PREFACE

At the outset of these few pages, by way of introduction to this revised edition of my " Book of Public Arms," I wish to emphasise the keen and generous, and at the same time disinterested, interest which my publishers, Messrs T. C. & E. C. Jack, have taken in the book.

The previous edition contained only the arms of Towns, Counties, and Universities. The additions to these categories alone in the intervening score of years would have justified a new edition from the mere consideration of available material. But as I wished to make the book as perfect as possible I decided, and Messrs Jack were agreeable, to extend the book so that it should- include every British impersonal coat of arms in existence. That meant adding the arms of Schools, Colleges, Societies, Trading Companies, Colonies, Hospitals, Episcopal Sees, etc., etc. That I have endeavoured to do, and the object in view in this edition has been to include every single coat of arms of an impersonal character. How far I have succeeded remains to be seen. Through the great kindness of Lyon King of Arms and Ulster King of Arms, who have both allowed me access to their records, I can confidently say that every genuine impersonal coat of arms included in their Scottish and Irish records will be found in this book. And let me here tender my grateful thanks for the assistance given me by Sir J. Balfour Paul, C.V.O., Lyon King of Arms, and Capt. Neville Wilkinson, C.V.O., Ulster King of Arms, and to F. J. Grant, Esq., Rothesay Herald and Lyon Clerk, and G. D. Burtchaell, Esq., Athlone Pursuivant of Arms, for the enormous help and assistance they have given me. I am, as my readers must be, very grateful to them.

Nobody is ever permitted the same facilities with regard to the College of Arms. The different constitution of that Corporation prevents it. But I have not met with any hindrance. Every help has been given me within the limits which are per- missible, every question I have asked any officer of arms has been answered, and I know many of the officers, and I have badgered my friends there to what I think must have been the limits of their patience. And I do wish to put on record that some of them — knowing I was engaged upon this book — when they have come across some strange coat which they have thought I might like to include have sent me the details unasked. I have had help there far beyond anything I expected or had a right to expect, and I most gratefully tender my thanks to all those at the College of Arms who have helped me. My debt to them is heavy. But I cannot guarantee I have everything from their records. There may still be treasure-trove for writers who follow me. I probably have got all the ancient grants, for Berry, the Registrar of the College of Arms at the close of the eighteenth century, gutted the Grant Books for his " Encyclopaedia Heraldica," and got sacked for doing so. Of the grants since Berry's time I am a bit doubtful that I have them all. I have written broadcast to every public body that I knew was using arms, or thought h'kely to be, and I cheerfully acknowledge the fact that very few of my letters have remained unanswered. There is none of the disinclination to give nie full details with regard to impersonal arms that I met with in the editing of my book " Armorial Families " and in the editing of" Burke's Landed Gentrj-," and I have nearly always been supplied at my request with full particulars and with the dates of grant. These details have all been checked at the College of Arms, and the information I print may be relied upon as far as it is humanly possible to guarantee work of mind and pen, both liable always to unintentional lapse into error. If the English impersonal coats in this book are not complete, I feel confident they are not far short of being so, and I am fairly confident that my book may also be entirely relied upon on the point of whether any given coat of arms is genuine or otherwise. I think I have every genuine impersonal coat of arms. I think I have, but I am not sure. At any rate I have done my best. Of the bogus impersonal coats I can only say I have included every one of which I have had knowledge, if it had serious claim to consideration. Bogus arms one can only deal with if one comes across them. Naturally there must be many of which I have never heard.

There is, however, one class of impersonal arms which I have entirely ignored. I refer to the arms of the ancient abbeys and other monastic establishments. They are all long since extinct, and any interest in them, if there be any, can be only of an entirely antiquarian character. Scores of them are recorded in some form or another in the College of Arms, but I know of no official formal record of a grant or con- firmation to any such body as an existing corporation. Such records as exist are incidental records of extinct bodies. There is scarcely a religious foundation to whicn there are not several coats of arms attributed. The whole subject is confusion, resulting from the painstaking attempts of bygone antiquaries to convert into coats of arms devices from seals. Some, of course, were used as and intended to be coats of arms. Some were purely personal to a particular individual. The bulk, I strongly believe, were never intended to be regarded as more than mere seal devices. It is impossible to get at the truth, and the truth, if it could be ascertained, matters so little that I have thought it wisest to leave the whole category alone. The information is seldom wanted, and the bulk of it is already in print for the use of students and inquirers.

