19. Offices of dignity are marked in the same way. Thus the great officers of the empire were all accustomed to bear the tokens of their dignity. The Counts of Olden burgh, as architects of the empire, gules two fesses or, which are supposed to represent two beams. The house of Wirtemberg bore three stag-horns. That of Wernige rode a fish ; and the Electors of Hanover the imperial crown, as archtreasurers of the empire. When any great family had once assumed a particular bearing, it was very natural for their vassals to bear it, either in whole or in part, as a token of their dependence. Indeed, the grants of feudal tenure were commonly made with some such condi tion. Thus in Brittany almost every family bore Ermine in honour of the ancient sovereigns of that country ; and a great many mascles, and billets, in token of their connec tion with the houses of Rohan and Beau Manoir. In Che shire sheaves of wheat are very common, and these were the bearings of the old Earls of Chester. A striking in stance of this custom is to be met with so late as the time of Edward III. in the case of the four esquires of Lord Aud ley, who all adopted the bearing of that nobleman, with some little variation. (Vide Spelman's Asjiilogia, p. 49.) And there is preserved in the notes on the same treatise, a charter, by which Sir Gervase de Clifton makes a similar grant of a helmet to his well-beloved friend Richard de Be vercotes, dated in the third year of Richard II. In Scotland many old families bear stars in those parts of the country where the Douglasses were most powerful. And a large proportion of the families of Renfrewshire bear their figures chequered, in honour of the house of Stuart.
The ancient signiory of the castle of Tunbridge, in Kent, belonged to the Clares, Earls of Gloucester, who bare for their arms or, three chevrons gales ; and therefore the fa mily of Hardress bare gales, a lion ramfiant ermine debrnis ed by a chevron or, to denote that they held their manor of Hardness by knight's service of the said castle of Tun bridge.
20. Soon after arms had acquired the reputation of being the avowed and established marks of gentility, they came to be looked upon as inheritances alienable. So that al though no man could legally assume at his own pleasure the coat-armour which had been granted per CXPre881011 to another person by the king, yet it was generally supposed that the original grantee or proprietor had, as it were, an absolute freehold in his arms, as well as in his lands, and might with equal right transfer the property of either to another person. And accordingly instances are not wanting of the proprietors of coat-armour conveying and assigning by formal grants, and that with a covenant of warrantry, the original paternal ensigns of their own family, as well as the coat-armour of other families which had descended to them by intermarriages, to persons nowise connected with them by blood, to the exclusion of their own heirs. Although no doubt could have been entertained as to the truth of these facts, yet the legality of such concessions having been often called in question, it is proper to state that the matter was fully discussed in the court of the Earl Mar shall of England, in the case which depended between Sir Thomas Cowgan and Sir John de Norwich, and in that be tween John Lord Lovell and Thomas Lord Morley.i
Latterly, however, it has been invariably held as indispen sable, that arms should be either given or authorised by the prince. The concession of arms by the sovereign may be in the common way, viz. wherein the royal consent is given to the use of such and such arms, whether they have been formerly borne by the grantee or not, as it is expressed in the common words of letters of nohility on the continent of Europe. " In omnibus et singulis honestis expeditionibus, et actibus tam serio quam jocis nobilium, militarium armi gerorum modo in tourneamentis hastilndiis," &c.; or the concession may be of a particular kind, by which the sove reign permits his subject to assume some honourable aug mentation, often part of his own royal atchievement, in token of his peculiar favour. Thus the double tressure has been granted to several families in Scotland, as the Ran dolphs Earls of Murray, the Seatons of that ilk, &c. ; and the lion, as to the Duke of Lauderdale by way of suppor ter- When Henry Duke of Brunswick came to England to visit his ally Henry II. who then bore five leopards or, King Henry gave two of them to be carried by the Duke, which are still retained by his descendants, and are mar shalled with other figures in the fourth quarter of his pre sent Majesty George III. Edmonstone gives at full length the deed by which Queen Elizabeth allowed the Duchess of Suffolk to "assume the arms of England and France quarterly within a border gobony gold and azure," " to be an apparent sign of her consanguinity." Arms granted in this manner are stated by Menestrier to be very common in every kingdom of Europe, and are in a proper sense distin guished by the name of arms of concession. We shall have occasion to take more particular notice of some of these bearings in the sequel. In the meantime, we proceed to consider in their order the signs of honour.
Of the Shield, Surcoat, and Ensign 21. These are called by heralds the three principal signs of honour, in as much as arms have been commonly placed on them. The shield, being always deemed to be a necessary instrument in the defence of the body, and an honourable badge, was judged by all nations the most con venient tabula to contain marks of valour and honour, and therefore it is considered as the most proper and princi pal of all the heraldic signs of honour. Historians fur nish us with various forms of shields by the ancients; but at the time when armorial bearings were first instituted in the way already described, and came to be considered all over Europe as tesserce gentilitice, and hereditary marks of honour, shields, for the most part, were triangular, as may be seen on the most antique monuments, seals, &c. accordingly, the shield so shaped is called by the French the ancien ecu. From this triangular form came the cus tom in heraldry of putting the greater number of figures above, and the less below, as three, two, one. In subse quent times, a form of shield became more prevalent; square, rounded, and pointed at the end : these are most common in this island, and in Fiat ,e. The Germans make most use of the shield chancre, with bulgings and notches, derived from their tourname• The Italians have mostly the oval shield. See Plate CCXCI. Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.