V7»l£t«»U..T. Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/armorialwindowseOOnicliricli / ^^ '• ^ /T^y. r V >-• /U >^. Ed o o «5 hJ » ^ jJ z 1 > i 60 o "5 50 s •T U2 o § Pi s ■« e £ Q H •< bq g "1 0^ s te; :§ H § Pb a! -§ ^ ^ THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS ERECTED, IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VI. BY JOHN VISCOUNT BEAUMONT AND KATHARINE DUCHESS OF NORFOLK IN WOODHOUSB CHAPEL, BY THE PARK OF BEAUMANOR, IN CHARNWOOD FOREST, LEICESTERSHIRE. INCLUDING AN INVESTIGATION OF THE DIFFERENCES OF THE COAT OF NEVILLE. BY JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS, F.S.A. M.DCCCLX. Read at the Annual Meeting of the Leicetterthire Architectural and Archtsological Society at Loughborough, July 27th, 1859. TO WILLIAM PERKY HERRICK, ESQ. OF BEAUMANOR PARK, THIS ESSAY, PRINTED AT HIS EXPENSE, IS INSCRIBED IN MEMORY OF LIFE-LONG KINDNESSES AND AN HEREDITARY FRIENDSHIP. " Posterity may read the diitinotion of Noble from Ignoble in these venerable Monuments of An(!ient Nobility, there Iwing in these Windowca something indeed to instruct a Herauid, nothing to offend the weakest Christian." Th« defacing of the armoHal glass at War*cirt in 1642, a.« related htf Mercuriv* Jiiutt'cwt. i;h^ gii[iiwrpl ® ini^uijj ?®ao(lItou^ (![hapi[L HEN endeavouring to revive iii onr imagination the original ap- pearance of medieval structures, and the pristine guise of their furniture and their occupants, it is difficult to realize sufficiently the extent to which Heraldry was once employed as a means of decorative ornament. Every one is aware that in the feudal and chivalric ages it was displayed on the military shields of the upper ranks, but that perhaps is all that the majority know or imagine about it. To some it may occur that we still familiarly talk of a coat of arms, and, if they have never examined our old sepulchral effi- gies, or the kneeling figures that still rarely exist in church windows, they may recollect to have read in poetry or romance of an embroidered surcoat, or a tabard of coat-armure, such as is still worn by her Majesty's heralds. It is also notorious that armorial bearings were usually displayed upon banners and standards, a practice still par- tially maintained. But their continual introduc- A 2 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF tion into the designs of art and architecture is but little understood. Our modern use of heraldry is chiefly upon our seals, our plate, and our carriages. Our fore- fathers equally used it upon their seals, and seals are by far the best authority for antient coat- armure. They employed no carriages with ample panels to exhibit their heraldic achievements, but there was scarcely any portion of their own accoutrements or their horses' trappings that did not occasionally receive its heraldic decoration. It was the same with the furniture of their houses, of their table, and their toilet ; with their beds, their hangings and carpets, their purses, their caskets, their brooches and mirrors. Above all, heraldic decoration was largely used in archi- tecture; it was carved in the panel and the cornice, it was painted on the wall, it filled the storied windows, it was spread upon the encaus- tic pavements. It was profusely employed upon the tombs, not merely as a symbol or hieroglyph, but, as elsewhere, for decoration also. It is my object on the present occasion to direct your attention more particularly to its occurrence as an architectural embellishment — a use which was prevalent from the earliest times, for it so happens that one of the most antient documents we possess among the historic records of English heraldry is one that was placed upon the interior WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 3 walls of Westminster Abbey when they were erected by King Henry the Third. It is a series (now unfortunately very imperfect) of the shields of that sovereign and his peers, the earls and barons of the realm.* Tlie canopy of the tomb of Henry the Pourth at Canterbury is also adorned with a cornice of baronial shields, thus proving a continuance of the same taste and the same practice during many successive generations. It is necessary to be aware of this usage if we endeavour to understand the design and import of some assemblages of arms that we still occasionally meet with, and of the many now destroyed that are described by our old topogra- phers and heralds. Our modern ideas would lead us to conclude that such displays represented the ancestry and alliances of the party erecting them, and so they generally did ; but they were not limited to the relationship of consanguinity, for they frequently signified feudal dependence and political adhesion, and were tokens of respect and emblems of party beyond the precincts of family alliance. Burton, in his History of this coimty, has de- * These shields, — ^the fourteen remaining in 1818, are engraved in the History of Westminster Abbey, by Brayley and Neale, Plate xxvii. They were originally foity in number, and are all described in the same work, vol. ii, p. 26. St. Stephen's Chapel at "Westminster was similarly decorated; and some of the shields found there are engraved in Smith's Antiquities of Westminster. a2 4 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF scribed two series erected by the same family, — the lords Beaumont, which exemplify, to some extent, the principles upon Avhich such heraldic assemblages were selected and designed. One of them was in the windows of the church in the town* Avhere we are now assembled : it repre- sented the marriages of the successive generations of that family, — their genealogy, as it were, in coat-armure. In the neighbouring chapel of Woodhouse was an assemblage that was not so historical, but principally typified the great allies of the family at the time of its erection, which was late in the reign of Henry the Sixth. JoliA sixth Lord Beaumont was the fifth in descent and regular succession from Henry Beau- mont, who was summoned to Parliament as a Baron early in the reign of Edward tlie Second, and who assumed the title of Earl of Buchan from having married Alice, one of the nieces and heirs of John de Comyn, Earl of Buchan, Con- stable of Scotland. Henry Lord Beaumont was designated as "the King's kinsman " in 1 Edw. II., and his relationship was apparently through the Queen mother, Alianor of Castille. He was the son of Louis de Brienne, younger son of John de Brienne, King of Jerusalem and Emperor of Constantinople, t * Loughborough. t " The lineage of the Earl of Boghan has been diflferently stated WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 5 His descendant John, who rose to high distinc- tion in the reign of Henry the Sixth, was born in 1410, being three years old at his father's death in 3 Hen. V. (1413), and proving his full age in 9 Hen. VI. (1431). Having early distinguished himself in the wars in Erance, he was created Comte of Boloigne by King Henry the Sixth, by charter dated at Canterbury on the 27th July, by genealogists ; some asserting that he was son to Louis de Brienne by Agnes the heiress of Beaumont, and grandson to John de Brienne, king of Jerusalem, by Berengaria his second consort, the daughter of Alphonso IX. King of Castile : whilst, according to others, his father was Louis the second son of Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, younger brother of St. Louis. Henry de Beaumont and his brother Lewis, afterwards bishop of Durham, are supposed to have come into England with one of the consorts of Edward L, and to have been her kinsmen. Upon the former hypothesis, he was cousin-german once removed to Eleanor of Castile; and, if the other be adopted, he was second cousin to Margaret of France." (Beltz, Memorials of the Garter, 1841, p. 345.) I have preferred the former statement, as it is that which was adopted by that accomplished genealogist the late Thomas Stapleton, esq., V.P.S.A., whose elder brother was ad- mitted to the Barony of Beaumont in the year 1840, and who may therefore be presumed to have investigated the two com- peting genealogies. In his Observations on the Rolls of the Nor- man Exchequer, vol. ii. p. xxxii., Mr. Stapleton has given some account of the hereditary vicomtes of Le Mans, in the comt^ of Maine, lords of Beaumont and St. Suzanne, whose heiress Agnes became the wife of Louis de Brienne, younger son of John King of Jerusalem and Emperor of Constantinople. " From this match (he adds) sprung the line of the lords Beaumont, of whom John, sixth Baron, was the first who had the title of Viscount in England, an appellation suggested by the descent from the here- ditary Vicomtes of the Manceux." 