In addition to the British coats to which I have alluded, this volume will be found to include many foreign coats of arms. As to these I do not pretend to the slightest knowledge whether they are genuine or bogus. I have made no attempt to verify them, and I accept no responsibility for them. I have tried to obtain correct information, and I have done the best I could to obtain the arms of all Foreign Countries, and of the Principal Foreign Cities. For foreign arms in the volume I make no higher claim. They are merely included in the hope that they may be useful to my readers, but I do not pretend that the in- formation I give concerning them even approximates in value to the information I give as to British arms. As to these I hope and believe the details may be absolutely relied upon. As to foreign arms I merely give the information as the best I can get.

Subject to the liability — a liability I personally am painfully conscious of — of all human work to carry the risk of error, I honestly believe my book may be depended upon as to the accuracy of the details of the arms and the statements of facts as to whether the arms are or are not recorded. The Scottish and Irish ones I speak of with confidence. I searched the registers myself, and, as to the Irish Records — some of which are far from being grant books — I had the invaluable assistance of Mr G. D. Burtchaell, Athlone Pursuivant of Arms. In Ireland, where Visitations were practically never made and where the registers of Ulster's Office before the eighteenth century admittedly might be more perfect, there is a tendency of thought which admits as proof of the right to arms many things such as draft grants and the private papers of dead and gone officers of arms to fill up possible gaps. To what extent such evidences are actually proof might be questioned were it not the habitual practice of Ulster's Office to stretch the point in their favour. I don't think that any Irish coat I have included is likely to be disallowed. In Scotland there is a hard and fast line. The Register is the register, and a coat is in it, or not in it. There is no half-way house, no matter what may be the value of various other records as proof of ancient user entitling a coat to be matriculated, and not granted, to win its way into the charmed circle of authorised arms.

With regard to the records of the College of Arms the position is this. There is a proper record by docquet or copy of grant of every coat of arms that has ever been granted by Letters Patent. I don't know exactly upon what basis of authority we find, as we do, records of most of the ancient impersonal arms in the Visitation Books. Most of the ancient City and Town arms which are genuine are to be found there, but I am bound to say that frequently the essence of the record seems to be the registration of the common seals of the Corporations rather than their arms. Where arms are recorded as arms, or where the device of the seal is plainly armorial and the tinctures are tricked, there is no difficulty, but there are one or two cases concerning which it is difficult to speak with assured certainty. The Visitation Books are official records, and a perfect record therein is, of course, conclusive admission of right. But there are of some coats of arms contemporary enrolments at the College of Arms in books which are neither grant books nor visitation books — books which are principally the painstaking work of bygone officers of arms, the records their industry created. Some, of course, can be dismissed at once as quite accurate but of no validating authority — evidence of user but not evidence of right. But there are one or two which cannot be lightly dismissed, and for that reason I would like to add the warning that I am not entirely certain as to all of the records, and though all of the coats which I state to be " recorded in the College of Arms " are so recorded, I cannot in every case in which I use the words guarantee the quality and authority and the validity of the particular book in which the record appears. Then there are a number of visitation records in which the arms without their tinctures are to be found. These are formally, I believe, held to be imperfect records. Then take such an example as the record of the arms of the Middle Temple. At the Visitation of the County of Northampton a family of the name of Temple exhibited and claimed the familiar cross and iamb. To that family the arms were disallowed, the reason entered in the Visitation Book being, " These be the arms of the Hon. Society of the Middle Temple." But there is no proper record of these arms to the Middle Temple, or of any of the arms of the Inns of Court, for the Inns of Court, not being Corporate Bodies, were not in the seventeenth century regarded as competent either to bear arms or receive a grant of arms. More recent precedents may have altered this, but in view of the facts, what is the value, as a determining factor of right or no right, of that entry in the Visitation of the County of Northampton ? I hold it is entirely negligible, but I am bound to add that a distinguished officer of arms has expressed to me the contrary opinion. I may perhaps add that this uncertainty does not arise as to personal arms. The officers of arms had powers of compulsion which they could and did apply to the individuals they summoned to attend them at the Visitations. The lists of "disclaimers" show how they did their work. I have never seen the name of a Corporate Body in the list of " disclaimers," and on that I base my belief in their exemption from compulsory appeai'ance. There has, of course, in bygone days quite as much as in modern times, been the home-made manufacture of coat-armour, but there has been an additional factor in respect of the arms of impersonal corporations. There has always been the desire to do honour to and to perpetuate the memory of the founder by the adoption of his arms. It is a highly laudable sentiment in the abstract, but in operative fact it is illegal. Suppose a School to commemorate its founder, the last Earl of X , were to style itself "The Earldom of X ." It would not be allowed a vote in the House of Lords. In the same way it would have no right to the arms of the Earl, which were probably granted by Patent with as definitely specified and as well understood a remainder as was his Peerage.

