III. Arms and Armorial Insignia are granted _only_ through the College of Arms in England, and through the Lyon Office in Scotland, in both realms with the direct sanction of the Crown expressed in England by the Earl Marshal. In Ireland all Grants are made by Ulster King of Arms with the same sanction. It is to be observed and kept in remembrance that the _sole right_ to Arms is a Grant from the College or the Crown, or Inheritance by lineal descent from an ancestor to whom a Grant was made or in whom a right to bear Arms has been officially recognised and registered by the Crown. All “Grants” and “Confirmations of Arms” (Confirmations, that is, of the Claims of certain individuals to bear certain Arms, by some uncertain right and title duly set forth and approved and thereafter legalised by the Crown) are formally and regularly recorded, with a full blazon of the insignia, at the College or Offices of Arms. It is very greatly to be desired that, in addition to this time-honoured usage of the Heralds in making these records, some simple plan could be adopted for the periodical registration at the College of Arms of all armorial insignia that are borne by right. Almost equally desirable, also, it would be to make a corresponding registration, as far as might be possible, of whatever insignia are borne _without_ any right. The contents of both registers would form unquestionably useful publications of a periodical character. In connection with any such project as I have just suggested, it appears to me that good service might be rendered to the cause of true Heraldry amongst us, if _Badges and Mottoes_ (without any other insignia whatever) were formally granted by the College, under certain conditions, and at the cost of a small Fee.[9] [Footnote 9: I leave this sentence as it has hitherto stood in the book. Badges are now granted and recorded, but a prior right to arms is required. --A. C. F.-D. 1908.] In new Grants of Arms, as in so many formal documents, something of the early form of Expression, with some traces of its piquant quaintness, are still retained. Very quaint indeed, and very extravagant also, is the style that was generally adopted by the Heralds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and yet characteristic of both the men and their times. As an example of one of these old documents, an example of no common interest in itself, I now give the Grant of Arms to JOHN SHAKESPERE, the Poet’s father, in the year 1596. Two draft copies of the original Grant are preserved in the College of Arms; the following transcript is printed from the later of the two copies, the earlier having been used to supply any word or passage that now is wanting in the other. The insertions thus obtained are printed in brackets. [Transcriber’s Note: All brackets except footnote references are in the original. Letters in braces { } (“curly brackets”) were printed as superscripts.] GRANT OF ARMS TO JOHN SHAKESPERE, A.D. 1596.