Royal Bastards
Page 27
Among the first dozen examples of coats of arms of illegitimate issue of Kings of England, the bendlet sinister is only used once among the first dozen with a total of four times amongst the first twenty five bastards. Indeed, any system of brisures appropriate to bastards was not to be found before the fifteenth century and most writers on the subject had not recognised the importance of studying them among medieval rolls of arms.
While the Baron de la Roche, Mathieu de Bourbon, called ‘le Grand Bâtard de Bourbon’ bore Azure, semy de lis Or a bend(let) (or a baton - the shortened bendlet) Gules, Louis de Haeze, the illegitimate son of Count Louis de Male, Count of Flanders, bore in the Armorial de Gelre (around 1380) Argent, a canton Or charged with a lion Sable. A somewhat more complex coat of arms were born by the bâtard Antoine de Bourbon died in 1504.
The chief herald (or king of arms) of the Duke of Burgundy, John de Fever imposed the baton sinister on the arms of the father of every illegitimate child. It is likely that the word sinister of blazonry cast a pejorative imputation upon the reputation of the individual who bore such arms particularly when the baton sinister became more common in use towards the end of the seventeenth century particularly among royal bastards. Not infrequently such batons were charged with other insignia to assist in the differencing.
A Uterine bastard was frequently distinguished by the paternal arms of the mother bearing a canton of the arms of the putative father. Apart from the canton in which the arms representing the maternal origins might also appear, a chief has been used in this context and more frequently a bordure. The most famous of the bordures was that employed by the illegitimate children of John of Gaunt by his mistress Catherine Swinford. He married her in 1397 whereupon by an Act of Parliament the children were made legitimate as the Beauforts, the royal arms appearing within a bordure of the livery colours of the house of Lancaster. Wavy borders were introduced by the English Kings of Arms by the end of the eighteenth century as a brisure of bastardy.
The illegitimate children of the royal house of France and its heraldry have been studied in detail by Hervé Pinoteau, Héraldique Capetienne, (1954).
A female bastard in whose name arms have been registered, granted or matriculated becomes an heiress, in that the bastardised coat can become quartered by her descendants. Often, in Scotland, on account of hand-fast marriages, a bastard is treated more favourably in Scottish heraldic law. On proof of paternity, he may matriculate exactly as any lawful cadet. However, the Lord Lyon King of Arms would impose a difference upon matriculation, usually of a bordure compony, although occasionally with a baton or riband sinister, but these show that the cadet is not of the legal line of succession. He would not be reckoned as ‘filius nullius’ as in England, necessitating him to apply for a new grant of arms, but he would be treated as one of his father’s clan having hereditary rights to armorial ensigns. With evidence of paternity he could take quarterings, a standard and enjoy nobiliary status. A bordure compony counter-compony is not necessarily a mark of illegitimacy, which is as well for the relationship with many police forces.
In 1702 Alexander Nisbit published An Essay on Additional Figures and Marks of Cadency. Shewing the Ancient and Modern Practice of differencing Descendents in This and other Nations ... He concentrated on the Scottish systems referring extensively to advice obtained from William Camden as appears in Dugdale’s Ancient Usage of Arms (1682). Much has been written in the great books of nobility, the best being Nicholas Upton’s De Studio Militari (Bysshe’s edition, 1634) and the essay of John Johan Baptista Christyn who was Chancellor of Brabant. Christyn had given serious attention to the methods of distinguishing one individual of a house from another, including the bastards who came into military and public prominence.
A fascinating example that appears for Sir John de Clarence, Per chevron two lions in chief and a fleur de lys in base, representing the royal family and Sir John’s descent from Thomas, Duke of Clarence, the second son of Henry IV who bore France and England quarterly and a label ermine charged with a canton Gules. Nisbet expands upon his ideas and shares more of his acquired knowledge in The System of Heraldry (1722). He suggests that Sir John de Clarence was the first of the bastards in England to carry arms resembling those of his father. This is not so if we can accept that Henry I bore a lion before his son who appears on the Le Mans enamel (See Family History 1976). Nisbet goes on to draw attention to Robert, the illegitimate son of William the Lion, who married the heiress of Lundin of that Ilk taking her name and arms but much later taking on the arms of Scotland within a bordure gobonated Argent and Azure. It was, of course, not uncommon in the Middle Ages for a husband to take on the name and arms of the wife along with her title, or, rather, the title of her late father or husband.