But there are scores of Colleges, Schools, and other-institutions which are sinning in this way, and as the use of the arms in many such cases goes back for a prolonged period, and as practically every such body so circumstanced before the Visitations was " allowed " the arms of the founder, I feel practically certain that if one joint petition were lodged by all the Schools and Colleges so circumstanced at the moment, praying that His Majesty would' be graciously pleased to issue His Royal Licence that they might continue to use the arms of their founders, that such a petition would be granted. There is, however, the further difficulty — e.g. the case of Harrow School — that in some cases the founders themselves had no right at all to the arms attributed to them. And I fancy a Royal Licence would hardly be granted in such a case as Shrewsbury, where the founder was a king, and the use of the Royal Arms would therefore be involved.

But Dulwich College and Charterhouse are cases in which 1 feel pretty certain a Royal Licence would be granted if it were applied for.

Grants of arms are never made in the ordinary way to Colonies. The arms of a Colony or of a self-governing Dominion are assigned by Royal Warrant under the Sign Manual of the Sovereign. Though there are certain fees payable upon the issue of such a warrant, it is nobody's business to initiate the application therefor, and these Colonial warrants have been sadly neglected. But another factor has been in existence. With that sublime interference with which one Government Department encroaches on another the Admiralty has published in the official book of authorised flags the devices for the various British territories beyond the seas which it considers suitable for use upon the flags of the Governors of the different Colonies. Most of these are wrong and usually ap- palling. Then in another direction we have the Mint supplying seals with devices more or less heraldic, and there has been always the native imagination inventing home-made coats of arms which found their way on to the official stationery and often even on to the coins and postage stamps. Then we even got to the length of the Colonial Office authorising a flag for Australia, which I have always thought was the extreme limit. The Royal Warrant assigning arms to any territory ought to have preceded the making of its first seal ; but the actual fact was that until a few years ago Jamaica, Gibraltar, Nova Scotia, Cape Colony, and Canada were the only Colonies which had genuine arms, whereas every Colony used something or other.

I hope I am not telling secrets when I say that it was no high-browed desire for righteousness which initiated the recent reform. As a matter of fact the require- ments of the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace proved to be the operative factor. But I do want to enter my protest against the ghastly enormities which have been perpetrated by Royal Warrant under the guise of Colonial arms. The great bulk are appalling monstrosities. There is no other way of describing them. What could be worse, for instance, than the arms of the Leeward Islands? — and these are official. Some of the earlier Colonial arms — Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland — are arms to which no exception can be taken. The arms, moreover, granted in the reign of Queen Victoria to Canada and its Provinces, or to Cape Colony, are quite good. But there has recently been a large number of Warrants issued to Colonies. There seems to be about a large proportion a uniform level of artistic rottenness which surpasses all previous conception. The fault lies with the Colonies, which have insisted on the perpetuation of existing devices.