6 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF 1434.* In the will of his father-in-law, Sir William Phelipp, Lord Bardolfe, made in 1438, he is styled John Beaumont, Lord of Folkingham, in the county of Lincoln. On the 12th Peb. 1439-40, by name of the Lord Beaumont he was raised to the dignity of Viscount, f (with a fee of twenty marks yearly from the farm of the county of Lincoln,) being the first person upon whom that rank was conferred in the English peerage, and it has been presumed that it was suggested by his descent from the ancient Vicomtes of Maine in France. However, some little time after, by the designation of Viscount and Lord of Beaumont, for that of Comte of Boloigne does not again occur, he received on the 18th Jan. 1439-40, a grant of the French vicomte of Beau- mont, formerly given to the King's rebel Jean Due d'Alencon by the late Duke of Bedford, Regent of France ;$ and lastly, on the 12th March, 1444-5, he obtained letters patent grant- ing him precedence before all viscounts that should be thereafter created in England, and be- fore the eldest sons of all earls. § In 1441 he was * Printed in Selden's Titles of Honour, Part II. cap. ii. sec. 12, from Rot. Franc. 14 Hen. VI. num 1. t Rot. Pat. 18 Hen. VI. pars 2, m. 21, printed by Selden, Titles of Honour, Part H. cap. v. sec. 31. I Selden's Letter to Mr. Augustine Vincent, in his Works, folio, 1726, voU iii. col. 1703. § Rot. Pat. 23 Hen. VI. pars 2, m. 20. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 7 elected a Knight of the Garter. In 1446 he was made Constable of England, and in 1450 Lord High Chamberlain. For this great advancement we may presume that he was materially indebted to his connection with the house of Neville, and consequently with the reigning house of Lan- caster; for, having lost his former vidfe in 1441, he married secondly Katharine Duchess dowager of Norfolk, widow of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1432, and one of the nume- rous and very powerful family of the Earl of Westmerland, born of Joane Beaufort, half-sister to King Henry the Eourth. There is on record a slight but interesting fact, which is confirmatory of the reputation of the Viscount Beaumont as a devoted Lancas- trian. In 1449 Walter Lord Hungerford be- queathed to him a cup of silver, with a cover, bordure, and knop of gold, '* in which cup (as the testator stated,) John Duke of Lancaster was often served, and used to drink as long as he lived."* The attachment of the Beaumonts to the house of Lancaster was indeed derived from intimate alliance in earlier times ; for the second Lord Beaumont had married the Lady Alianor, daugh- ter of Henry Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby ; whilst the Duke of Lancaster her brother * Dugdale, Ba ronage, ii. 54. 8 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF married Lord Beaumont's sister Isabel ; and, as each of the ladies became the mothers of those who continued the descents, it is obvious that there was near consanguinity between the two families. I will now proceed to extract the description given by Burton of the Chapel of Woodhouse, a place " so called (he says) for that it stood upon the skirt of Charnewood Forrest, neere unto Beaumannor, the house sometimes of the Lord Beaumont.'* •* In this place the said Henry lord Beaumont earle of Boughan and Alice his wife, by the licence of the Abbot of Leicester,* built here a very faire and stately Chappell of ashler stone 1338, 13 Edw. III. It was againe repaired in the 28. of Henry the sixt, for I have scene a deede of cove- nants made betweene Robert Farnham of Quar- don of the one part, and a certaine free mason, for the new building of the steeple and the repaire of the Church, dated the said 28. of Henry the sixt. It was then new glazed and repaired, as I should guesse by the armes of King Henry the sixt, standing in the East window of the Chappell, and at the costs and charges (for the most part) of the Viscount Beaumont, as it should seeme by the Coates and matclies in the * This, was reqiiired because the abbot and convent of Leicester possessed the rectory of Barrow upon Soar, the parish churcli. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 9 Quarterly Quarterly said windowes, and his badges the Elephant and the Lyon carved in wood upon the foremost postes of the seats ; all which are curiously and neately performed as in any place which I have scene." Subjoined is a literal copy of Burton's notes : " In this Chappell stand these Armes. In the East window of the Chappell. Argent a Crosse gimilles. Hospital of Burton Lazars. Azure a Crosse patee betweene 4 Martlets Or. ! Azure Zfleures de Liz Or. Guelles 3 Lyons passant Or. France with 3 Fleures de Liz. England. '^Buruly Argent and gveulUs. Hungary. King H. 6 7/1 pale . \ France seme a Labell gueulles. and Queene Naples. Margaret Argent a lenisalem Crosse Or. y daughter of lerusalem. ( Renatus France seme a Border gueulles King of Aniou. Naples and Azure crusuly 2 Barbels ad- Sicily. dorsed Or. Barre. Or on a bend gueulles 3 Alle s, rions Argent. BuUen. In the window [Z. windows] on the South side. Gueulles a Saultier Arg: a Labell Arg: charged with 3 hurtes. Neuile. 'Azure seme de fleures de Liz, a Lyon rampant or. ^ Beaumont. Quarterly \ In Pale ' Gueulles a Saultier Argent, (Beaumont. [Azure 3 Cinquefoiles Or. Azure 3 garbes Or. In Pale Bardolfe. Comin Earle of Boughan. 10 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF * Or a Banner Or pennon gueulles. * lo: Leland in an old Roule, in his i. T. fol. 898.BIazeth it, Or vn gaufanon gueulles, and setteth it downe for the Armes of Counte de Auerne. Azure two bars gemeioes Or. Or 2 hairea Azure an vrle of Martlets gueulles. Paynell. Or a saultier Azure. Azure 3 Cinquefoiles Or. Quarterly gueulles and Argent in the frst quarter a spread Eagle Or. Phillips. Vert, an vrle of Martlets, and an Escocheon Arg. Herpingham. In pale Arg: and Vert, an Elephant hearing a Cattle Or. In the North \vindowe8 of the Chapell. ^ , ( France ) , , „ . I Quarterly { „ . j } <* Labeli Arg. •^ \ England \ ^ Gueulles a Saultier Arg. { Gueulles, 3 Lyons pass: gard. Or a Labeli Arg. In Pale . \Q^^^Hgg ^ SauUier Arg. Gueulles a saultier Arg. In PaU . { ^^""'^y I ^E^nd \ "" *^^ ^'^^ ( Gueulles a Saultier Arg. iOr a Lyon ramp: Azure. '' \ Gueulles 3 Lucies Arg. Gueulles a Saultier Arg: a labeli gobony Arg: and Azure. Gueulles a Saultier Arg: in the middle thereof an Ogresse. The same hauing in the midclest of the Saultier a Mullet Sable. The same hauing the middle of the Saultier charged with 2 Rings enected [1. connected ?] . Baruly Arg: and Azure 3 Chaplets gueulles. Gueulles a Saultier Arg: charged in the middest with a fleure de Iaz Sable. r n J i Azure a bend Or. I Crueulles a SauUier Arg. Gueulles 3 Scallops Argent. Vpon the former (I. foremost) posts of the seates is carved a Lyon seyant, and an Elephant bearing a Castle. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 11 The Chapel appears to have been in great measure rebuilt on the second occasion men- tioned by Burton, and again, at a later period, in the time of Sir William Heyricke. I believe that no architectural features so old as the glass are now to be detected about the edifice. Even the windows were probably renewed and remodelled in the reign of James the First. They are all square-headed, including that in the East wall, which consists of five lights ; the others, of which there are six on either side, are of uniform size, and of two lights each. The whole interior of the building is of one pace, without any dis- tinctive division for a chancel, and it is thus strictly a Chapel, and not a Church. The windows, except that above the altar, are deficient of tracery ; possibly this was not the original design, but, as already suggested, the re- sult of alterations made in the reign of James the Eirst. But the glazing compensated for any lack of sculptured ornament. It was at once simple and effective. The windows were filled with ornamented quarries, of the usual lozenge form, within bordered margins ; and in the centre of each light was a shield of arms. The quarries were of one uniform pattern, a conventional sprig or flower, which at one time I