Charles, the illegitimate son of Henry, Duke of Somerset bore a baston or bendlet sinister over the legitimated Beaufort coat.
The shortened baton appears in the arms of Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle the natural son of Edward IV (see page 18) and in that of Henry Fitroy, Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Richmond and Somerset, the natural son of King Henry VIII. That is the baton couped sinister. Question, did Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the fourth son of Henry IV bear arms of France and England quarterly within a bordure compony Argent and Sable as Gayre says? His daughter Antigone bore them with a baston sinister Azure.
Arms can also be used to prompt questions rather than resolve them. For in the case of Thomas Dunckerley, the chief evidence that has been advanced in support of his mother’s deathbed claim that Thomas was an illegitimate son of the Prince of Wales, later King George II, were the arms that he used. These were the Royal Arms, debruised by a baton sinister argent, which is often used as an indication of illegitimacy. His seal bore a motto Fato Non Merito (By Fate Not Desert) and beneath it was his name Thos. Dunckerley Fitz George (the appendage Fitz, often being used to denote illegitimacy. However, no reference to these arms or to any Royal Licence could be found in the records of the College of Arms. There is no doubt, however, that Dunkerley was a close friend of the Duke of Clarence and other sons of King George III and that he used his seal openly in their presence. But without this seal, it is doubtful whether his claim would have been even considered atall and his position therefore remains an enigma.
Bibliograpy
Abdication (1966) by B. Inglis
A Catalogue and Succession of the Kings, Princes (1622) by R.A. Brooke
A Catalogue of English Medieval Rolls of Arms (1950) – ed A.R. Wagner
A Collection of the Wills of the Kings and Queens of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VII (ed. J. Nichols, 1780)
A Crown for Elizabeth (1971) by M.M. Luke
A Genealogical History of the Kings and Queens of England and Monarchs of Great
Britain, 1066-1677 (1677), Samuel Stebbings (1707) by Francis Sandford
A General History of the House of Guelph 2 vols. (1821) by A. Halliday
A History of Greenwich (1973) by B. Platts
A House of Kings: The History of Westminster Abbey (1966) ed. E. Carpenter
Albert and Victoria (1977) by D. Duff
All The King’s Women (1988) by Derek Wilson
Alumni Cantabrigienses
Alumni Oxonienses
A Matter of Martyrdom (1969) by H.R. Williamson
Ancient Funeral Monuments within the United Monarchy of Great Britain, Ireland, and
the Islands adjacent, their Founders, and what Eminent Persons have been in the
Same Interred (1631) by John Weever
Ancient Heraldic Manuscript of David Lyndsay of the Mount, 1542 (1822) by D. Laing
Angevin Kingship (1955) by J.E.A. Joliffe
Anglica Historia (ed. D. Hay, 1950) by Polydore Vergil
Anne and the Princesses Royal (1973) by H. Cathcart
Anne Boleyn (2 vols., 1884) by P. Friedmann
Anne Boleyn (1972) by M.L. Bruce
Anne Boleyn (1974) by H.W. Chapman
Anne Boleyn (197
9) by N. Lofts
Anne Boleyn (1984) by C. Erickson
Anne of Denmark (1970) by E.C.Williams
Annuaire de la Noblesse de Russie, (1900)
Anominalle Chronicle (ed. V.H. Galbraith, 1967)
Archaeologia (102 vols - Society of Antiquaries of London, 1773-96)
Armorial de Gelre - various volumes
A Rose of Savoy (1909) by H. Noel Williams
A Treatise on Heraldry British and Foreign 2 vols (1896) by J. Woodard & G. Burnett
A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Times of Catherine Howard (1961) by L.B. Smith
Banners, Standards and Badges, (1904) by J.Foster
Baronagium Genealogicum, (1764) by J. Edmondson
Bastard Prince Henry VIII’s Lost Son (Stroud, 2001) by Beverley A. Murphy
Battle Royal (Muller, 1965) by T. Beamish
Blood Red the Roses: The Wars of the Roses (1973) by C.S. Alderman
Bloody Mary (1978) by C. Erickson
Bosworth Field and the Wars of the Roses (1966) by A.L. Rowse
Boutell’s Heraldry (1973) by John.P. Brooke-Little
Britain’s Royal Brides (1977) by J. Argy, & W. Riches,
Britain’s Royal Family – The Complete Genealogy (1989) by Alison Weir
Britannia (1695) by W. Camden
British Kings and Queens by Mike Ashby
Broken Lives (1993) by Lawrence Stone
Burke’s Extinct & Dormant Baronetcies (1841) reprinted 1985
Burke’s Extinct & Dormant Peerage (1883) reprinted 1978
Burke’s Guide to the British Monarchy (1977) by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd
Burke’s Guide to the Royal Family (1973)
Burke’s Landed Gentry - various
Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain – The Kingdom in Scotland (2001) ed Peter Beauclerk-Dewar
Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage – various, inc 2003.
