Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/435

 EXAMPLES OF MEDLEVAL SEALS. 371 of the period, and standing on a dog, between the arms of Giffard of Brimsfield, three lions passant in pale, on her right, and the arms of Neville of Essex, a lion rampant, on her left. The lions of Giffard are also on her gown. The legend is, s' mahgarete de nevyle. In Mr. Drummond's "British Families," she has the name of De la Warde as her maiden snrnanie ; hut all endeavours to discover her parentage have been unsuccessful. The heraldry as well as her designation is remark- able, for while she displays the arms of Giffard twice, she uses the patronymic of her first husband. It was to be expected that one of the coats would be found to be her father's, but no Ward or De la Warde of that period appears to have borne a coat at all resembling either of those on this seal. The arms of Neville of Essex, or at least of this branch of the family, were az. a lion rampant or. Those of her son, Hugh de Neville, are so given in the roll t. Edw. II,, and tlie like formerly existed in some of the windows of Langham Church, Essex, (Morant ii. 245), in which parish the family had a residence and park. In regard to the lion rampant, it may be remarked there was a Hugh de Neville, sometimes distinguished as "the Forester" by reason of the office of Chief Forester which he held, who is said to have been with Richard Cceur de Lion in Palestine, and to have slain a lion there. However that may have been, he used a seal on which he was represented in a hauberk combating with a lion coward, i.e., having its tail between its legs. The knight, who is without a shield, has seized the beast by the throat, and is about to strike it with his sword. An impression of this seal remains attached to a grant in the llarleian collection of Charters, 112, B. 48, and it is probable that to that story, or this seal, may be ascribed the bearing of the lion rampant by his descendants, for such these Nevilles appear to have been. The legend on the seal is said to have been sigillvm HVGONis DE NEVILLA ; but little boside the first of those words now remains on the impression. The seal is circular, about 1 i inches in diameter, but considerably chipped at the edges. The subject of the grant is some land in Weresfeld (now Wethersfield) Essex, where, as well as at Langham and other places in that county, Hugh the Forester acquired property by his marriage in 1199 or 1200 '^ with Joan, daughter and sole heiress of Henry de Cornhill, a distinguished citizen of Loudon, and one of the sheriffs in 1189, by his wife, Alice do Courcy, heiress of tiie Courcys of Devon, who survived him, and n)arried Warinc Fitz-Gerald, by whom she also had an only child, a daughter, who became the wife of Baldwin de Redvers, son of William de Redvers, otherwise Vernon, Earl of Devon.' .John de Neville, the first husband of the above-mentioned Margaret, died seised of property in Essex within the same parishes, as appears l)y the Cal. Inq., p. m. 10 s Se? Rot. Curia; llcgis, i., p. .'5!i(i,and Rot. de l)l:itis et Finibus, p. 104. " Stapliton's Preface to Liber de VOL. XI. Aiitiq. Lcgibus, p. ii. Henry de Coriiliill died in or before 1194, see Rot. Curiie Regis, i. p. 14. 3 c