Page:Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 6.djvu/113

 Criolls took the name of Ashburnham, or that a family bearing the present Ashburnham arms married the heiress of the Criolls, or of their descendants who had taken the name of the estate.

Mr. Drummond's magnificent work, 'Noble British Families,' begins with an account of the Ashbumhams. The seal used by Sir Richard de Ashburnham, temp. Hen. III, is there given: and it is the coat of his mother, who was a daughter of Sir John de Maltravers, who bore Sable, a fret or. Whether the coat, since used by the family, and as early as Edward II, the fess and mullets had not then been assumed, or was laid aside for that of a higher family, and afterwards resumed; or whether, as was then probably the case, sometimes, though not so often as in the present day, from the proper seal not being at hand, some other family seal was used instead,—it is impossible to say.

The following extracts from Burke's 'Armoury,' it is believed, all refer to this family and its branches. The contractions and corruptions of the names are not so great as in many proved instances. The prevalence of the fess and the mullets in nearly every coat warrant this supposition. They are probably all variations from the original Ashburnham coat, formed analogously with the variations in other families; the original arms not being the fess and six mullets. The blazonry is probably incorrect in many cases; and considering the sources through which ancient heraldry has come down to us, it would be strange if many errors had not arisen; for instance, in the Roll of Edw. II, martlets are written "merelos," and mullets "moles;" this, though a distinction, might be easily confounded by an ignorant or a careless transcriber; and there seems good reason for thinking was actually the case in the Roll in question; for Sir John de Ashbornham is there said to bear a fess between six mullets, whilst Sir John de Ashbome, of Worcestershire, bears the same coat and colours, except that we must read martlets instead of mullets. Now, knowing how names were curtailed and altered in those early times, and remembering the liability to the error just alluded