Dr Paul A Fox, FSA

FOURTEENTH CENTURY ORDINARIES OF ARMS  Part two: William Jenyns’ Ordinary.

Paul A Fox

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Abstract.

William Jenyns’ Ordinary ( WJ) is an important manuscript which has not previously received the full attention which it deserves. It has neither been published in its entirety, nor has it hitherto received an in depth evaluation. Information gleaned from from WJ did find its way into Glover’s Ordinary and from thence into both Papworth’s Ordinary and Burke’s General Armory, but invariably without reference to source, while Joseph Foster appears to have ignored it altogether in his popular work “Some Feudal Coats of Arms”.[1] Sir Anthony Wagner gave a brief account of it in CEMRA, dating it to circa 1380. [2] While this is probably a fairly accurate dating for its final reworking, the additions made at this time were small, and  the major part consists of a collection put together by Lancaster Herald for Henry Grosmont Duke of Lancaster circa 1360. Lancaster’s successor John of Gaunt was responsible for the minor revision of circa 1380, occasioned by his presentation of a copy to the Percy family of Northumberland. The surviving medieval version certainly belonged to a member of the Percy family in 1402-3, and most probably the owner was “Hotspur” the eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland.

 

    WJ is named for the herald who owned it at the beginning of the 16th century, but it is an original manuscript of the 14th century now belonging to the College of Arms.  Its origins are distinctly different from those of Thomas Jenyns’ Book ( TJ) which has previously been described in this journal.[3] Unlike TJ  it is not an obvious compilation based upon earlier ordinaries. It has two distinct phases, but saw its origins in a working collection of herald’s notes built up throughout the reign of Edward III. Uniquely, it goes through whole knightly families delineating the various sons, and sometimes the brothers and uncles of the family head. Many of these family groupings can be dated to a narrow period in time, and there is a big concentration around 1360, but  some belong to an earlier part of the reign, while others were added in the 1370s. Of the 1612 coats, four are lost blanks, and another 23 lost blanks have been filled in by later intrusive coats not following the pattern of the ordinary. Three of the additions, two of the shield and one the crest of William Jenyns, are painted, but the remainder are crude sketches. A distinct minority of the original labels have completely worn away, while the arms themselves have also suffered from the ravages of time. Many cadency marks and other features which were undoubtedly once present could no longer be distinguished by 1639 when the ordinary was copied. [4] The last eleven folios seem to have been more damaged than the rest, and the back of the last folio describing the family of Scrope has barely survived at all. Some sections of the ordinary are also missing, notably absent being crosses, quarterly shields, mascles, lozenges, vair and gyronny. The ordinary includes all of the 24 founder Garter knights apart from John de Grailly, Thomas Wale and Walter Pavely, who bore crosses, and Nigel Loringe who had a quarterly shield. There is every reason to suppose therefore that the ordinary was once complete. A likely explanation for the above observations is that the book suffered water damage which completely destroyed its last sections and badly damaged the adjacent section on bends. That some shields have completely vanished suggests that the book  required extensive restoration and repainting at some stage, and that work was probably done by William Jenyns. Mill Stephenson said of the Hatton-Dugdale facsimile now at the Society of Antiquaries that “ many of the coats are unfinished and many of the names are blundered “. This gives the impression that the artist who copied the original, now in the College of Arms did a poor job, but in fact the copy is extremely faithful to the original, even to the extent of copying the exact style of the writing.[5]  The slightly garbled nature of some of the names in the final version of WJ which has come down to us suggests that is was copied out by rote and not by a herald. Heralds then, as now, were men of letters and learning. [6] The facsimile is very useful to us, although incomplete, in providing a record of how the manuscript looked in 1639, because since then some lost names have been “restored”, while others have been overwritten. It may also preserve the original ordering of the pages. Wagner believed, probably correctly, that the original was rebound with the 16th century frontis in the wrong place. [7]

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        The structure of the book offers some important clues to its origins. It begins with a prelude comprising English saints, followed by the English royal family and foreign rulers, the royal family being sandwiched between the foreign princes. The ordinary follows, headed by the Percy family which accounts for 11 out of the 16 shields on the first page. An empty page in the prelude was filled in 1562 by the insertion of the Holand family shields, a family who owned the book after William Jenyns. [8]

