VI, have not any supporters. This, as well as many other omissions of supporters, by many noblemen, in their old seals, seems likely to imply that they were not the right of the nobility exclusive of others.

“When supporters were first assumed, if there were two on one seal, they were generally the same; but sometimes there was only one, and sometimes three, as may be seen on various seals.

“The manner of placing these supporters was also very different; as sometimes, when the shield lay on the side, the supporters have been placed so as to seem to be supporting the crest, as appears in the seal of the Earl of Arundel, in which seal there is not any coronet. Some were placed all standing one way; and, if but one, it was placed sometimes on one side of the shield of arms, and sometimes on the other: sometimes, again, it was placed at the bottom, and the arms set on it; and sometimes behind, with the arms against it, and the head above the shield, and in a helmet, as in the seal of William, Lord Fitz-Hugh, 12th Henry VI.”

From a MS. of Wingfeld, York Herald, deposited in the College of Arms, it appears that many families below the rank of nobility antiently used supporters, and it is asserted that the descendants of persons who used them have a right to perpetuate them, however they were acquired. Many examples are cited of commoners having used supporters from an early period: some in virtue of high offices, as those of Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports; Comptrollers of the Household, &c.; others without any such qualification, as, for instance, the Coverts of Sussex, the St. Legers of Kent, the Carews of Surrey, the Savages of Cheshire, the Pastons of Norfolk, &c. In the hall at Firle Place, co. Sussex, are the arms of Sir John Gage, Comptroller of the Household to Queen Mary, supported by two greyhounds. The descendants of that gentleman, long afterwards elevated to the peerage by the title of Viscount Gage, continue to use the same supporters. A few other instances of such resumption occur.

By a singular anomaly the Baronets of Nova Scotia are allowed by their patents of creation to carry supporters, while the English Baronets, their superiors both in dignity and antiquity, have not that privilege. Some of these, however, as well as distinguished naval and military commanders, have, at various times, received the royal license to use them.

I have attempted, in vain, to collect an authentic list of the supporters of the royal arms of England from the time of Edward III, when, according to some authors, they were first assumed. There are discrepances in the authorities which are not easily accounted for. They are seldom agreed upon those of any early sovereign. For example, Berry gives Richard II a lion and a hart; Fosbroke says, two angels, and makes him the first king who adopted supporters. Henry IV, according to Nisbet, had two angels; Dallaway says, a lion and an antelope; and Sandford, a swan and an antelope! To Henry V, Nisbet assigns two antelopes, while Willement, out of Broke, gives him the lion and antelope. The probability is that all parties are right, each having reference to a particular instance in which the respective supporters are employed. One thing is certain, that while the colours and charges of the shield have remained unchanged from a very early date, the supporters have experienced many vicissitudes. Edward IV changed his supporters at least three times; and until the reign of James I, when the lion and unicorn became stationary, the royal supporters do not seem to have been regarded as part of the hereditary ensigns of the kingdom.[172]

I shall only add on this subject some extraordinary fashions in the use of supporters. I am inclined to think that these adjuncts to arms originated, partly, in the corbels of Gothic architecture, on which shields are frequently supported in the hands of angels.[173] Numerous instances of this kind occur in antient churches and halls built in the decorated style. Sometimes these angels are vested in terrene habiliments, as in the annexed cut, from a drawing of a sculptured stone among the ruins of Robertsbridge Abbey.

Shields of arms are sometimes supported by a single animal, as in the case of the arms of Prussia, where an eagle with two heads performs that duty. Several instances of arms borne upon the breast of an eagle are found in English heraldry: the following occur to my recollection, namely, those of Richard Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III,[174] those of the Lathams of Latham, in the fourteenth century,[175] and those of John le Bray, on his seal attached to a deed dated 1327.[176] A curious instance of this kind of supporter occurs in the arms of the lord of the manor of Stoke-Lyne, co. Oxon. The figure employed in this case is neither angel nor eagle, but a hawk. When Charles I held his parliament at Oxford, the then lord of Stoke-Lyne having rendered him an important service, the king offered him the honour of knighthood, which he gratefully declined, and merely requested the royal permission to place the arms of his family upon the breast of a hawk. This being granted, the lords of the manor have ever since employed a hawk displayed as their supporter.[177]