There are many Towns in the self-governing Dominions which are using bogus arms or have no authentic arms ; in fact, the only towns outside the United Kingdom to which grants have been made are: — Kingston (Jamaica), Bombay, Calcutta, Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Sydney.

Very few British counties have as yet obtained arms. In England it was held that nobody existed in a county competent to bear arms until the formation of the County Councils. In most cases the arms of the County Town did duty, but there were cases in which separate arms for the county were in use ; Middlese.x, Kent, and Surrey were instances. But since the formation of the County Councils several grants have been made. West Sussex was the first, Shropshire was the next ; then came Lancashire, Middlesex, Norfolk, and Somerset. The London County Council, after a particularly iniquitous heraldic career, has at last obtained a grant, no doubt because the fees were forthcoming from a private source, as indeed was the case with both West Sussex and Shropshire.

In Scotland arms were matriculated in 1500 for "the County of Perth" and in 1890 "the Council of the County of Berwick." The only other county arms in that kingdom are those matriculated in 1889 by the Commissioners of Supply for the County of Renfrew.

There are no county arms in Ireland ; but arms for the four provinces of Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught officially exist, although one is puzzled to know to what or to whom they are assigned or by whom they are borne.

There has never been any objection raised to the granting of arms to Cities and Towns of a corporate nature, and at the present time grants are even being made to Urban District Councils, Erith and Twickenham being cases in point.

The next category of impersonal arms is to be found in those of the Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Sees. These call for little comment. It seems to be well established that the pallium stands for the status or rank of Archbishop rather than for any area of jurisdiction. Though the different archiepiscopal coats now have certain variations and are stereotyped into coats of arms, it is unlikely that these variations are in reality any more than former artistic differences of a universal type. The arms of the Anglican Episcopal Church Sees in Scotland and Ireland lapsed with the disestablishment of those churches, and the Welsh coats will follow suit. There would really seem no objection to a continuance of their use if a Royal Licence from His Majesty were to be obtained. By the conjunction of various sees the marshalling of the various coats would become necessary. With one or two exceptions the whole of the British Episcopal arms outside the United Kingdom are utterly bogus. A coat of arms is not a necessity, and if the Church desires that her Bishops should use impersonal arms upon their seals, it should take steps to have these properly called into being.

It should be noted that the mitre of a Bishop and an Archbishop are the same. The Bishop of Durham, and he alone, has the right to encircle the rim of his mitre with a coronet.

The rest of the impersonal arms call for little comment. Any corporate body having perpetual succession and a common seal have the right to obtain a grant of arms, and certainly arms exist in cases where this qualification is at any rate doubtful. Nowadays Schools, Colleges, Universities, Banks, Insurance Offices, and Railway Companies, Hospitals, and Charitable Societies are amongst those bodies which have obtained grants of arms.

The arms of the Livery Companies of London and other cities, a large pro- portion of which are quite genuine, present in different places a uniformity of motive which is puzzling, and at first sight apparently indicative of copying or usurpation. The real explanation, however, is to be found in the antecedent devices in general use as trade signs. Few have survived to the present day, though the barber's pole and the three balls of the pawnbroker are familiar to us all. In the same way the three escutcheons of the shield worker and painter were universal throughout Europe, and survive in the arms of the Painters and Paynter-Stayners Companies. These old trade devices, with more or less modification, have given the basis of design when by incorporation trade bodies have been called into being competent to receive grants or confirmations of arms.