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       The principalities included  give quite a colourful and comprehensive account of the Christian world as was known at the time. The order of their appearance is as follows: Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, Bavaria, Bohemia, Cologne, Saxony, Brandenburg, Mainz, Trier ( followed by the English royals), Byzantium, Prester John ( mythical king of the orient) Western Roman Empire ( Charlemagne), Leon & Castile, Hungary, Jerusalem, Denmark, Norway, Navarre, Sicily, Aragon, Cyprus, Armenia  

( attributed ), Portugal ( not the correct arms but the attributed arms of azure three ships or, possibly a memory of the English crusading fleet which played such an important role in the taking of Lisbon from the Moors in 1147), Scotland, Mallorca, Sweden, Lithuania, Poland, Moravia, Prussia, Isle of Man, knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, Teutonic knights, Austria, Milan, Burgundy, Mecklenburg, Morea, Wenden, Brunswick and Lüneburg. France is conspicuous by its absence for obvious political reasons, the English crown having recently claimed this kingdom as its own. These pages have the effect of  glorifying the English crown by putting it into the context of the wider christian brotherhood of kings.

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      The princely arms, if accepted as being an integral part of the original scheme, help to date its composition. The arms of Navarre date after 1349 and the arms given for Sweden (Azure 3 bends sinister argent, over all a lion rampant or ) belong to the  Folkunga family who ruled Sweden until 1363, rather than the more familiar three crowns which were introduced by the succeeding dynasty.

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       It is the page of saints which provides the prelude’s most revealing insight into the identity of the family who commissioned WJ. A very strong affinity both with Lincolnshire and with the Duchy of Lancaster is evident. Bolingbroke castle, birthplace of Henry IV in 1367, was the principal residence of the Duchy of Lancaster in Lincolnshire from 1311. Three of the closest abbeys to Bolingbroke are amongst the very few religious foundations to  have found their way into WJ: firstly, the Abbey of St Gilbert of Sempringham. Its advowson belonged jointly to the in-laws of Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster (d 1361), who were buried there, namely Henry 1st baron Beaumont, Earl of Buchan, and his wife Alice Comyn. In this context it is very interesting to note that in the Beaumont church of St Marys Barton-on-Humber in Lincolnshire, alongside the Beaumont arms was a series of arms of foreign kings, which included  the same unusual attributed arms of Portugal as the one in WJ.[9]

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      There are two more Lincolnshire monastic connections in WJ. In the ordinary, the arms of the founder of  the Augustinian abbey of Kyme, and in the prelude,  the arms of St Oswald, king of Northumbria. These  connect with Bardney Abbey where St Oswald was buried.  Even more telling than the  Lincolnshire abbeys is the inclusion on the page of saints of “Saint” Thomas of Lancaster, the earl who was executed by Edward II in 1322, proving that the originator had strong Lancastrian sympathies. Edward III wrote to the Pope in 1327, 1330 and 1331 seeking Lancaster’s canonization, miracles having been reported at his tomb and elsewhere. The request was dropped after Edward III  threw off the shackles of Roger Mortimer, then de facto ruler of England, who himself had been condemned to death as a confederate of Lancaster. It is a reasonable assumption that Mortimer instigated the papal letters.  Although the Pope demurred, Lancaster was still regarded by many as a saint throughout the fourteenth century, and Henry IV later donated a vestment with scenes from his life to St George’s Chapel Windsor. [10]  

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      The  other religious foundations mentioned in WJ also have Lancastrian connections: the priory of Kenilworth was adjacent to one of  Henry of  Grosmont’s  principal castles in Warwickshire.  Hereford Cathedral is well represented by the two principal saints who were buried there, St Albright  

( King Aethelberht of East Anglia d. 794) and Saint Thomas Cantilupe. The Duchy had strong links with Hereford in that it held three major strongholds close to the city: the town of Monmouth, and the castles of Skenfrith and Grosmont. The latter was, of course, the birthplace of the first Duke of Lancaster, whose sister was married to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford. In Earl Humphrey’s will of 1361 he left 40s to the tomb of St Thomas of  Canterbury, and  the same amount for prayers on his behalf at the tomb of Thomas of Lancaster. [11]  The implication here is that Bohun  regarded Lancaster as a saint who might intercede on his behalf.