By Royal Appointment (1970) by P. Berry
Calendar of Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office (6 vols., 1903)
Calendar of Documents preserved in France, illustrative of the History of Great
Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers relating to Negotiations between
England and Spain (ed. G.A. Bergenroth, 13 vols., 1862-1954)
Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (ed. J.S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, and R.H. Brodie, 21 vols., 1862-1932)
Calendar of Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office (1906)
Calendar of State Papers: Milan (ed. A.B. Hinds, 1913)
Calendar of State Papers: Venice (ed. R. Brown and A.B. Hinds, 38 vols., 1864-1937)
Calendar of State Papers Domestic Charles II 1661-62, 1663-4
Calendar of State Papers Domestic Elizabeth 1591-1594, p 167
Calendar of Treasury Books 1667-8, 1669-72, 1672-75
Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark (1971) by H.W. Chapman
Caroline the Illustrious (1904) by J.H. Wilkins
Caroline, the Unhappy Queen (1967) by Lord Russell of Liverpool
Catalogue of Honour, (1610) by T. Milles
Catherine of Aragon (1942) by G. Mattingley
Catherine of Aragon and her Friends (1966) by J.E. Paul
Catherine of Braganza (1967) by H. Elsna
Catherine the Queen (1967) by M.M. Luke
Chancery Proceedings, Six Clerk Series, C9/131/1
Charles the First (1975) by J. Bowle
Charles – Victim or Villain? (1998) by Penny Junor
Charles I (1968) by Christopher Hibbert
Charles I (1972) by D.R. Watson
Charles II (1972) by Christopher Falkus
Charles II (1973) by Maurice Ashley
Charles II (1989) by Ronald Hutton
Charles II – His Life and Likeness (1961) by Hesketh Pearson
Charles II, the Man and the Statesman (1971) by Maurice Ashley
Charles the Second’s French Mistress (1972) by Brian Bevan
Charles, Prince of Wales (1979) by A. Holden
Chronica (ed. H.C. Hamilton, 2 vols., 1848-9) by Walter of Guisborough:
Chronica (ed. H.T. Riley, 1865) by William Rishanger
Chronica (ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols., 1868-71) by Roger of Hovedon
Chronica (ed. J.R. Lumby, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 1889-95) by Henry Knighton
Chronica Anglicanum (ed. J. Stevenson, 1875) by Ralph of Coggeshall
Chronica Majora (ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols., Rolls Series, 1872-3) by Matthew Paris
Chronicle (ed. G. Rokewoode, 1840) by Jocelin of Brakelond
Chronicle (ed. W.A. Wright, 2 vols., Rolls Series, 1846-8) by Pierre de Langtoft
Chronicle Containing the History of England, H Ellis (ed.) (1809) by E. Hall
Chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors (ed. W. Douglas-Hamilton, 2 vols., 1875)
Chronicles of Engand, France and Spain (ed. J. Jolliffe, 1967) by John Froissart
Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (ed. H. Ellis, 6 vols., 1927) by Raphael Holinshed
Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London (ed. J. Nichols, 1852)
Chronicle of the Kings of England (ed. J.A. Giles, 1866) by William of Malmesbury
Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I (ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, Rolls Series, 1864-5)
Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans’ Government unto the Death of King James (1643) by Richard Baker
Chronicles of the White Rose (ed. J.O. Halliwell, 1835)