It is a matter of considerable uncertainty what helmet shall be used with an impersonal coat of arms. Personally I myself think it is greatly to be regretted that any crest has ever been granted to an impersonal coat of arms. Impersonal arms originated either in territorial arms of sovereignty, in guild devices, or in flags. Putting aside the first-named, which so far as the Sovereign was concerned had a personal character, there was neither need, nor use, nor any reason for the existence of helmet or crest. None of the ancient impersonal arms had crests, and I am afraid it must be admitted that the beginnings of crests for impersonal coats lay in the desire of the Kings of Arms to grant them, but behind this desire lay, not the endeavour to extract fees, but the necessity of bringing corporations under their control, and I am confident that the bulk of these early grants of crests were nothing more than the bait to tempt corporations to acknowledge authority and record the arms they were using. The grant of the crest created the opportunity of recording and confirming the arms. The earliest of such grants date from the fifteenth century, a period before rank was denoted by the style and shape of the helmet. I know of no rules and can simply state the facts within my knowledge. With regard to the arms of Colonies, very few date back to the Stuart period. I have never seen a Royal Warrant of this period for the purpose. I very much doubt if an original is still in existence, but arms of Colonies which are of ancient origin appear always to be represented with the Royal helmet. This, one would imagine, is correct; there is certainly no reason why any other helmet should be used. But the majority of Colonial arms are quite modern. I can call nothing to mind granted between the reign of Charles II. and the reign of Queen Victoria. The modern Colonial warrants have no helmet and mantling either painted upon them or recited in the wording of the warrant. A number of them certainly have crests, but these are simply placed on wreaths above the escutcheon without any intervening helmet or mantling. From these facts, the conclusion I draw is, that the correct helmet and mantling for a colony should be that of the Sovereign, and I shall adhere to that opinion until I come across an actual warrant which uses a different helmet. With regard to the arms of counties, it should be remembered that until the passing of the act creating County Councils there was no body in any county competent to bear arms or to obtain a grant of arms. But in Scotland at any rate a grant had been made to " The County of Perth " and to the commissioners of supply for the County of Renfrew. These grants I have always doubted the real validity of, but they exist. Perth, though it has a crest, was emblazoned without a helmet. Berwick had no crest, but Renfrew was emblazoned with the helmet of an esquire. The English counties, of course, had no arms, but in one or two cases — for example, Kent and Middlesex — arms had by long repute been attributed to counties, but in no case was there any reputation of a crest, and so the question of the helmet did not arise. After the passing of the County Councils Act the first council in England to obtain a grant for the county was West Sussex : that had no crest and con- sequently no helmet. The next was Shropshire, which likewise and very properly was also without a crest; and it would have been well if these two precedents had stereotyped the absence of a crest as proper to the arms of a county. The next county to obtain a grant was Lancashire, which in the pride of its wealth went for arms, crest, and supporters. In this grant the helmet was that of an esquire, and this grant for England, and the grant to Renfrew for Scotland, have fixed and determined the rule that the proper helmet for a county is that of an esquire. I presume it would be the same for Ireland, but there is nothing in the nature of arms for a county in the kingdom of Ireland. With regard to the arms of cities and towns, for some utterly inexplicable reason the right to a knight's helmet is always conceded to any Scottish city or town when it matriculates its arms ; but in England the helmet for a city or town is always that of an esquire. With regard to other corporate bodies who obtain grants of arms, the rule when a crest is granted is that the helmet shall be that of an esquire, and this rule nowadays is always strictly adhered to ; but many grants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — for example, to City Livery Companies — were unquestionably emblazoned with the helmet of a peer. I should myself have been inclined to regard these as examples of the use of helmets before any rules concerning them had been devised, were it not that Sir Albert Woods, Garter King of Arms, who, whatever his artistic faults, and they were many, was meticulously accurate in these matters of detail, certified the arms of the Goldsmiths' Company under a painting which distinctly showed the helmet of a peer. This may have been intentional, for a number of the mantlings of the arms of these City Companies are lined with ermine. Where I have known this to be the case I have noted this in the blazons. No university ever had a crest until the grant in 1905 to the University of Leeds, which was followed by a similar grant to the University of Wales. The emblazonments of these grants, I understand, do not show any helmet or mantling. I think it is a thousand pities that the tradition that no university has a crest should be broken — universities are amongst the very few grants in which the motto forms a part of the grant — but as it has been broken, one can only say that there is no reason for supposing that the helmet can be anything but that of an ordinary esquire. The only exception to these rules as to the use of helmets lies in the usage by the City of London of the helmet of a peer. This is not a usage for which there is a trace of official authority, and this point is dealt with under the arms of London.