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        Analysis of the fifty or so shields which pre-date the reign of Edward III shows that the majority can be connected with the house of Lancaster. It is pertinent at this point to take a brief look at the history of that house and delineate some of those connections.[12] The first Earl of Lancaster, Edmund Plantagenet ( 1245-1296), known as Crouchback, was a son of Henry III who was thus related to the other royal sons in the WJ prelude. [13]  In 1265 he was granted the Earldom of Leicester, forfeited by the attainder of Simon de Montfort, while his marriage to Blanche, widow of King Henry of Navarre brought him the title Count of Champagne. [14]  Edmund’s son Thomas of Lancaster ( c 1278-1322) held the Earldoms of Lancaster, Leicester and Derby, and two further earldoms came from his wife Alice, daughter and heir of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln by Margaret, daughter and heir of William Longspee, Earl of Salisbury. His wife’s ancestors included the early Earls of Chester, Llewellyn Prince of Wales and Leofric Earl of Mercia ( attributed arms ). Thomas lost his life largely because he executed Piers Gaveston, the favourite of Edward II. At least two people executed with Lancaster in 1322 are here, namely John Giffard of Brimsfield, and Thomas Mauduit. John Giffard’s kinsmen of  South Newington in Oxfordshire later paid for a fresco in the church there which showed his arms and had a depiction of Thomas of Lancaster as a saint. [15]  Those imprisoned for supporting Thomas of Lancaster included Thomas Gourney and John FitzSimon. The former is famous for having brought word of the supposed death of Edward II, and subsequently fled the country because he had been implicated in the king’s murder, and knew too much about what had happened to feel safe in England. Edward III had him detained overseas, where he died in 1333.

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     Thomas of Lancaster left no issue; his brother Henry of Lancaster ( c 1281-1345), was later restored to the Earldoms of Lancaster and Leicester. He married  Maud, daughter of Patrick de Chaworth  by Isabel daughter of William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Patrick was descended from the family of Cantilupe, while Isabel was descended from a variety of individuals commemorated in the book, including William de Warenne, Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester. Guy Beauchamp Earl of Warwick appears both in the prelude and in the ordinary, in both instances being given the epithet “ le bon” . He was Maud’s uncle, and Thomas of Lancaster’s principal ally.

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        Henry of Grosmont ( c 1300-1361) later became Duke of Lancaster, but Edward III  created him  Earl of Derby in the lifetime of his father Henry of Lancaster. His two different arms  are both here, firstly as Earl of Derby with a bendlet azure on the arms of England, and secondly as Duke, with his paternal arms.  The relations of his wife  Isabella, daughter of Henry 1st baron Beaumont and Earl of Buchan by Alice, daughter of Sir Alexander Comyn, are well covered in the ordinary. These  include  John Comyn of Badenoch, infamously slain by Robert the Bruce inside the church of the Friars Minor in Dumfries in 1306.

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      John of Gaunt ( 1340-1399) 3rd surviving son of Edward III, created Earl of Richmond at the age of two, married Blanche younger daughter of Henry of Grosmont in 1359. He became Earl of Lancaster in right of his wife in 1361 after the Duke and his wife died of the plague at Leicester. After his sister-in-law also died of the plague in 1362 he became Duke of Lancaster. Blanche died of the plague at Bolingbroke 1369, her son the future Henry IV then being two years old. Gaunt married Constance of Castile in 1371 and assumed the title King of Castile and Leon until her death in 1394. His arms in WJ are impaled with Castile & Leon.

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     Other arms which predate the reign of Edward III, but not listed above, include various individuals who were feudal tenants of the Earls of Lancaster. These include the Lords Tateshall of Lincs, the last of whom died in 1306;  William Rither ( d bef 1312) ; Gilbert de Umfraville (d 1307) and Theobald de Verdon ( d 1316).

