Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/249

 9's.ix.MAncH29,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 190S.

CONTENTS.-No. 222.

NOTES : Arms of Eton and Winchester Colleges, 241- St. Margaret's Church and Westminster Benefactors, 242 Honorificabilitudinitas, 243" Guardhound " A Royal Yacht R'yal Walks Clifford's Inn, 244 Geographical Puzzle Caxton Record Price Shakespeare v. Bacon- Questions of Pedigree, 245 King of Torelore Corn-Law Kimer, 246.

QUERIES : Celtic, 246 Imaginary Church-lore Lauder* dale Family Countess of Denbigh, 247" The Cock and Cryer" " Meresteads " or "Mesesteads" Dumas in England Sir Alan de Heyton Newark Abbey, Surrey "G.R." Cooper's 'Athena Cantabrigienses ' Kenyon's Letters Chess Playing: a Legend Barrosa Token, 248- Earle Hulme Family Erskine, 249.

REPLIES : Chronograms, 249-Sathalia "Saulies," 250 Greek Pronunciation Christ's Hospital Disappearing Chaitists, 251 St. Clement Danes, 252 Charles V. on European Tongues Song Wanted, 254 Obelisk at St. Peter's " Yard of ale "Bull-baiting " Wagues " Pins in Drinking Vessels, 255'' Pattle "Gordon, a Place- name, 256 Royal Personages An Old Charm Cuckland "The moss-covered bucket," 257 Duchy of Berwick, 258.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Seebohm's ' Tribal Custom in Anglo- Saxon Law ' Prescott's ' History of the Conquest of Peru ' Hiatt's 'Westminster Abbey ' Corlette's 'The

, Cathedral Church of Chichester' Perkins's 'Amiens : its Cathedral and Churches.'

Notices to Correspondents.

ARMS OF ETON AND WINCHESTER COLLEGES.

KING HENRY VI., in 1440, granted to the College of St. Mary at Eton the following coat : Sable, three garden lilies argent ; on a chief per pale azure and gules, a fleur-de-lis of France and a lion of England. (See Woodward's 'Heraldry: British and Foreign/ ed. 1896, vol. i. p. 352.) And Dr. Woodward adds : " Sable, three lilies proper, are the arms attributed to Winchester College." I should like to ask what authority Dr. Wood- ward had for this latter statement.

One is aware of the close connexion that has always existed between the Plantagenet king's foundation at Eton and its elder sister, founded by William of Wykeham in the previous century ; but it can hardly be that m those days, when heraldry was a much more exact science than it is now, the royal founder followed his model so closely that he assigned it a portion of its armorial insignia.

I have not Mr. Kirby's 'Annals of Win- chester College' by me, or any means of reference to the volume here. Mr. A. F. Leach's * History of Winchester College ' (1899) does not touch upon the arms borne

by the school of which he writes so well : but in Mr. R. Townsend Warner's smaller hand- book in the " Great Public Schools " Series published by Bell & Sons (1900), the author devotes an appendix of several pages to the consideration of the college arms. It is so much to the point that I could crave leave to reproduce the greater portion of it here. He says :

"There is still a question with regard to the arms of Winchester College, namely, whether Wyke- ham s ' episcopal ' arms ought to be used, as is the present practice, or whether Winchester (like New College, Oxford) ought to use the Founder's personal coat only i.e., the roses and chevrons not impaled by the swords [? sword] and keys of the see of Winchester. Ancient examples of the college arms almost all give the Founder's personal arms only e.g., the original Common Seal of the college, and chapel roof (fourteenth century), Fromond's chantry roof (fifteenth century), a fragment of carving (date circa 1536) now in Porter's Lodge, the portrait of the Founder in Hall (not later than 1597), and the two old pictures in the Warden's Gallery, college plate (1629), the arms in School, two forms of the college bookplate (eighteenth century), and the Trusty Servant picture. This last was repainted in 1800 ; the old picture had no arms on it. In fact, there is no old work or picture about college with the Founder's episcopal arms. The earliest example of these (date circa 1800) is in college kitchen.

"On the other hand, the earliest evidence in support of the present user of the ' episcopal ' arms by the school is the fact that in 1678 they appeared as the heading of Long Roll, the official roll of the school in its most complete form. In any case it is quite certain that Wykeham himself never used his so-called ' episcopal ' arms ; for the arms of the see of Winchester were not in his time in use, and the practice of bishops impaling the arms of the see with the personal coat was not general till at least a century and a half after Wykeham's time.

" On the whole, it appears that there is no autho- rity previous to 1678 for the present user of the episcopal arms by the school. There was never any definite grant of arms to Winchester as there was to Eton, and therefore there is no absolute autho- rity on the subject, but the earliest and therefore most binding assumption of arms by the college was clearly that of the Founder's personal arms, the only arms known to him, whether as bishop or in his private capacity."

From this it will be seen that the question discussed by Mr. Warner was whether the college was justified in using "as is the present practice " the arms of the see of Winchester (the crossed sword and keys), together with the founder's personal arms [the chevrons and roses, "like New College, Oxford "), and not whether the college was ever entitled to, or had ever used, the arms now attributed to it by Dr. Woodward of Sable, three lilies proper, which coat has, of course, a strong family likeness to that of Eton College, and of which attribution Mr. Warner does not seem to have been aware.