The only cities which to my knowledge have ever used a fur cap over the shield of arms are London, Dublin, York, and Norwich. Of York I can say nothing beyond the fact that in many representations of the arms I have seen the fur cap. The arms of Norwich are seldom represented without it, and in Norwich the fur cap, which in this case is black, was formerly worn by the Mayor himself. In London the fur cap is actually worn by the sword-bearer, and there is nothing to show that it was ever worn by the Mayor ; in fact, the evidence is to the contrary. The earliest instance in which it is found is a case about the year 1677, where it figures, not over the shield, but in a background of miscellaneous municipal insignia. I believe it is there intended to indicate the cap of the London apprentice, and I am strongly of opinion, that if we had any certain knowledge, it would, in the case of London, be traceable to such an origin ; possibly through a mistaken imitation of the case at Norwich, where there would appear to be some real reason and foundation for its use. But there is not a trace of any official sanction for the use of such an embellishment by any English town. The case of Dublin is rather different. I am not quite sure who actually wears the garment there, but the late Ulster King of Arms, Sir Arthur Vicars, K.C.V.O., wrote to me that he would have no hesitation in certifying the arms of the City of Dublin with this cap, and for that reason it is included, as it is used, in the illustration. Whether or not the present Ulster King of Arms holds the same view I am quite unaware, but there "certainly is nothing in the way of authority at present officially recorded for it. It is worthy of note that none of the cities I have mentioned have any crest, consequently there is no reason for helmet or mantling to surmount the arms, and the absence of one may account for the presence of the other. The City of London, after, even for official purposes, making great use for the last hundred years of the fur cap, has now decided to discourage its use, and prefer on all occasions its bogus crest.

Widespread as is the use of the mural crown in connection with municipal arms, there was, until a few months ago, no authority whatever for its use in this country. Since the seventeenth century and its haphazard granting of personal crests upon caps of maintenance and out of coronets passed away, there was until quite recently an unwritten law and a rigidly enforced practice that the mural crown should be exclusively reserved for grants of crests to officers of the army of the rank of General, and for such cases the mural crown has been religiously reserved. On the Continent however, it has always been regarded as a regular adjunct of a civic coat of arms, some writers even elaborating rules as to the number of turrets and towers to be included in the crown according to the rank and character of the town as a Royal residence, capital city, fortified town, or otherwise. I doubt if these regulations have any real authority, but one does come across them conscientiously asserted, but they had no acceptance whatever in England, Scotland, or Ireland, where the rule held which I have quoted. This rule, however, has now gone by the board, for Lyon King of Arms, in the exercise of his discretion, but which I cannot but think was a very unfortunate decision, has matriculated in his register the arms of both Paisley and St Andrews, the escutcheon in each case being surmounted by a mural crown. To Lyon King of Arms and his fearless refusal to be bound by convention the heraldry of to-day owes much, and how much the future only will reveal, but I cannot help regretting this decision of his, because it smashes a very cherished privilege of army grants. Had Lyon, following the continental practice, introduced the walled and turreted crown one meets with in Germany, the matter might have been different, but he has matriculated the army crown pure and simple. This bad example has now been followed by the College of Arms, for in the grant of arms to the London County Council a mural crown is included. In this case it was done by Royal Licence. It is to be hoped that Germany will not regard this crown as evidence of the fortification of London.

