Among those Welsh chieftains who gallantly defended their country from the aggressions of the English, in the reign of Henry II, was Kadivor ap Dynawal, who recaptured the castle of Cardigan, by scalade, from the Earl of Clare. For this action he was enriched by Rhys, prince of South Wales, with several estates, and permitted to bear, as coat armour, a castle, three scaling-ladders, and a bloody spear. These arms were borne by Kadivor’s descendants, the Lloyds of Milfield, co. Cardigan, baronets, till the extinction of the family in the last century.
Williams, of Penrhyn, co. Caernarvon, Bart., bore, among other charges, three human heads, in commemoration of the exploit of Edwyfed Vychan, the great ancestor of his house, who in an engagement with the followers of Ranulph, earl of Chester, came off victorious, having killed three of their chief commanders. This happened in the thirteenth century.[204]
The Vescis, Chetwodes, Knowleses, Tyntes, Villierses, and various other families, bear crosses in their arms, traditionally derived from the period of the Crusades.
Sir Ancel Gornay attended Richard I on his crusade, and was present at the capture of Ascalon, where he took a Moorish king prisoner. From this circumstance he adopted as his crest, ‘A king of the Moors habited in a robe, and crowned, kneeling, and surrendering with his dexter hand, his sword, all proper.’ This crest was continued by the Newtons, of Barr’s Court, co. Gloucester, one of whom married the heiress of the Gornays. Among several other armorial ensigns dated from this same battle of Ascalon is the crest of Darrell, which may be briefly described as, ‘Out of a ducal coronet a Saracen’s head appropriately vested,’ and which was assumed by Sir Marmaduke Darrell, in commemoration of his having killed the infidel King of Cyprus; also the arms and crest of Minshull, of Cheshire, ‘Azure, an estoile issuant out of a crescent, in base argent.’ Crest, ‘An Eastern warrior, kneeling on one knee, habited gules, legs and arms in mail proper; at his side a scymitar sable, hilted or; on his head a turban with a crescent and feather argent, presenting, with his sinister hand, a crescent of the last.’ These bearings were assigned to Michael de Minshull for his valour on that occasion, but the particular nature of his exploits is not recorded.
The Bouchiers, earls of Essex, bore ‘Argent, a cross engrailed gules, between four water-bowgets sable. Crest. The bust of a Saracen king, with a long cap and coronet, all proper.’ All these bearings are emblematical of the crusades; and the water-bowgets are a play upon the name. “In the hall of the manor-house of Newton, in the parish of Little Dunmowe, in Essex,” says Weever,[205] “remaineth, in old painting, two postures (figures;) the one for an ancestor of the Bouchiers, combatant with another, being a Pagan king, for the truth of Christ, whom the said Englishman overcame; and in memory thereof his descendants have ever since borne the head of the said infidel, as also used the surname of Bouchier,” in conformity with an antient practice, by which, as Saintfoix informs us, great heroes were honoured with the “glorious surname” of Butcher![206]
The arms of Willoughby, Lords Willoughby of Eresby, were ‘Sable, a cross engrailed or,’ and their Crest, ‘A Saracen’s head crowned frontè, all proper.’ The only account I have seen of the origin of these ensigns is contained in the following lines, occurring in Dugdale’s Baronage. A Willoughby loquitur.
“Of myne old ancestors, by help of Goddes might,
(By reason of marriage and lineal descent,)
A Sarasyn king discomfit was in fighte,
Whose head my creste, shall ever be presénte.”
Sir Christopher Seton, ancestor of the Earls of Wintoun, at the battle of Methven, in 1306, rescued King Robert Bruce from the English. For this service Robert gave him his sister, the lady Christian, in marriage, and the following augmentation to his paternal arms: ‘Surtout, an inescocheon per pale gules and azure; the first charged with a sword in pale proper, hilted and pommelled, and supporting a falling crown within a double tressure all or; the second azure a star of twelve points argent, for Wintoun.’
Robert Bruce desired that his heart might be carried to Jerusalem, and there interred in holy ground. The office of conveying it thither devolved upon his faithful and now sorrowing knight, Sir James Douglas, who was unfortunately slain on his return by the infidels, in the year 1331. To commemorate this service his descendants have ever since borne ‘Argent, a human heart royally crowned proper; on a chief azure, three mullets of the first.’ This stalwart soldier is said to have been engaged in fifty-seven battles and rencontres with the English, and thirteen with the Saracens, all in the space of twenty-four years. Certes, he must have been one of the noblest ‘butchers’ of his time!
The family of Pelham (now represented by the Earl of Chichester) bear, as a quartering, ‘Gules, two demi-belts, paleways, the buckles in chief argent.’ This augmentation was allowed to the family in the early part of the seventeenth century; but they had previously, for many generations, borne the Buckle as a badge. They also occasionally gave it as a crest, together with a cage—both in commemoration of the capture of John, king of France, at Poictiers, by Sir John de Pelham. The story is thus briefly told by Collins:[207]