Chronicon (ed. E.M. Thompson, 1889) by Geoffrey le Baker
Chronicon Angliae (ed. E.M. Thompson, 1874) by Thomas Walsingham
Chronicon ex Chronicis (ed. B. Thorpe, 1848-9) by Florence of Worcester
Chroniques des Comtes d’Anjou (ed. L. Halphen and R. Poupardin, 1913)
Clarence (1972) by M. Harrison
Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trials (1809 – 1972)
Collectanea (ed. T. Hearne, 6 vols., 1774) by John Leland
Collins’ Peerage - various editions
Constant Delights (2002) by Graham Hopkins
Continuation of Hardyng’s Chronicles (ed. Sir H. Nicholas, 1809) by Richard Grafton
Continuato Chronicarum (ed. E.M. Thompson, Rolls Series, 1889) by Adam Murimeth
Correspondence with Robert Innes-Smith
Correspondence with Tim Seely
Correspondence with Major Bruce Shand
Correspondence with Mrs. Michael Worthington
Country Life - The Lake that became a Valley (24 April 1964)
Cupid and the King (1991) by HRH Princess Michael of Kent
Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage – various editions
Debrett’s Great British Families, by Hugh Montgomery Massingberd
De Nugis Curialum (ed. T. Wright, 1850) by Walter Map
Devil’s Blood: The Angevin Family (1957) by A. Duggan
Diana – Closely Guarded Secret (2002) by Inspector Ken Wharfe
Diana, Princess of Wales (1983) by P. Junor
Diary of Mary, Lady Cowper (1714 – 20) ed by Hon C.S. Spencer Cowper
Dictionary of National Biography (ed. L. Stephen and S. Lee, 63 vols., 1885 – 1900)
Display of Heraldry – various editions – by J. Guillim
Dynasty by Donald Spoto
Edward IV (1974) by C. Ross
Edward V: The Prince in the Tower (2003) by Michael Hicks
Edward VI: The Threshold of Power (1970) by W.K. Jordan
Edward VI: The Young King (1968) by W.K. Jordan
Edward VII (1972) by K. Middlemas
Edward VII (1982) by Christopher Hibbert
Edward VII and his Circle (1956) by Virginia Cowles
Edward VII’s Last Loves – Alice Keppel & Agnes Keyser (1998) by Raymond Lamont-Brown
Edward VIII by Philip Ziegler
Edward VIII (1974) by F. Donaldson
Edward of Kent (1938) by D. Duff
Edward The Confesso
r (1970) by F. Barlow
Edwardian Daughter (1958) by Sonia Keppel
Edwardians in Love by Anita Leslie
Elizabeth I (1963) by B.W. Beckingsale
Elizabeth I (1972) by N. Williams
Elizabeth I, Queen of England (1967) by N. Williams
Elizabeth II (1982) by E. Longford
Elizabeth of Bohemia (1938, 1964) by C. Oman
Elizabeth of York, Tudor Queen (1973) by N. Lenz-Harvey
Elizabeth the Great (1958) by E. Jenkins
Elizabeth, the Winter Queen (1977) by J. Gorst-Williams
Elizabeth Woodville, 1437-1492 (1938) by D. MacGibbon
Eminent Elizabethans (1983 London) A.L.Rowse
Encyclopedia of Mistresses (1993) by Dawn B. Sova
England under the Tudors (1955) by G.R. Elton
England without Richard (1965) by J.T. Appleby
English Court Life from Henry VII to George II (1963) by R. Dutton
Fanfare for Elizabeth (1946) by E. Sitwell
Flores Historiarum (ed. H.R. Luard, 3 vols., Rolls Series, 1890) by Matthew Paris
For My Grandchildren (1966) by HRH Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone
Four Fine Gentlemen (1977), by Hester W Chapman
From Hanover to Windsor (1960) by R. Fulford
Genealogical History of the Kings & Queens of England (London, 1707) by Francis Sandford
Garter Stall Plates illustrated Manuscript from the collections of Naylor and others (15 vols) pre 1830