was inclined to regard as the broom or planta genista, but a friend well versed in botany has b2 12 ' THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF Pattern of the Quarries. pronounced it to be unfaithful to any thing in nature. It is to the selection of the shields of arms that I now wish particularly to direct your atten- tion. Burton has described the full number of twenty- nine; but his description, as it was printed, assigns only four to the East window, whilst it gives thirteen to the North windows and twelve to the South. By removing one from the North to the East we recover the whole, and restore them, as I believe, to their original order. The East window then becomes entirelv occu- WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 13 pied with the achievements of the Royal family ; being those of the two Royal Saints, usually borne in the King's armies,* those of the King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales. 1. The red cross of Saint GEORGE.t 2. The cross flory between five martlets, for Saint Edward the Confessor.J 3. France and England, for King Henry the Sixth. § 4. The same impaling the six quarterings of Queen Margaret OF Anjou : viz. Barry of eight argent and gules, for Hungary ; 2. Azure, semee of fleurs de lis or, a label of three points gules, for Naples ; 3. Argent, a cross potent between four crosses humettee or, for Jerusalem; 4. Azure, sem^e of fleurs de lis or, a bordure gules, for Anjou ; 5. Azure, sem^e of cross-crosslets fitch6e and two barbels addorsed or, for Barre ; 6. Or, on a bend gules three eaglets or alerions argent, for Loraine. || * After the taking of the castle of Carlaverock in 1300, the King caused his banner, with those of St. Edmund, St. George, and St. Edward, to be displayed upon its towers. f Misascribed to the Hospital of Burton Lazars, in the 1777 edition of Burton's Description of Leicestershire, and in Nichols's History of Leicestershire, iii. 116. } Misattributed to Plessington, ibid. No. 3 ; and again, No. 7, to King Edward the Elder. § " King Edward VI." ibid. II Burton, (see p. 9,) by some mistake called this quartering Bullen. The heraldic legend respecting the arms of Loraine is 14 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF 5. Prance and England with a label argent, impaling Neville ; for Edward Prince of Wales the King's only son, and his wife the lady Anne Neville, the daughter of Richard Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, and afterwards the Queen of Kichard the Third. But as the Prince of Wales was not born until 1453, and not mar- ried until 1470, this shield must have been an addition, and the fifth light of the East windo\\' must have been occupied somewhat differently, when the glass was first erected in 1450. How the smaller or upper lights of the tracery of the East window were filled we know no further tlian is shewn by two quarries which remained in the window until the glazing was recently renewed. They were ornamented with two of the royal badges ; one the Rose eii Soleil, the well-known device of King Edward the Fourth, which he that " Godfrey de Boulogne, shooting against David's Tower in Jerusalem, at one draught of his bow broched three feetless birds, called Alerions, upon his arrow, and thereupon assumed in his shield, Or, three alerions argent on a bend gules; which the house of Loraine, descending from his race, continue to this day." (Camden's Remaines, p. 214.) Mr. Planche with greater pro- bability suggests that " The bend may have been charged with eagles on the niarriage of Matthew Duke of Loraine with the sister of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, or by their son Simon II., in token of his descent from a member of the imperial family:" and that the birds were afterwards called alerions instead of eagles, because the word alehion is an anagram of LORAINE. — Pursuivant of Arms, 1852. p. 87. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 15 assumed after the meteoric appearance of a triple sun at the battle of Mortimer's Cross, and the other a Bose loithin a Fetter-lock. The Eetter- 16 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF lock is a device borne, with several combina- tions, by the House of York, and often with a Palcon, (see p. 60,) but I do not remember to have met with it elsewhere inclosing a Rose. The windows in the North wall of the Chapel were nearly filled with the shields of Katha- rine Duchess of Norfolk, the lady of Beaumanor, and of various members of her own family, the equally numerous and powerful house of Neville — an assemblage remarkable at once as typifying so many great personages, and as exemplifying one of the most characteristic and important usages of ancient heraldic blason. I allude to the employment of Differences, or Marks of Affilia- tion and Cadency. These distinctions arose at a very early period of the Art of Blason : for, as coat-armour was originally strictly personal, although hereditary, it became necessary for younger sons, and even for the eldest son during his father's lifetime, to vary the family coat, in some obvious and conspi- cuous manner. In the first ages of English bla- son, such differences were more considerable than they have been in subsequent times. They were made in a variety of ways — by placing a label or a bend over the original coat, by surrounding it with a plain or indented bordure, by altering or counterchanging the tinctures, or by sprinkling the whole or certain portions of the coat with some small device or charge. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 17 It would occupy us too long on the present occasion to trace out all these several methods by which coat-armour was distinguished and multi- plied, though the investigation would neither be uninteresting, nor unprofitable in its develope- ment of the early gentilitial antiquities of this county.* I will content myself by remarking * The Nevilles of Leicestershire in the reign of Edward the Second present three distinct varieties of differencing, — by a bordure, by small charges in chief, and by a label : — Sire Robert de Nevile, de goules, a une fesse endente de argent, od la bordure endent^ de or. Sire Felip de Nevile, de goules, a une fesse endente de argent, en ie chef iij moles de or. Sire Richard de Nevile, de goules, a une fesse endent^ de argent, a un label de azure. (Roll temp. Edward the Second. In the History of Leicestershire, introduction to vol. i. p. xliii. and in the accompanying plate, the arms of Philip are erroneously made the same as those of his brother Richard.) These were the Nevilles of Enderby, whose coat is otherwise blazoned as four fusils in fess, and that such was its first design is shown by an ancient seal engraved in the History of Leicester- shire, vol. iv. plate xxv. It is that of Philip de Aubeney, in the reign of Henry the Third, which was attached to the charter whereby he gave to his nephew Ralph de Neville all his manor of Endredeby. Its device is a row of four lozenges or fusils, with a cross above and a flower below, but not placed upon a shield. From this device the coat of the Nevilles of Enderby was evidently formed. In 14 Edw. L Robert de Neville sealed with the four fusils and a bordure charged with roundles (engraved in the same plate, fig. 2, from the Harleian Charter 83. A. 20); and Burton saw in Enderby church another variety, — " Gules, three fusils in fess argent, a bordure engrailed or," C 18 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF that the only mode of differencing now recognised, or used during the last three centuries, has been by the superposition of a small charge upon some prominent part of the shield. In earlier times these small charges were used for the same pur- pose in greater quantities. When placed on the field, they were either semee or scattered over its surface ; or arranged round its margin in the form teclinieally termed an orle, which was especially the case with martlets ;* or else three were set in chief. t In other cases they were placed upon the ordinaries, as the fess, chevron, or chief, or upon a label introduced to bear them. Again, a single charge for diflference was some- times deemed sufficient, provided it was placed in a prominent and conspicuous spot, as upon the shoulder of a lion or other rampant animal, or in the very centre of the shield, as on the fess of the Beauchamps and the saltire of the Nevilles. A series of brothers of the Beauchamp family, formerly represented in the windows of the church at Warwick, clothed in their surcoats of arms, was pointed out by Sir Henry Spelman in his Aspi- logia as an early example of this the modern system of differencing. They were the sons of * As in the coat of Paynell, noticed in pp. 10, 33. f As the mtiUets iu the coat of Sir Philip de Neville, p. 1 7. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 19 Thomas Beauchamp, third Earl of Warwick, who died in 1369 : and were distin<^uished by a Label, a Crescent, a Mullet, a Martlet, an Annulet, and a Fleur-de-lis. Now, these agree with the first six of the nine Differences whicli are enumerated in all modern treatises on Heraldry, and which, with the addition of the Hose, Cross Moline, and Double Quatrefoil, are specified by Gerard Legh in his Accedens of Armory 1562, — but perhaps by no earlier writer, as the distinctions by which " nyne brethren may beare their father's coate in his life-time." But the Beauchamps figured at Warwick (which are engraved in Dugdale's Warwickshire,) do not, as regards the order of birth of the brothers, conform with the order laid do^vn by Gerard Legh : nor (as Dugdale shows) do their christian names altogether agree with the Earl's known family. Therefore this example is not satisfactory to show that Gerard Legh's system of differencing was established in the fourteenth century. The various differences placed upon the saltire of Neville, as they formerly were displayed in the Chapel of Woodhouse, present a series of .a similar kind ; for in them also we find the Label, the Crescent, the Martlet, the Mullet, the Fleur-de- lis, and other charges, but still not entirely in conformity with the regulations laid down by c2 20 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF Gerard Legh : and which indeed, I am convinced, were never generally acknowleged,* either before his time or since, though I cannot, without over- burdening this paper, develope all my reasons for that conclusion. I shall proceed, however, to investigate, as far as possible, the several differences borne by the Nevilles upon the saltire of their first arms- bearing ancestor, Robert fitz Maldi*ed. Besides the great house of Neville Earl of Westmorland, (from which sprang the Earls of Salisbury, Warwick, Kent, and Noi*thuinl)er- land, and the Barons of Furnival, Faucon])erg, Latimer, and Bergavenny,) there were other families of Neville in various parts of England, that had totally different coat-armour ;t but in a roll of arms of the reign of Edward III. the * I mean, in actual use. The heralds of the sixteenth century may have adopted them to some extent in their Visita- tion and other Pedigrees. t Even in Leicestershire, besides the Nevilles of Enderby, already noticed in p. 17, there were three very different coats: William de Neville, Ermine, un chief indent^ de azure. Hugo de Neville, Gules, un chevron de ermine. Will' de Neville de Wimondeswould, Gueulles, crusul^ fitches trois fleures de liz argent. Hist, of Leicestei-shire, vol. i. pp. xliv. xlv. The Nevilles of Holt, which did not come there until 1476, but were seated at Rolleston in Nottinghamshire as early as the reign of Edward the First, bore. Gules, a saltire ermine — the same as the Nevilles of Raskelfe in the North. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 21 saltire-bearing Nevilles are thus distinguished: — Monsire Rauph de Neville port de gules une Salter d' argent. Monsire de Neville de Hornby port le revers. Monsire Alexander de Neville port de gules, une Salter d'argent, une martlet sable. At one time therefore, it appears, Alexander Neville bore a martlet for distinction upon his saltire ; but there is a seal preserved at Durham, used in 1340, and inscribed Sigillum uilexandri de Neville, on which the saltire is charged with a crescent* This Alexander was seated at Ras- kelfe, CO. York, and was a younger brother to Ralph Neville of Raby. His nephew Alexander (son of Ralph) became Archbishop of York (1374!— 1388,) and upon his archiepiscopal seal his saltire is also differenced by a crescent. f Thomas Neville, Lord Eurnival, brother to the first Earl of Westmer- land, bore a martlet on his saltire, borrowed, it may be conjectured, from the coat of Purnival, which was a bend between six martlets. * The shield is upheld by two bears, muzzled, and chained to a tree, upon which the shield is suspended. This seal is engraved in Surtees's History of Durham, Plate 9 of Seals, fig. 4, and in Drummond's Noble British Families, Family of Neville, p. 6. I Engraved on the same page of Drummond. In Bedford's 22 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF His brother, John Lord Latimer, is supposed to have borne a mullet; and it is for him, it is said, that the coat of Neville so distinguished quarters with the cross flory of Latimer in the cloisters at Canterbury.* We next come to the children of llalph first Earl of Westmerland,+ who bore charges of which many appeared in the glass at Woodhouse : — 1. Sir John Neville, his eldest son, who died before him, must have borne a label; but when his son Ralph, the second Earl, became the head of the family in 1425, he would require the distinction no longer; and accordingly, in 1437, we meet with a seal of " Ralph lord of Raby" — really the second Earl of Westmerland, Blazon of Episcopacy, 1858, p. Ill, the bishop's distinction is (erroneously) said to have been a bordure. * Willement's Heraldic Notices of Canterbury Cathedral, p. 78 : and Drnmmond, Family of Neville, p. 27. f The Earl of Westmerland had a numerous progeny by each of his wives : by Margaret Stafford two sons and five daughters, by Joane Beaufort nine sons and five daughters — in all twenty- one children. When we further consider that six of his sons were peers of the realm; that of the daughters three were duchesses, one a countess, and two baronesses, he must be re- garded as one of the most remarkable English fathers that ever lived. He was grandfather of two Kings of England, Edward the Fourth and Richard the Third, through Cecily, the youngest of his twenty-one children. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 23 but whose title as Earl was not then yet recog- nised, without any difference. 2. Sir Kalph Neville of Oversley, the second son of the first Earl, bore also a labels which was charged with three hurts. This label, being placed on the upper part of the shield, and not on the saltire, was (like the saltire) argent. 3. Richard Earl of Salisbury, the Earl's eldest son by his second marriage with Joane Beaufort, also bore a label, which was tinctured gobonee, argent and azure, in allusion to his maternal de- scent, the family of Beaufort being (as before noticed) allowed to use the royal coat of Erance and England differenced by a bordure compony or gobony, — the same which is still borne by their present representatives, the family of Somerset, Duke of Beaufort. 4. George Lord Latimer, the next son, bore on his saltire an ogress, or sable pellet, according to the best (but not con- temporary) authorities ; and yet, on the monument of Richard Beau- champ, Earl of Warwick, in the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick, the cross of Latimer quarters Neville differenced by two an- 24 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF nulets interlaced,* which was cer- o=np>^«^ tainly the distinction of his hrother Robert. On the monumentf of John the last Lord Latimer at Well in Richmondshire, (who died in 1577,) his saltire bears the ogress ; but at Hackney the arms of the same lord are said to have been distinguished by an annulet sable, i^ There is so great a resemblance between a black ball (or ogress) and a black ring (or annulet), particularly when defaced by age, that we cannot be surprised at these differences of description. 5. Robert Neville, Bishop of Durham, cer- tainly bore two anmdeta interlaced azure, for they appear on liis epis- copal seals both for Salisbury and Durham, § and a third time on his signet ring with the motto c?n grarr a0e.|| The meaning of this -singular device is * That is, on the shields figured 8 and 9 in Cough's Sepulchral Monuments, vol. ii. plate xxxvii*; but the rings are there omitted: which is only one of several errors in the plate. f Engraved in Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. ii p. 83, and in Drummond's Noble British Families, House of Neville, p. 14. X Church Notes by Nicholas Charles, Lancaster Herald, in MS. Lansdowne 874, f. 121 § Engraved in Hoare's History of Salisbury, folio, 1848; also in Drummond, p. 10, but he is there miscalled Archbishop of York. II Engraved in Surtees's Durham, Private Seals, Plate H fig. 7, and in Drummond, p. 9. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 25 unknown. It was not personally peculiar to the Bishop, nor allusive to his ecclesiastical functions, ))ut a devise used also by other members of his family. As already mentioned, it appears at Warwick for his brother the Lord Latimer ; and it also occurs as a badge (distinct from the armorial coat) on the seal * of his brother Lord Fauconberg. SEAL OF WILLIAM LORD FAUCONBERG. 6. AVilliam Neville, usually known as Lord Fauconberg, but who shortly before his death in 1402 was created Earl of Kent, certainly bore a * For the engraving of this seal (first published in the Archaiologia, vol. xxxiii. p. 346,) I am indebted to the Council of the Society of Antiquaries. Its matrix is now in their museum, having been presented to the Society by Charles "Weld, esq., As- sistant Secretary to the Royal Society. 26 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OP mullet;* for his garter-plate at Wind- sor displayed, quarterly, a lion ram- pant for Fauconberg:, and a saltire charged with a mullet ; and the same quarterings occurred in the chapel of Saint George at the church of Allliallows in Northampton. t On his seal Neville is placed in the first quarter, and Fauconberg in the second. 7. Edward Neville, Lord Abergavenny, who is supposed to have been the youngest son of this potent and illustrious race, adopted a rose as his distinction : J and it is still borne by the only re- maining branch of this great house, — now enjoying the title of Earl of Abergavenny. This rose, it has been suggested, was allusive to his mother, as allied to the red rose of Lan- caster. 8. Sir John Neville, second son of John Lord * Mr. Rowland, in Iiis History of the Neville Family, folio, 1830, gives Lord Fauconberg, at p. 65, the difference of an annulet, but at pp. 61, 85, of a mullet. The first was perhaps a misprint. t MS. Lansdowne 874, f. 58 b, I The Lords Abergavenny subsequatitly used as a badge two staples, connected, argent and or; but these were of a totally different form to the rings, as well as of other metals ; they were taken from the end of the chain of the Neville bull, where they were placed to pin him to the ground. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 2t Neville, and nephew to the preceding brothers, on his seal in 1437 bears a fleur-de-lis on the centre of his saltire, and the same on his crest of a bull's head.* The fleur-de-lis was azure.f A fleur-de-lis was also borne by a Sir William Neville, whose seal % occurs with the date 1390. On either side of the crest is a star. 9. Sir Thomas Neville, brother to John, in like manner bears a cinque- foil on his saltire, and a cinquefoil on his crest. § The two seals of Sir John and Sir Thomas Neville II are similar in design, and both of them are said to have been used in the year 1437. The coat of Neville occurred in the windows of Woodhouse Chapel in nearly all these varieties, particularly on the North side, with the descrip- tion of which we now proceed. * Surtees, History of Durham, iv. 129. f Drummond, p. 11. \ Engraved in Laing's Catalogue of Scottish Seals, 4to. 1850, p, 107, and in Drummond, p. 9. § Ibid, and Surtees, Plate 8 of Seals, fig. 9. II His seal, to a deed dated 1423, bears a quartered coat, the first and fourth quarters being Beauchamp (differenced by a crescent) and Warwick or Newburgh quarterly, and the second and third quarters the Neville saltire charged with a rose; the crest of a bull's head is also charged with a rose. This seal is engraved in Rowland's History of the Neville Family, p. 70, No. 4, and in Drummond's Genealogy, p. 17. He was Lord Abergavenny in right of his wife Elizabeth Beauchamp, only child of the Earl of D 2 28 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF 1. Gules, a saltire argent, fov Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmerland, (ol). 1425,) the Duchess of Norfolk's father; or for his grandson Ralph the setond Earl, who was living when the glass was made in 1450, and who died in 1485. 2. England with a label argent, heing the arms of the dukedom of Norfolk * (derived from Thomas of Brotherton, son of King Edward the Third,) impaling Neville, for Katharine Duchess OF Norfolk herself. 3. Or, a lion rwmpant azure, and Chiles, three lucies argent, being Percy and Lucy quarterly, for Henry Earl of Northumberland, (slain at the first battle of St. Alban's in 1455,) husband of Alianor Neville, a sister of the Duchess of Norfolk. It is remarkable that this coat did not impale Neville ; but we know for certain that it did not, for this is one of the shields still remaining. 4. France and England within a bordure ar- gent, impaling Neville, for Anne Duchess of Buckingham, another sister of the Duchess of Norfolk, and wife of Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, t who was permitted to relinquish Worcester, .and heiress of Bergavenny through her raotlier. The monuments of George third Lord Bergavenny, K.G., and of his brother Sir Thomas Neville, both at Mereworth, in Kent, also display the sultire with the rose, (Drumraond, p. 18.) * Misattributed to Edward Duke of York, in History of Leicestershire, iii. 116. f In the Paston Letters, vol. i p. 17, is one addressed by the WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 29 his paternal coat for that which typified his de- scent from the blood royal. The same impalement was placed in the Lady Chapel at Canterbury, and also in the Chapel of our Lady Undercroft.* 5. Neville, differenced by a label gobony argent and azure, being the coat of the duchess's brother Richard Earl of Salisbury (beheaded in 1160). He bore a label as the eldest son of his father's second marriage, and it was tinctured (as I have already noticed) in allusion to the bordure which distinguished the arms of his mother the lady Joane Beaufort. 6. Neville, the saltire being charged with an ogress, or sable pellet. This was probably for ano- ther brother, George Lord Latimer (ob. 1469) . 7. Neville, the saltire charged with a mullet ^ for William Lord Pauconberg, another brother, who towards the close of his career was created Earl of Kent in 1462, and died a few months after. I have already mentioned the proofs of his bearing the mullet. Duke of Buckingham, " To the right worshipful and with all mine heart right entirely beloved brother the Viscount Beau- mont." The Editor, Sir John Fenn, imagined that this atFection- ate address was suggested merely by the circumstance of their being brethren in the order of the Garter: but it is evident they considered themselves brothers from having married two sisters. * Willement's Heraldic Notices of Canterbury Cathedral, pp. G3, 161. This coat is misassigned to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in History of Leicestershire, iii. 116. 30 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF 8. Neville, the saltire charged with two annu- lets interlaced azure ^ for Robert Neville, Bishop of Durham, (ob. 1457,) another brother (as noticed in p. 24). 9. Barry of twelve argent and azure, three chapleta gules, for Ralph Lord Greystock, (ob. 1487,) a nephew of the Duchess of Norfolk, being the son of John Lord Greystock and Elizabeth Ferrers, who was one of the two daughters of Joane Beaufort, the daughter of John of Ghent, by her first husband, Robert Ferrers of Oversley or Ousley, in tlie county of Warwick. 10. Neville, the saltire charged with a fleur de lis sable. This was the distinction of Sir John Neville, another nephew of the Duchess, the se- cond son of John Lord Neville the first Earl of Westmerland's heir apparent, and the father of Ralph the third Earl. He was slain at the battle of Towton in 1461, after having married Anne daughter of John Holand Duke of Exeter, the widow of his nephew John Lord Neville, (only son of the second Earl,) who had been slain at the battle of St. Alban's in 1451. 11. Azure, a bend or, the arms of Scrope, im- paling Neville, for Margaret Lady Scrope, a sister of the Duchess, and the widow of Richard Lord Scrope of Bolton, who died in 1420. 12. Gules, three escallops argent, for Thomas Lord Dacre, (ob. 1457,) brother in law to the WOODHOUSB CHAPEL. 