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        Still further evidence of a powerful link between WJ and the house of Lancaster  comes from detailed analysis of the knights in the ordinary, ten per cent of whom were tenants or retainers of the Duchy of Lancaster. The true proportion, however, is certainly higher; firstly because knowledge of who the tenants were is very incomplete, and secondly because  it has not been possible to identify a sizable minority of the knights in WJ. [16]  Despite this the ordinary does represent quite well the country as a whole, albeit with a discernable northern bias, reflecting the Duchy’s northern focus. Of 823 instances where information is available on where an individual held land, half were tenants in the 10 ancient counties north of the Trent, with the addition of Lincolnshire, and just over half held in the remaining  28 counties.

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         The obvious question which arises is whether internal dating evidence can tell us for which Earl or Duke of Lancaster WJ was compiled. It has been possible to ascribe 683 shields to fixed periods in time, and by far the largest group totaling 409 is exclusively from the reign of Edward III ( 1327-1377) , the individual concerned having died during that reign. It is worth noting that some individuals died quite early in the reign. Then there are 237 shields which could belong to the reigns of Edward III or Richard II, because the knight concerned lived into the reign of Richard, or had a son of the same name who lived in the Ricardian era. There is a strong sense that most in this group were probably recorded in Edward’s reign, since only 20 shields unequivocally date to 1377 or later. Many key players from the latter part of Richard’s reign, including Duchy officials, are conspicuously absent. Of the arms which date after 1377,  eight belong to a single family, that of Percy, several  are Mortimers, four are members of the Heron family, and three others are earls. Of the other great noble houses most can be dated to the middle of the reign of Edward III. To give some examples: Lisle is before 1360 when Gerard de Lisle died because here his successor Warin is shown as eldest son; Holand is before 1360 since Thomas Holand who acceded that year is shown as eldest son of his father Thomas ( not yet Earl of Kent, he was so created in 1360);  Brewes is also before 1361, the year when John Brewes acceded, here shown as eldest son of Thomas; Fauconberge is before 1362 when Thomas Fauconberg acceded, here shown as eldest son of Walter. A very few date from a slightly later period, one notable example being  Roos of Helmsley which cannot date before  the late 1360s. Three sons of  Thomas lord Roos are included, the eldest of whom could not have been born before 1364.

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            Putting together these disparate strands provides compelling evidence that the original ordinary was created for Henry Duke of Lancaster in or before 1360 by his personal herald using notes collected from tournaments and other military assemblies over several decades. The original post of Lancaster Herald is known to have existed from at least 1347, although details of who exactly held this office are scanty. The Duke had good reason to create such a book, being Steward of England, and one of the greatest war leaders of his day. In 1344 the king charged him with initiating his new military order, the Knights of the Round Table. He went on to be a founder Knight of the Garter. His ownership of WJ is reinforced by the presence of his name and arms next to the kings right at the head of the English section of the prelude. His earlier arms are at the bottom of the same page, and perhaps his father’s arms on the other side of the king’s, although the label has gone. [17]  The arms of Bavaria are given prominence on the first page of foreign rulers. His eldest daughter Matilda married William Duke of Bavaria in 1352.

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           After Duke Henry’s death in 1361 WJ was inherited by John of Gaunt who made his own mark on the document. An analysis of the  shields which must date after 1361 gives some idea when and why those changes were made. The most obvious change he made was to the page in the prelude relating his own immediate family. This page is full of interest, and is the key to unraveling the later fourteenth century history of WJ. [18] John himself is styled as King of Castile & Leon, dating the addition after 1371, and his son Henry of Bolingbroke is styled as Earl of Derby, a title he held from 1376. [19] The future Richard II  is described as “Richard , son of the Prince, Earl of Chester and count of Angouleme”, with the arms of England quartering France ancient with a label of three points azure, and on the centre point a cross gules. Thomas of Woodstock is labeled as Earl of Buckingham, a title accorded to him at the coronation of Richard II in 1377. How is the discrepancy of dates between Richard and Woodstock to be accounted for? Either Richard II was being deliberately diminished by John of Gaunt, or more probably Thomas of Langley’s title was updated slightly later. None of the princes were labeled with the dukedoms which they received later in time. Woodstock became Duke of Gloucester and Edmund of Langley became Duke of York in 1385, while  Henry of Bolingbroke became Duke of Hereford in 1397.

