A remarkably fine specimen of Elizabethan heraldic decoration is also to be seen in the great chamber of Gilling castle, Yorks, as finished by Sir William Fairfax about 1585. Here the beautiful inlaid wall-panelling is surmounted by a frieze nearly four feet deep, painted with hunting scenes and a series of large trees, upon which are hung according to wapentakes the shields of arms of Yorkshire gentlefolk. The chimney piece displays the armorial ensigns of the builder, with those of his Queen above, and four other shields, and between the frettings of the plaster ceiling are the Fairfax lions and goats, and the Stapleton talbot. The rich effect of the whole is completed by the contemporary heraldic glazing with which the windows happily are filled.
But in Elizabethan buildings generally, heraldry made but a poor show. Supporters and other creatures had descended from the gables to stand or squat upon gateposts, and occasionally a square panel filled with heraldry was inset above a doorway or a porch; or the family crest, divorced from its helm, was carved upon the spandrels of the entrance. But the former glory had disappeared, and shields of arms were often replaced by initials and dates of owners and builders, presumably because they were 'non-armigerous persons.'
Within doors matters were somewhat better. Such gorgeous rooms as the great chamber at Gilling were quite exceptional, and heraldic display was usually confined to the elaborately carved overmantels of the chimneys, which served as a frame for the family arms and crested helm with grand flourishing of mantlings. These were often repeated upon the cast-iron fire-backs. The art of the plasterer was extended to the inclusion of crests and other devices among the ornaments of the moulded ceilings, and the glazier continued to fill the windows with beautiful coloured shields of alliances. Occasionally too the family arms were woven into carpets or table covers; or embroidered by the ladies of the house on the hangings of the state bed, within charming wreaths of flowers copied from those in the garden (fig. [192]).
Fig. 192. Part of a bed-hanging embroidered with the arms of Henry and Elizabeth Wentworth, c. 1560, formerly in the possession of Sir A. W. Franks, K.C.B.
The monuments of the dead continue as before to be adorned with heraldry, but in a different way, and for the beautiful simple arms and devices of the medieval memorial began to be substituted the concentrated shield of the family quarterings, with crest and mantled helm, and such supporters as the College of Arms allowed or approved.
Despite the inevitable consequent formality, there is often much that is good about the treatment of Elizabethan and Jacobean heraldry, and it would not be easy, even at an earlier date, to beat the delightful lions upon the shields on the Lennox tomb at Westminster (fig. [194]), or to fill up more satisfactorily a shield like that above the monument of Sir Ralph Pecksall (fig. [195]). The effective way in which the shield itself is treated in this case is also praiseworthy, and both shields are models of heraldic carving in low relief.