In December there are three, viz. 9. 13. 17."
Edward Peacock.
Bottesford, Messingham, Kirton-in-Lindsey.
ON THE MODERN PRACTICE OF ASSUMING ARMS.
"If any person be advanced into an office or dignity of publique administration, be it eyther ecclesiasticall, martiall, or ciuill: so that the same office comprehendeth in it dignitatem vel dignitatis titulum, either dignitie or (at the least) a title of dignitye: the Heralde must not refuse to devise to such a publique person, upon his instant request and willingnes to beare the same without reproche, a coate of armes: and thenceforth to matriculate him, with his intermarriages, and issues descending, in the register of the Gentle and Noble."
Thus wrote Sir John Ferne in The Blazon of Gentrie, printed in the year 1586. So also Coates, in his additions to Gwillim, writing in 1724, says:
"For though arms, in their first acceptation, were (as is shewed) taken up at any gentleman's pleasure, yet hath that liberty for many ages been deny'd, and they, by regal authority, made the rewards and ensigns of merit, &c., the gracious favours of princes; no one being, by the law of gentility in England, allowed the bearing thereof, but those that either have them by descent, or grant, or purchase from the body or badge of any prisoner they in open and lawful war had taken."
He proceeds to adduce various authorities on this subject, for which I would refer to the Introduction to the last edition of Gwillim's Heraldry, p. 16. &c.
Porny defines assumptive arms to be—