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         From shields elsewhere in WJ, it is apparent that some minor updating took place in the period 1377 to 1381, in keeping with the updating of Thomas of Woodstock. The other earldoms created in 1377 have also been accorded to their recipients, thus we have Henry Percy as Earl of Northumberland,  Guichard d’Angle  as Earl of Huntingdon, and John Mowbray as Earl of Nottingham.[20] William Courtenay is labeled as Bishop of London, a see which he held 1375-81, after which, as everyone in England would have known, he was translated to Canterbury after the brutal murder of Archbishop Sudbury in the Peasant’s Revolt. John of Gaunt and Henry Percy, then  Marshal of England, and later Earl of Northumberland, had a famous altercation with Courtenay at the trial of John Wycliffe for heresy. This was held in St Paul’s Cathedral on February 19th 1377, and Gaunt was worsted by the bishop, some might even say humiliated by him. The specific inclusion of Courtenay’s name and title in the aftermath of this event is perhaps an example of medieval humour. [21]

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        The additions which are datable to Richard II  focus very strongly on the families of Percy and Mortimer. This fact, coupled with proof to be discussed that the surviving copy in the College of Arms was in the hands of the Percy family, suggest a narrow period when John of Gaunt might have had a presentation copy made to give to his cousin by marriage, Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland: 1379-81. It was in 1379 that when Henry Percy junior “ Hotspur” married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edmund Mortimer Earl of March; whilst in 1381 John of Gaunt fell out with Northumberland after he was refused sanctuary at Bamburgh in his flight from danger during the Peasant’s revolt.

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        WJ may well have been put in a new order to bring the Percy family onto the first page of the ordinary proper, which was turned into a detailed “heraldic pedigree”. Thus we have three entire generations of Percys: Henry the first Earl of Northumberland ( created earl in 1377, d 1408), his only brother, his three sons and all his uncles. This should be contrasted with that other great northern family, the Nevilles, whose family assemblage ( like that of most other of the great families) has not been updated from the 1350s. The family grouping of the Mortimers is that of Edmund Earl of March who died in 1381, because we have his two sons, Roger born in 1374, and Edmund born in 1376. Although none of the three is given a christian name,  the eldest son  has on each point of his gold cadency label  a cross gules (for de Burgh), while the second son  has  on each point of  a gold cadency label three chevrons, for Clare. Their mother was Philippe, only daughter and heiress of Lionel Duke of Clarence by Elizabeth, daughter and heir of William de Burgh, Earl of Ulster. Possibly also added at this time were several historic members of the Mortimer family from before the reign of Edward III, together with  the ancient arms of the family of de Lusignan of la Marche (  Barruly argent and azure) a family ancestral to that of Mortimer, and probably the origins of the arms of that house. For the further glorification of the house of Mortimer was added the same Lusignan arms with a lion gules overall  for  the cadet branch of de Lusignan who became kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus. One final mark of respect to the Mortimers might have been an addition to the page of saints of “Saint” Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford.  This Robert de Vere was married to Margaret daughter of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, and died without surviving issue in 1331. For his works of charity, hospitality and his religious zeal he was popularly regarded as a saint. It is noteworthy that in 1322 he fought on behalf of the king against Thomas of Lancaster, but this fact would perhaps have been long forgotten. [22] 

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             As part of this final reworking of WJ some other material was certainly added, although for the most part it is difficult to identify. The best example is the Northumberland family of Heron. Specifically, there is William Heron later lord Say, born around 1360 plus his father and two of his brothers. William was a tenant of the Duchy of Lancaster, and closely connected with the future Henry IV. [23]  The herald who made these revisions must have had a remit to add certain individuals where this could be done without disturbing the structure of the work, but lacked the time or the inclination to bring the ordinary completely up to date. This would have necessitated a complete re-working.