31 Duchess, having married her sister Philippa Neville. We now proceed to the windows in the South wall of the Chapel : — 1. Neville, differenced by a label argent charged with three hurts, for Sir Ralph Neville of OvERSLEY, CO. WARWICK, the Duchcss's half- brother, being the second son of the Earl of Westmerland by his first wife, and also the husband of Mary Ferrers of Oversley, sister to the Lady Greystock already mentioned. 2. Azure, sem4e offleurs de lis, a lion rampant or, for Beaumont, impaling Neville, being the Duchess of Norfolk's arms with her living husband John Viscount Beaumont. The coat of Beaumont has been said to be composed of the ancient arms of France with the Kon of Brienne. The Beaumont s who remained seated at Brienne sur Aube, in Champagne, bore, Azure, sem^e of billets and a lion rampant or. The English Beaumonts instead of bil- lets used fleurs-de-lis, which seemed more commemorative of their French origin. 3. Beaumont impaling Azure, three cinquefoils or, for Bardolfe, being the arms of her husband John Viscount Beaumont with those of the Barony of Bardolfe. At the siege of Carlave- rock, in the reign of Edward the First — 32 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF Hue Bardoulf de grant mani^re, Riches horns, preus, et courtois, En asure quint-fuelles trois Portoit de fin or esmere — " Hugh Bardoulf, a man of great appearance, rich, gallant, and courteous, bore upon azure three cinquefoils wrought in fine gold." Joane, younger daughter and coheir of Thomas LordBar- dolfe, was the wife of Sir William Phelip}) of Dennington, Suffolk, and mother of Elizabeth the first wife of the Viscount Beaumont.* 4. Azure, three garbs or, the arms of the Earl- dom OF BucHAN, once enjoyed by Henry Lord Beaumont, in the reign of Edward the Second, as already mentioned. His descendants continued to display its insignia^ John Lord Beaumont, K.G. who died in 1396, bore the arms of Beau- mont and Comyn quarterly, as they still remain on his plate in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. t 5. A coat which Burton describes as Or, a banner or penon gules ; remarking that it agrees with the arms of the Comtes of Auvergne, which * See much about the Bardolfe family in the Introduction pre- fixed by Thomas Stapleton, esq. V.P.S.A. to the Liber de Antiquis Legibus, printed for the Camden Society, 1846 : also in the Record of the House of Gournay, 1848, 4to. pp. 188 et seq., particularly the pedigree in p. 192, showing Miles Stapleton, Lord Beaumont, to be the representative of the Anglo-Norman Barons of Gournay through the families of Bardolfe and Beaumont. t Of this nobleman there is a biography in Beltz's Memorials of the Garter, p. 345. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 83 Leland describes from an old roll as Or, a gon- fanon gules. This was clearly intended to typify THE Earldom of Boulogne, which, as we have already seen, was at one period enjoyed by the Viscount Beaumont. Baldwin, Comte of Bou- logne and Aurvergne, younger brother to the cielebrated Godfrey de Bouillon, bore the gon- fanon of the Christian army in the crusade,* and we therefore see why the gonfanon was taken to be the arms of the county of Boulogne. 6. Azure i two bars gemelles or. This coat, as blazoned by Burton,! is not recognised in the ordinaries ; but it resembles the ancient coat of Meinell, which was. Azure, three gemelles and a chief or. I have been unable to trace that either the Duchess of Norfolk or Lord Beaumont had any connection with that family. 7. Or, two bars azure , an orle of martlets gules. Assigned by Burton to Paynell,J but its allusion I have not ascertained. 8. Or, a saltire azure. This shield is also inexplicable. The ordinaries attribute the coat to Philip ap Vtchan, of Wales. These three shields might, if we knew their real ♦ Indice Armorial, par Geliot, fol. 1635, p. 208. •f In Nichols's History of Leicestershire, iii. 116, it is blasoned as, Azure, two bars or, and attributed to Burdett. \ " Sir William Paynel, de argent, a ij barres de sable, a les merelos de goules en la maner de bordure assis." Roll of Arms temp. Edw. IL, among the knights of Wiltshire and Hampshire. E 34 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF intention, illustrate some of my preliminary remarks in which I stated that it was usual, in such assemblages of armorial insignia, to com- memorate political as well as family alliances. 9. Azure^ three cinquefoils or, for William Lord Bardolfe, the Viscount Beaumont's son and heir by his first wife;* who was born at Edenham, in the county of Lincoln, on the 23rd April 1438, and, by the designation of Sir William Beaumont lord Bardolfe, was proved to be of full age in 1460. 10. Quarterly gules and argent, in the first quarter an eagle displayed or, the paternal coat of Sir William Phelipp Loud Bardolfe, Knight of the Garter, successively Treasurer of the Household and Chamberlain to King Henry the Sixth, the father of the Viscount Beaumont's first wife, and the husband of Joane heiress of the barony of Bardolfe. This shield is one of those remaining in the windows. 11. Vert, an inescocheon within an arte of martlets argent. This was the coat borne by Sir Thomas Erpingham, Knight of the Grarter, to whom Sir William Phelipp (being his nephew) was found heir in the year 1428. WTien it became customary to multiply titles of peerage, * See the Inquisition printed by Mr. Stapleton in his Intro- duction to the Liber de Antiquis Legibus, p. cciii. See also the memoir mentioned in a subsequent note (p. 36). WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 35 we find tlie later lords^ Beaumont using those of Corny n, Bardolfe, Phelipp, and Erpingham ; as in the epitaph of Elizabeth Viscountess Beaumont and afterwards Countess of Oxford, at Wivenhoe in Essex, written in the reign of Henry the Eighth. It states her to have been " first mar- ried to the noble lord William Yycomt Beaumont, lord Comyn, Bardolph, Phelipp, and Erping- ham;" and the quarterings of the family are there thus arranged : 1. Beaumont ; 2. Bardolfe and Phelipp quarterly; 3. Erpingham; 4. Comyn. 12. Fer pale argent and vert, an elephant bearing a castle or. This was the badge or cog- nizance of the Beaumont family,* and was com- memorative of their descent from John de Bri- enne. King of Jerusalem, and from his second wife, the Infanta Donna Berenguela, sister of Saint Eerdinand III. King of Castile and Leon, and daughter of Alphonso IX. King of Leon and of Berenguela Queen of Castile. The canting, or punning, allusion, it will be perceived, was to the castle, which was the invariable accompaniment of a medieval elephant. The sepulchral effigy f of * In History of Leicestershire, iii. 116, and again in p. 117, it is erroneously attributed to Corbet. ■j" Lithographed in the volume of Monumental Brasses, pub- lished by the Cambridge Camden Society, 184G, iio. The marginal inscription is also interspersed with castellated elephants". Above the Viscount's head is a shield of four quarters : 1. Beau- E 2 36 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF William second Viscount Beaumont, at Wivenhoe in Essex, is represented with his feet upon an ele- phant and castle, and broom-cods on the ground ; the latter being further significant of his descent from Alianora, daughter of Henry Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby, the wife of the second Lord Beaumont. John de Brienne was elected King of Jerusalem in 1209 ; and in the cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral one of the bosses * represents the elephant and castle sur- mounted by a shield of the arras assigned to Je- rusalem, viz. a cross potent between four smaller crosses humettde. Henry fifth Lord Beaumont, who was Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports in the reign of Richard the Second, bore this coat of Jerusalem in the first quarter with his own, and it so occurs in three places in the cloisters at Canterbury, f The same quarterly coat was formerly to be seen in the windows of Loughborough Church. J We have now surveyed all the windows in their arrangement as Burton saw them. Of the whole nine-and-twenty shields which he describes, there are now remaining eight, and one more hereafter mont ; 2. Comyn ; 3. Phelipp ; 4. Bardolfe. This plate is accompanied by a valuable memoir, contributed by the Rev. Roger Dawson Duffield, of Downing College. * Engraved in the frontispiece to Willement's Heraldic Notices of Canterbury Cathedral. t Ibid. pp. 