APPENDIX G GLOUCESTER’S ARMS, BADGES, AND SEALS

I. ARMS

Like his brothers, the Duke of Gloucester adopted the arms of England and France quarterly, but whereas their arms were differentiated with various labels, his own were surmounted with a border argent (Garter Types, College of Arms). At this period the arms of France, as borne by the English Kings, were changed from ‘azure semée of fleur de lys or’ to ‘azure three fleur de lys or,’ and this is the only difference which marks Humphrey’s arms from those of a predecessor in the Gloucester title, Thomas of Woodstock. Nicholas Upton, a follower and friend of Humphrey, describes his arms as follows: ‘Portat Integra Arma Francie et Anglie Quarteriata, Cum Una Bordura Gobonata De Argento et Nigro ... Il port lez Armes de Fraunce et D’engleterre quarterlez ovesque ung bordure gobone d’argent et d’asor’ (Nicholaus Uptonus, De Studio Militari, London, 1654, p. 238). This is not strictly accurate, as the border was argent only. These arms were carved on the Duke’s tomb at St. Albans with their supporters, antelopes gorged and chained, and the shields were alternately ‘ensigned’ with his ducal coronet on his cap of estate, and with his crest, ‘a Lyon passant guardant crowned and accolled.’ This part of the tomb is so mutilated that all the crests are gone; and only fragments of the other heraldic adornments remain (cf. Sandford, Genealogical History, p. 307; Gough, Sepulchral Monuments (London, 1776), vol. ii. part III. p. 142).

Gloucester does not seem to have altered his armorial bearings after his marriage to Jacqueline of Hainault, for a seal attached to a charter in the archives of Mons seems to be the same one he had hitherto used (Cartulaire, iv. 440). After his marriage with Eleanor Cobham, however, he impaled the Cobham arms with his own, of which we have two recorded instances. In the east window of the church of Cobham in Kent there stood his arms ‘in two several places, dimediated with those of the Duchess Eleanor Cobham’ (Sandford, Genealogical History, p. 308), and they appeared in a similar form in a window of Greenwich Church before its destruction. A reproduction of this east window is to be found as the headpiece to the preface of the old catalogue of manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum, Oxford, 1697), and the following description thereof was written in 1695: ‘An Helmet and crest with Mantles, and the Antelopes holding it up with Humphrey Duke of Gloucester kneeling, and his Arms, scilt. quarterly France and England within a bordure argent on one side, and the same arms impaling Cobham, viz., Gules on a Cheveron or, three Estoils sable, on the other side, a good distance from him; stand all in one of the south windows near the Belfry of Greenwich Church’ (Tanner MS., 24, f. 107). The manuscript also contains a rough drawing of the window, as is also the case in an Ashmole record written about 1659, which gives the same information, though at less length (Ashmole MS., 1121, f. 228). Humphrey, it will be noticed, used as one of his supporters an antelope, which had been borne by Henry IV., and had appeared on the trappings of his horse in the Lists of Coventry (Tyler, Henry of Monmouth, p. 30). It appears from a manuscript in the Heralds’ College that his supporters were to the Dexter a Greyhound argent collared and leashed or, to the Sinister an Heraldic Antelope argent Ducally gorged and chained or (Heralds’ College MS., 14, f. 105, B.).

II. BADGES

Humphrey bore no less than three badges. From a political song, written probably about 1449, it appears that he was known by the title of ‘the Swan,’ a name taken from the badge he had adopted from his Bohun ancestors. In the course of the poem the phrase ‘the Swanne is goone’ appears, and in a different though contemporary hand the word ‘Gloucetter’ is written above the word ‘Swanne’ (Political Songs, ii. 221. Cf. Excerpta Historica, p. 161)

The second badge was on a shield sable three ostrich feathers argent surrounded by the Garter and supported to the Dexter by the Greyhound, to the Sinister by the Antelope. (Window in Greenwich Church, College of Arms MS., L. 14, 105, B.) These appear in the Greenwich window (Ashmole MS., 1121, f. 228. Cf. Archæologia, xxxi. 368), though from impressions of his seal he seems then only to have used two feathers. (Seal described in Cartulaire, iv. 440, and Seal attached to British Museum, Additional Charters, 6000.)

The third badge has a particular interest. It is found at frequent intervals on the St. Albans tomb, and it appears in a slightly different form in other places. It seems to represent a cup with sprays of some plant issuing from the top. On the tomb the sprays look like daisies or their foliage, whereas in drawings of this same badge that occur in several manuscripts in the College of Arms and elsewhere, they seem to be laurels. They vary, too, as to the number of sprays. On the tomb there are seven or eight in each cup, whilst in the extant drawings, which date mostly from the seventeenth century, they vary from one to three (College of Arms, Garter Types and Badges, and MS., L. 14, f. 105, B.). Gough thought that this badge was the rebus of Wheathampsted, and represented wheat sheaves (Gough, Sepulchral Monuments, vol. ii. part III. p. 142). This, however, is disproved by the fact that it was not Wheathampsted who built the Duke’s tomb, and it was unlikely that Abbot Stoke would put his predecessor’s mark on a monument built by himself, and secondly by an entry which we find in more than one place under the drawings of the cup, which reads, ‘Humfrey Duke of Gloucester bare this cup with a Laurell branch, in the respect he bore to Learning’ (College of Arms, Miscellanea Curiosa, i. 105, B. Cf. Ashmole MS., 1121, f. 227).

III. SEALS

There are few impressions of Gloucester’s seal still surviving. In the British Museum there is attached to a warrant a very small seal bearing the Duke’s coat of arms and round it the motto ‘Loyalle et Belle’ (Additional Charters, xxxvi. 146). This is the only evidence to prove the use of this motto by the Duke, save some rather inconclusive remarks on the fly-leaf of one of his manuscripts (Sloane MS., 248). A larger impression is attached to a grant of custody given by Gloucester and dated September 22, 1426 (Additional Charters, 6000). This seal is in fairly good preservation and on one side bears the Duke’s arms between two feathers and surmounted by a cap, on the other a representation of the Duke himself holding a drawn sword and riding on a horse.

In the Mons archives attached to a charter granted by Gloucester there is a round seal which is described as follows: ‘Il represente un ecu ecartele aux 1 et 4 a trois fleurs de lis et aux 2 et 3 trois lions passants, surmounté d’un heaume qui a pour cimier un léopard, et accosté de deux plumes; supports: deux beliers.’ The legend runs: ‘Sigilu. Humfridi. filii et fratris. regis. ducis Glocestrie. comitis Pembr. et camerarii Anglie’ (Cartulaire iv. 440).

Two more seals are preserved amongst the deeds in Magdalen College, Oxford. Both are attached to warrants issued by Gloucester in his capacity of Chief Keeper of the King’s Forests on this side of the river Trent. The first is a round brown seal bearing the ducal arms within a border of antlers rising from a deer’s head. Above is the figure of an heron, which with the antlers were the signs of this particular office. The inscription so far as it can be read runs: ‘S. H. duc Glouc ... Angl ac just. et capit. cust. forestr’ (Magdalen College Deeds, Selborne, 112; cf. Selborne, 115). The second is a seal of green wax, hollow on the reverse, and though much broken, still reveals the stag’s head and antlers surrounding Gloucester’s arms (Magdalen College Deeds, Shotover, 4).