Michael Drayton bore ‘Azure gutté d’eau [the drops of Helicon!] a Pegasus current in bend argent.’ Crest, ‘Mercury’s winged cap amidst sunbeams proper.’ These classical emblems appear foreign to the spirit of heraldry, which originated in an unclassical age. Still it might have been difficult to assign to this stately and majestic poet more appropriate armorials.
The supporters chosen by Sir George Gordon, first Lord Aberdeen, a celebrated jurist, were two lawyers; while (every man to his taste) Sir William Morgan, K.B., a keen sportsman, adopted two huntsmen equipped for the chase, and the motto ‘Saltando cave,’ Look before you leap. Could anything be more pitiful?
VII. Arms derived from Tenure and Office are a much more interesting, though less numerous, class than the preceding.
“The tenure of the lands of Pennycuik, in Midlothian, obliges the possessor to attend once a year in the forest of Drumsleich (near Edinburgh) ... to give a blast of a horn at the king’s hunting; and therefore Clerk of Pennycuik, baronet, the proprietor of these lands, uses the following crest:”[224] ‘A demi-forester, habited vert, sounding a hunting-horn proper;’ and motto, ‘Free for a blast.’ Most of the English families of Forester, Forster, and Foster have bugle-horns in their arms, supporting the idea that the founders of those families derived their surnames from the office of Forester, held by them in times when the country abounded in woody districts. This office was one of considerable honour and emolument.
The crest of Grosvenor is ‘a hound or talbot statant or;’ and the supporters ‘two talbots reguardant or,’ &c. Both these ensigns and the name allude to the antient office of the chiefs of this family, which was that of Le Gros Veneur, great huntsman, to the Dukes of Normandy.
Rawdon, earl of Moira, ancestor of the Marquis of Hastings; ‘Argent, a fesse between three pheons or arrow-heads sable.’ Crest, in a mural coronet argent, a pheon sable, with a sprig of laurel issuing therefrom proper. Supporters, two huntsmen with bows, quivers, &c. &c. This family were denominated from their estate, Rawdon, near Leeds, co. York, which they originally held under William the Conqueror. A rhyming title-deed, purporting to have been granted by him, but evidently of much later date, was formerly in the possession of the family:
“I William King, the thurd yere of my reigne,
Give to thee, Paulyn Roydon, Hope and Hopetowne,
Wyth all the bounds, both up and downe,
From Heaven to yerthe, from yerthe to hel;
For the and thyn ther to dwell,
As truly as this Kyng-right is myn;
For a cross-bowe and an arrow,
When I sal come to hunt on Yarrow;
And in token that this thing is sooth,
I bit the whyt wax with my tooth.”
The family of Pitt, earl of Chatham, bore ‘Sable, a fesse chequy argent and azure, between three bezants or pieces of money,’ in allusion to the office the original grantee held in the EXCHEQUER. The Fanshawes also bore chequy, &c., for the same reason.
The Woods of Largo, co. Fife, bear ships, in allusion to the office of Admiral of Scotland, antiently hereditary in that family.
The antient Earls of Warren and Surrey bore ‘chequy, or and azure.’ There is a tradition that the heads of this family were invested with the exclusive prerogative of granting licenses for the sale of malt liquors, and that it was enjoined on all alehouse-keepers to paint the Warren arms on their door-posts. Hence the chequers, still seen at the entrances of many taverns, were supposed to have originated, until the discovery of that ornament on an inn-door among the ruins of Pompeii proved the fashion to have existed in classical times. Its origin is involved in obscurity; it may have been placed upon houses of entertainment to show that some game analogous to the modern chess and backgammon might be played within.