99, 134, 135. X Burton, edit. 1622, p. 182. o < oa o Ed O Q r-ill~|ll— i OS s •6 Ih- II:—. •si ^ s II l« g ^ ■ ea Z o « 1,09. ■ c Ih E;2 ■S * -I E Ed WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 37 mentioned, which have lately been collected by Mr. Perry-Herrick at the east end of the Chapel, in two windows on the north and one on the south. Some of the "foremost postes of the seates" described by Burton, or poppy-heads as they are now generally termed, after having been cut otf at some re-arrangement of the pewing, are still in existence. Four of them are engraved in the History of Leicestershire, vol. iv. plate xviii One is the elephant and castle of the Eeaumonts, backed by five sun-flowers. Another is an ante- lope with its horns bent downwards and gorged with a coronet, one of the "beasts " of the royal 38 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF house of Lancaster, supposed to have been derived from the family of Bohun. The third a grotesque human head ; and the fourth a bunch of foliage, terminating with a small head of a woman. I could not, on recent inquiry, ascertain where these carvings now are ; but two other elephants are preserved in the mansion-house at Beau- manor ; and two more are in the possession of the Rev. John S. Hiley, the incumbent of Woodhouse. One of the last, as being perhaps the most effec- tive in execution, has been chosen for repre- sentation in the annexed engraving. Burton mentions another " post," carved with the figure of "a lion seyant," or sitting. The crest of Beaumont was a lion statant, or standing, on a chapeau d'estat, or cap of dignity. In the early annals of Beaumanor there are various evidences of that beautiful spot having been visited and inhabited by several persons alike important in their own day and memorable in the pages of history. Among these John Lord Beaumont, the premier Viscount of England, and his wife Katharine Duchess of Norfolk, one of the numerous grandcliildren of John of Ghent, " time- honoured Lancaster," are especially to be remem- bered.* We have seen that they re-edified the * Leland, when speaking of the Beaumonts, says, " The chief- est house of this Lord Beaumonte, as I leamid, was at Beaumaner in Leyrcestershire." Itinerary, vol. vi. f. 71. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 39 Chapel of Wopdhouse about the year 1450, and 1 may add that there still exists a court roll at Beau- manor for a court held by the duchess twelve years later, in the year 1462. Though her husband had fallen in the battle of Northampton in 1460, and his estates were shortly after confiscated by the tri- umphant house of York, when they were con- ferred on William Lord Hastings, the ancestor of the Earls of Huntingdon, yet the Duchess of Norfolk retained for her life Beaumanor and some other lordships that had been settled upon her in dower ; and it is not to be forgotten that she was still more nearly related to the Yorkist King than she had been to the Lancastrian one, for one of her sisters, whom we have not hitherto had occa- sion to name, was Cecily Duchess of York, the mother of King Edward the Eourth. These two sisters, Cecily Duchess of York and Katharine Duchess of Norfolk, are ladies as me- morable as any in our English annals, if we con- sider what they must have witnessed and endured as the long-lived contemporaries and the near relatives of the two contending branches of the royal house, which were from generation to gene- ration engaged, at oft-recurring intervals, in a fluctuating and sanguinary struggle. The long rank of their illustrious brothers, of whom five were temporal peers of the realm and another Bishop of Durham, we have already reviewed, as the win- 40 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF dews of Woodhouse Chapel once displayed them. The Duchess Cecily was the mother of eight sons and three daughters ; of whom two were Kings of England, one a Duke, and three Duchesses ; she witnessed the violent deaths or grievous mis- fortunes of nearly all this numerous family. She survived the fatal field of Wakefield, in which her husband was slain ; that of Mortimer's Cross, which gave her son Edward the crown; his temporary dethronement and exile ; the murder of her grandson King EdAvard the Fifth ; the fall of her younger son King Richard on the field of Bos worth, and all the other crimes and tragedies of the times, — one tithe of which, it might have been supposed, would have broken the heart or destroyed the intellect of any ordinary woman. She lived not only to see her granddaughter Elizabeth partaker of the throne with the suc- cessful representative of the Lancastrian line; but she further survived the birth of her great- grandson King Henry the Eighth ; dying in 1495, thirty-five years after her husband, and certainly at a very advanced age. But the life and experiences of her sister the lady of Beaumanor were scarcely less extraordi- nary. She must have been cast in the same iron mould, and equally tempered to encounter afflic- tions and adversities. Katharine Duchess of Norfolk was the wife of four husbands : — WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 41 The first was John Mowbray the second Duke of Norfolk of his family, to which dignity he was restored in 1424 ; and who died on the 19th of October, 1432, leaving John his son and successor. The second was Sir Thomas Strangways, by whom the Duchess had a daughter named Joane, who was married first to Sir William Willoughby, and secondly to William Lord Berkeley, who was created Earl of Nottingham in 1483, and in 1488 (after the death of his wife,) Marquess of Berkeley. The Duchess's third husband was John Viscount Beaumont, the principal points of whose history have been already noticed. And the fourth was Sir John Wydville, a younger brother of the Queen of Edward IV. This last marriage took place in 1464-5, when the Duchess is said to have been nearly eighty years of age, and her bridegroom about twenty : probably her age was somewhat exaggerated;* but the match was so unequal as to be accounted scandalous even in an age when alliances were usually formed rather with regard to property than to person. It is thus indignantly recorded in the Annals of William of Wyrcestre : " Mense * Her first husband, the Duke of Norfolk, was bom in 1390; her third, the Viscount Beaumont, in 1410. She gave birth to her son John, Duke of Norfolk, in 1415; and if we take her to have been then twenty, she may have been seventy, but not eighty, in 1465. F 42 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF Januarii, Katerina ducissa Norffolciae, juvencula aetatis fere iiij'"' annorum, maritata est Johanni Widevile, fratri Reginae, aetatis xx annorum. Maritagium diabolicum ! vindicta Bernardi inter eosdem postea patuit." The vengeance thus de- nounced upon this iJi-sorted alliance was mani- fested by the fate of the youthful bridegroom, who, together with Ms father, Richard Earl Rivers, was beheaded by the Lancastrians at Northampton on the 12th August, 1409. The aged Duchess was still living in the year 1482, as appears by the rolls of parliament,* but the year of her death I have not discovered. f Whether in her latter years she at all resided at Beaumanor, it would perliaps be impossible to ascertain ; but the estate appears to have always remained in her possession as part of her dower. Before her departure, she had witnessed the decease, in 1475, of her grandson John the fourth duke, the last male of the house of Mowbray ; the betrothal of his infant heiress to Richard ♦ See the acts for the benefit of Kichard Duke of York, the widower of her great-grand-daugliter Anne Mowbray (who was then deceased), and for William then Viscount Berkeley, the husband of her daughter Joane (Strangways), which mention rights of property contingent on her life, in the Rotuli Pari. vol. vi. p. 207. f " My lady of Exeter (Anne, the King's sister) is dead, and it was said that both the old Duchess of Norfolk and the Countess of Oxford were dead, but it is not so yet.'' — Letter written 27 Jan. 15 Edw. IV. (1475) in the Paston Letters, ii. 191. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 43 Duke of York, the second son of King Edward the Fourth ; and the death of at least the bride of that youthful couple, if not the mysterious disappearance of the Duke with his brother King Edward in the Tower of London. It was then that the dignities of the house of Norfolk were divided between the families of Howard and Berkeley; John Lord Howard and William Vis- count Berkeley being, through their respective mothers, the grandsons of the first Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. The former was created Earl Marshal and Duke of Norfolk, the latter Earl of Notting- ham. These dignities were conferred on the same day, the 28th of June, 1483, shortly after the esta- blishment of Richard the Third upon the throne. The Lord Hastings, to whom the greater part of the Beaumont property was transferred under the Yorkist rule, had married another Katharine Neville, the Duchess's niece, daughter of Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury and widow of William Lord Bonville. This, no doubt, was one plea for his soliciting, and obtaining, a grant of the Neville estates in this and other counties, which formed the beginning of the wide and predomi- nant influence which the Hastings family long exercised in Leicestershire. If I have succeeded in at all interesting you by these remarks on the old glass at Woodhouse, I hope it may help to show not only how desirable F 2 44 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF it is to preserve such memorials, but also that it is worth while to endeavour to understand them, as they generally convey some information and suggest more. Burton, at a time when the art of Heraldry was more cultivated and better under- stood than it is at present, kept this object in view, and thereby preserved much evidence that would otherwise have been lost to us. " Lastlv, (he says in his Preface,) I have added all the Armes in all the Church windowes in the shire, and the inscriptions of the Tombes, which (for the most part) I have taken by my own view and travell, — to this end, for that perhaps they may rectifie Armories and Genealogies, and may give testimony, proofe, and end to many differ- ences. For of my owne knowledge I can affirme, that the Antiquity of a Church window, for the proofe of a match and issue had, hath beene delivered in evidence to a Jury at an Assises, and been accepted." SAINT EDWARD. KIN« HIUVBY VI. QUEEN KATHARINE OF ANJOU. BEAUMONT AND BAHDOLFK. SHIELDS OF ARMS BKMAINING IN THK WINDOWS OF WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. WOOD HOUSE CHAPEL. 45 Present State of the Stained Glass in WooDHousE Chapel. N the year 1858 Mr. Perry-IIerrick en- tirely renewed the roof of Woodhouse Chapel, and rebuilt the tracery of the East window, according to its former pattern. Its five lights are now filled with whole-length figures of Our Saviour (in the centre) and the four Evangelists, and below them these five subjects : 1. The Agony in the Garden; 2. Christ bearing his Cross; 3. The Crucifixion; 4. The Resurrection; 5. The Ascension. This window was made by Mr. Hedgeland of London, and is a. very pleasing specimen of his skill, both in design and execution. On the North side the window next the East contains four of the ancient coats described in this memoir, viz. : — 1. Edward the Confessor. 2. Henry the Sixth. 3. King Henry and Queen Katharine. 4. Beaumont impaling Bardolfe. (In the coat of Beaumont no traces of fleurs de lis remain.) 46 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF In the next window is one of the old coats, with three modern ones : 1. Phelipp.* 2. Heyricke, — Argent, a fess vaire or and gules. 3. May,— Gules, a fess between ten billets or; for Joane May,t wife of Sir William Heyricke the refounder of the Chapel. 4. Herrick quartering Perry, for the present "William Perry-Herrick, esquire; to whom the • This shield having been reversed in the Avindow, and one of the Herrick quarterings (that of Mayo) having been placed in the third quarter (which had been broken), is so engraved in the History of Leicestershire, vol. iii. pi. xvn. No. 9. It is repeated, in its correct form, in pi. xvni. No. 29. The former plate contains the arms as remaining in the windows when Mr. Nichols surveyed the chapel ; in the latter, the shields were engraved from Burton's description. This repetition was evidently an inadvertence. f Sister to Sir Humphrey May, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and to Elizabeth, wife of Sir Baptist Hickes, Viscount Campden. KARL OP SORTHOMBERLANI*. [OULES, A SS ARCiENT.) LORD FAUCONBKRG. LORD ORETSTOCK. SHIELDS OP ARMS REMAINING W THE WINDOWS OF WOODHOUSE CHAPKL. WOODHOTJSE CHAPEL. 47 quartering of Perry * was granted by the College of Arms in 1853, pursuant to the will of his uncle Thomas Perry, esquire, of Eardisley Park, Herefordshire. The first window on the South side contains four others of the antient shields : — 1. The Earl of Northumberland. 2. Gules, a cross argent. f The appearance of this coat is beyond our expectation, as it is not among those which were described by Burton : J but it is apparently of coaeval antiquity with the other shields. It is not known as the bearing of any English family after the time of Thomas de Cobliam, who lived in the reign of Edward III. but it is the ancient coat of the sovereign house of Savoy. I cannot find, however, any reason for giving it that meaning in the present case ; but am rather disposed to regard it as belonging to some ecclesiastical person or community. It may possibly be the personal coat of the Abbot of Lei- * Barry of six or and gules, on a bend indented argent three lions passant sable, two flaunches ermine. Crest, A hind's head erased proper, sem^ of annulets or, in the mouth a pear-tree branch slipped proper, fructed or. f Called, " Gules, a cross or, Burnaville" in History of Leices- tershire, iii. 116, No. 12. I The possibility has occurred to me of its being the shield of Saint George from the east window, restored by a modern glazier, and the colours by mistake reversed: but I am able to say that such is not the case, because the coloured field is beautifully diapered like some of the other antient shields. 48 THE ARMORIAL WINDOWS OF cester,* at the time the glass was made, he being, as already mentioned, the patron of the parish church of Barrow. 3. Neville, with remains of the difference of the sable mullet, — attributed in the preceding memoir to Lord Fauconberg. 4. Greystock. The lights of the next adjoining window are occupied by whole-length figures of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, below which is this inscription : In Memory of George Watkmson 8f Mary his Wife. Inscribed by Anne Christiana his sole surviving Daughter. A"! 1845. This window was the work of Mr. Warrington of London. The fact of the windows having been repaired, and the stained glass re-arranged, by Sir William Heyricke in the reign of James the First, was shown by the occurrence of small shields of the arms of Heyricke and May in the interstices of the upper tracery of the old East window. There are still remaining various records of Sir William Heyricke' s works in the Chapel at several dates : — * The armorial coat of the Abbey of Leicester is usually stated to have been the cinquefoil, the same that belonged to the Earldom and Honour of Leicester, but I have seen no positive authority on this point. WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. 49 On the wainscot of an old Pew are his initials with the date 1597, and the arms of his mother Mary Bond (which were then generally used by the Hcyricke family), viz. Argent, on a chevron sable between three hurts as many estoiles or, on a chief gules three cinquefoils of the field. On three other panels of the same pew are these inscriptions : * LOVE VNTO THE AND BE NOT NOT POORE BE WEARYE OF PRID HELPINGE WELDOINGE On the front of a Gallery erected at the west end of the Chapel are carved two shields of arms, Qoaa 1 mn Qoop) the first being those of Heyricke alone, and the other the same impaling May, with a panel con- * As engraved in the Hist, of Leicestershire, vol. iii. pi. xviii. G 50 WOODHOUSE CHAPEL. taining these words : sir william heuicke KNIGHT rOVNDER HEREOF 1613. The Pulpit bears this inscription : EX DONO WILLMI MILITIS DOMINI BENIGNI UEYRICKE ANNO 1615. At its back : I COR. IX. 16. VE MIHI SI NON E- VANGELIZA VERO. And on the sounding-board : HARKEN VNTO THE WORD OF THE LORD. And on the front of the Reading Desk, whicli is of the same workmanship, are these three mottoes : THEY THAT LOVE GOD SPEAKE WILL HEARE HIS WORD. TRVTH. HEARKEN VNTO THE WORDE OF (JOD. FALCON AND FETTERLOCK. (Seep. 15.) ^.-^Sk i. WESTMINSTER: JOHN* BOWYER Nirt!OI.3 AND SONS, PARLIAMENT STREET.