In the use of supporters with impersonal arms opinion has changed. Supporters (but not those now in use) can be found in conjunction with the arms of the City of London at a period when it is at any rate doubtful whether heraldic supporters were fully established as part of an achievement. Supporters to the arms of the Livery Companies are found very earl)', but they were not usual with the arms of cities and towns until the seventeenth century. But for a long period an idea held in England, and was uniformly acted upon, that supporters were the sign of a city and could not be granted to a town of lesser degree. A careful examination of precedents has shown that there is no authority or foundation for such a supposed rule, and as far as I am aware supporters will now be granted to any impersonal coat of arms on payment of the usual fees. They certainly have been granted to some colonies, many cities, some towns, some counties, and a large number of institutions and corporate bodies. But I do not know of any instance of supporters being granted to an episcopal coat, a university, a school, or a railway company. Before leaving supporters a passing reference perhaps may be made to the single supporters which occur in the arms of the Swiss Cantons, the City of Perth, and the Burgh of Falkirk. The blazon of this latter coat, and that of the Royal Warrant to the Bermudas, are rather typical of the differing Scottish and English methods of dealing with the same situation.

With regard to wreaths, one can only say the usual heraldic practices are generally adopted, although the City of Chester gives us an example of a wreath and mantling each of three colours, and in the cases of one or two of the City Livery Companies the colours are exceptional.

Augmentations in the case of impersonal arms are rare. The arms of London- derry and Hereford are instances however, and I cannot but think it would be a happy proceeding if the sieges of Ladysmith and of Mafeking were commemorated by augmentations.

The resuscitation in recent years of the old practice of assigning badges and standards has in a few cases already spread to impersonal arms. Launceston was the first, and Nottingham, Llanelly, and the Port of London Authority have since followed suit.

Probably by far the most important alteration that has taken place since the previous edition was published has been the authorisation of arms for Wales, which is presumably a consequence of the Royal Warrant declaring the arms of the Prince of Wales, which has substituted the arms attributed to Llewellyn, and borne by Owen Glendower, for the inescutcheon of Saxony, which most of the descendants of the late Prince Consort bear upon their arms.

In addition to the arms of Colonies which are assigned by Royal Warrant, this method of calling arms into being has been followed in the cases of the County of Norfolk, the County of London, the City of Cardiff, the Port of London Authority, and several others. The reason is usually, if not always, to be found in the desire to include the whole or some part of the Royal Arms.

The years which followed the publication of the original edition of my book contributed, muchly to my everlasting amusement, to the showers of abuse which fell upon me for calling attention to the bogus character of many impersonal coats of arms. Many towns which I then criticised are now pursuing the paths of heraldic virtue. But there are still many spurious coats of arms in use, and one cannot help wondering whether it might not be possible to put some of these right by private initiative. The chairmen of at least two County Councils paid the fees for grants of arms to their counties. The old scholars of a famous Scottish School collected the cost of a matriculation of arms. The fees on a recent grant to a famous old town were raised by private subscription. I know of a number of such cases, and would myself cheerfully subscribe to the fees for grants of arms to be made to the Boroughs of Much Wenlock, Cardigan, and Carmarthen, and to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, with all of which I have personal associations. Also would I subscribe to get the arms matriculated which have been in use by Inveraray and New Galloway. I have never been near either place, and don't know that I want to go, but the two coats of arms interest me, particularly the alleged Inveraray arms, and I want to see what Lyon King of Arms would do with them and what Ulster will do with the arms of Waterford. I never had any very high opinion of the Society of Antiquaries. But it would really give me pleasure to subscribe to a fund to get the Society a genuine coat of arms and bring to a close the scandal of its present heraldic criminality.

There are still several colonies which need Royal Warrants to be issued for the assigning of arms to them, and I would like to see arms assigned by warrant to Rhodesia, with authority for them to be placed on a monument to the memory of Cecil Rhodes, and to be borne by the Rhodes family. India and her Provinces have no arms, the City of London will not see the error of her ways ; Newport, Swansea, and Carnarvon have all yet to learn righteousness. The Counties and the Episcopal Sees are hotbeds of heraldic iniquity.

In twenty years one's friends and correspondents change, and the list of those to whom herein I make my acknowledgments of indebtedness for assistance is a different list from the one which figured in my first edition. To those whose names I then gave my indebtedness still remains, and is remembered with gratitude for the help which then enabled me to call this book into being.

A. C. FOX-DAVIES