A Complete Guide to HeraldryFox-Davies, Arthur Charles
History
A Complete Guide to Heraldry
Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles
Heraldry -- Great Britain
The figure of Justice appears in the arms of Wiergman [or Wergman].
Neptune appears in the arms granted to Sir Isaac Heard, Lancaster Herald,
afterwards Garter King of Arms, and is again to be found in the crest of
the arms of Monneypenny ["On a dolphin embowed, a bridled Neptune astride,
holding with his sinister hand a trident over his shoulder"].
The figure of Temperance occurs in the crest of Goodfellow. {165}
The head of St. John the Baptist in a charger figures in the crest of the
Tallow Chandlers' Livery Company and in the arms of Ayr, whilst the head of
St. Denis is the charge upon the arms of a family of that name.
Angels, though very frequently met with as supporters, are far from being
usual, either as a charge upon a shield or as a crest. The crest of Leslie,
however, is an angel.
The crest of Lord Kintore is an angel in a praying posture or, within an
orle of laurel proper.
Cherubs are far more frequently to be met with. They are represented in
various forms, and will be found in the arms of Chaloner, Thackeray,
Maddocks, and in the crest of Carruthers.
The nude figure is perhaps the most usual form in which the human being is
made use of as a charge, and examples will be found in the arms of Wood
(Lord Halifax), and in the arms of Oswald.
The arms of Dalziell show an example--practically unique in British
heraldry--of a naked man, the earliest entry (1685) of the arms of Dalziell
of Binns (a cadet of the family) in the Lyon Register, having them then
blazoned: "Sable, a naked man with his arms extended _au naturel_, on a
canton argent, a sword and pistol disposed in saltire proper."
This curious coat of arms has been the subject of much speculation. The
fact that in some early examples the body is swinging from a gibbet has led
some to suppose the arms to be an allusion to the fact, or legend, that one
of the family recovered the body of Kenneth III., who had suffered death by
hanging at the hands of the Picts. But it seems more likely that if the
gibbet is found in any authoritative versions of the arms possibly the coat
may owe its origin to a similar reason to that which is said, and probably
correctly, to account for the curious crest of the Davenport family, viz.:
"A man's head in profile couped at the shoulders proper, about the neck a
rope or," or as it is sometimes termed, "a felon's head proper, about the
neck a halter or." There is now in the possession of the Capesthorne branch
of the Davenport family a long and very ancient roll, containing the names
of the master robbers captured and beheaded in the times of Koran, Roger,
and Thomas de Davenport, and probably the Davenport family held some office
or Royal Commission which empowered them to deal in a summary way with the
outlaws which infested the Peak country. It is more than probable that the
crest of Davenport should be traced to some such source as this, and I
suggest the possibility of a similar origin for the arms of Dalziel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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