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            The final dramatic twist in the story of WJ, and one which both gives us a terminus post quem for WJ and confirms that the surviving copy belonged to the family of Percy, can be observed on the page of  English princes added or updated by John of Gaunt. The arms of Henry of Bolingbroke have been overpainted with the arms of Mortimer, leaving the label intact! There is only one historical context in which this might have occurred. The family of Percy is known to have resented the assumption of kingship in 1399 by Henry of Bolingbroke. They had made common cause with him in the overthrow of Richard II because it served their interests. Many felt that Richard IIs rightful heirs were the descendants of  Lionel Duke of Clarence as second son of Edward III, who were now the kin of the Percy family. Bolingbroke’s father John of Gaunt was the third son. Hotspur plotted to put his young Mortimer nephew on the throne, with his own son, also descended from the Duke of Clarence, as a potential back up. It was probably he who had Bolingbroke’s arms overpainted with those of Mortimer after he had taken the irrevocable decision  in late 1402, or early 1403, to depose Henry IV. This decision led to his own death at the battle of Shrewsbury in July 1403, and his father’s flight into exile.

       

Summary of the proposed evolution of WJ.

To summarize the sequence of events, there are good reasons for supposing that the progenitor ordinary came into being around 1360, including the prelude with its princes apparently dating 1349-63, and its saints reflecting the interests of Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster. It was inherited by John of Gaunt who added a page for his own family in 1376-7, and when the occasion arose for him to make a presentation to his cousin Henry Percy in 1379-81 some minor additions and alterations took place. The most notable additions were those honouring the families of Percy and Mortimer. Most of the other great families were not updated at this time. The copying was entrusted to a capable artist who apparently had poor understanding of what he was copying, thus there are errors in the labelling which would not have been made by a contemporary herald. A possibly explanation is that the College of Arms manuscript is a secondary copy, perhaps one made by the Earl of Northumberland for his son Hotspur. The last medieval amendment took place in the year 1403 after which WJ was badly damaged and partly destroyed, perhaps as a result of sitting in water in the back of an abandoned baggage wagon after the battle of Shrewsbury. Over time further shields and labels became worn away. It resurfaced  a hundred years later fittingly in the possession  of another Lancaster Herald: William Jenyns ( Lancaster 1516-1527) consolidated and restored what remained in his own time, adding some new shields in the blank spaces. In the sixteenth century the Holland family of Lincolnshire used the blank page in the prelude to stamp its ownership with a page of family arms.

 

Conclusion: WJ and TJ compared.

Now that the two great fourteenth century ordinaries have been analysed in much greater detail than before, it would be instructive to compare and contrast them. Both saw a number of stages in their compilation. TJ has as its nucleus an earlier ordinary compiled around 1340, which was combined with other material collected from the reign of  Edward III  quite late in the reign of Richard II. It is an excellent source of arms for the reign of Edward III, but a poor one for the reign of Richard. This suggests that its compiler was not a working herald, but rather someone with an interest in the antiquities of heraldry. Although not mentioned in the paper on TJ, there is an obvious candidate in the personage of the author of the first British treatise on heraldry, the Tractatus de Armis, written between 1394 and 1399. He was identified by Evan Jones as John Trevor, Bishop of St Asaph, who wrote the book at the request of  Queen Anne, wife of Richard II.[24]  TJ had occasional shields added by later owners right up to the late 1440s when it dropped out the mainstream into the hands of a minor family, probably in the aftermath of the 1461 battle of Towton.

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        WJ in contrast is the quintessential herald’s document, originally produced from a herald’s collection of working records in about the year 1360. For that reason like TJ it is an excellent source for the reign of Edward III. Also like TJ its final stage of compilation was in the reign of Richard II, but at the beginning, rather than the end of the reign. In WJ the historic arms appear to have been predominantly chosen  to honour the noble and chivalric antecedents of the house of Lancaster. The surviving medieval copy was certainly not the original prototype, as evidenced by the inexpert copying of some of the labelling, which may be contrasted with the great beauty of the artwork and the use of precious metals.

      Both ordinaries then technically date to the reign of Richard II, while focusing on that of Edward III, which makes their usefulness to those interested in Ricardian heraldry less than their dating might imply. Precious survivals from a troubled era, they provide insights into the role of art in status and conflict.

 

The author wishes to thank Steen Clemmensen with whom the decipherment of WJ was a joint venture, and who kindly reviewed this paper.

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REFERENCES

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[1] The gap is being plugged by the new DBA, and an online text version can be found at www.armorial.dk

[2] CEMRA pg 69-71.

[3] Paul A Fox. Fourteenth century ordinaries of arms, part 1: Thomas Jenyns’ Book. COA  2006, third series vol 2 pt 2, no 212, page 97-102.

[4] Society of Antiquaries ms 664/9. Two folios are wanting, nos 7+8.

[5] CEMRA.Pg 71. There are inevitably some very minor copying errors.

[6] Maurice Keen. Heraldry and heralds, being chapter 7 of  Chivalry, London 1984

[7] The numeration in the DBA follows the Society of Antiquaries version up to no 172 ( folio 6 verso) because of Wagner’s contention that this version preserves the original ordering of the first four folios. This is the order which is also given in CEMRA. Folios 7 and 8 have been lost from the Antiquaries’ version, and so the numeration then proceeds with no 173 on folio 7 of the College version. An additional complexity of the DBA enumeration is that  the first 92 shields have been read horizontally across the page, while the remainder have been read vertically. Although this does make some sense, and it will be apparent to those who view the manuscript why this arrangement has been adopted, it should be pointed out that throughout the ordinary the arrangement of shields into families is actually somewhat haphazard, such that some family groupings read horizontally and others vertically. In other words, on many folios family groups read both from top to bottom and from left to right, rather in the manner of a crossword. The concordance between  the DBA and the Antiquaries’ numeration is that  DBA 237-1612=SA  173-1548.

[8] For a further discussion and an illustration of this page see Paul A Fox  The medieval origins of the British system of cadency in COA 3rd ser 4 (2008), no 215 pp 21-8.

[9] R.E.G.Cole ( editor) Lincolnshire church notes collected by Gervase Holles, Lincs Record Soc vol 1, Lincoln 1911, pg 79.

[10] John Edwards. The cult of “saint” Thomas of Lancaster and its iconography. Yorks Arch J 1992; 64: 103-22. It should be noted that the page of saints also included Thomas of Lancaster’s nemesis, King Edward II. He may have been added when the document was revised under John of Gaunt, the grandson of Edward II.

[11] John Edwards op cit, supplement in YAJ  1995, vol 67 pg 187-192. Earl Humphrey’s father died at the battle of Boroughbridge fighting alongside Thomas of Lancaster.

[12] Those present in WJ are shown in italics.

[13] These include the Earl of Cornwall, for John of Eltham, 2nd son of Edward II, who also held of the earldom of Lancaster in Lincs; Robert Curthose son of William the Conqueror ( attributed, probably included because of his role in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099) ; the Earl of Kent, for the 6th son of Edward I;  the Earl of Richmond , for Jean de Dreux, nephew of Edmund as son of  younger son of  Beatrice  daughter of Henry III by the Duke of Brittany; and the Earl Marshal, for Thomas of Brotherton, another son of Edward I.

[14] Without the Lancaster connection it would be very difficult to explain the inclusion of the arms of the ancient Counts of Champagne in this very English ordinary.

[15] John Edwards, 1992, op cit.

[16] It would be the labour of a lifetime to research some of the more obscure knights.

[17] Here  is the 3 lions of England with a label azure, used both by the Earls of Lancaster and by the crown princes.

[18] It is the author’s contention that this page was added by Gaunt when he had the whole work re-copied, although a major reworking of a page which was already there cannot be ruled out. Such an addition might explain the blank page in the prelude to which the Holand family was added in 1562.

[19] James Wylie. History of England under Henry the Fourth, vol 4, London 1898, pg 147 note 2. GEC  states that he became earl in 1385, the year when he was first summoned to parliament.

[20] Percy is not explicitly called Northumberland, but his eldest son is styled “ son of the earl”.

[21] The inclusion is likely to have been specifically requested by John of Gaunt as a sardonic reminder of a difficult day that he shared with Henry Percy.

[22] GEC x 220.

[23] William Heron is known to have served Henry IV from early in his reign, became Steward of his household in 1402, and accompanied him to a famous tournament at St Inglevert in 1389/90, see Ian Mortimer. The fears of Henry IV, pg 87 note 10.

[24] Evan Jones, Medieval Heraldry ( Cardiff 1943), introduction. For more on John Trevor see Fox 2008, op cit pg 25.