14. Frederick, Duke of Urbino. Mantling or, lined ermine.

In Continental heraldry it is by no means uncommon to find the device of the arms repeated either wholly or in part upon the mantling. In reference to this the "Tournament Rules" of René, Duke of Anjou, {389} throw some light on the point. These it may be of interest to quote:-- "Vous tous Princes, Seigneurs, Barons, Cheualiers, et Escuyers, qui auez intention de tournoyer, vous estes tenus vous rendre és heberges le quartrième jour deuan le jour du Tournoy, pour faire de vos Blasons fenestres, sur payne de non estre receus audit Tournoy. Les armes seront celles-cy. Le tymbre doit estre sur vne piece de cuir boüilly, la quelle doit estre bien faultrée d'vn doigt d'espez, ou plus, par le dedans: et doit contenir la dite piece de cuir tout le sommet du heaulme, et sera couuerte la dite piece du lambrequin armoyé des armes de celuy qui le portera, et sur le dit lambrequin au plus haut du sommet, sera assis le dit Tymbre, et autour d'iceluy aura vn tortil des couleurs que voudra le Tournoyeur. "Item, et quand tous les heaulmes seront ainsi mis et ordonnez pour les departir, viendront toutes Dames et Damoiselles et tout Seigneurs, Cheualiers, et Escuyers, en les visitant d'vn bout à autre, la present les Juges, qui meneront trois ou quatre tours les Dames pour bien voir et visiter les Tymbres, et y aura vu Heraut ou poursuivant, qui dira aux Dames selon l'endroit où elles seront, le nom de ceux à qui sont les Tymbres, afin que s'il en a qui ait des Dames médit, et elles touchent son Tymbre, qu'il soit le lendemain pour recommandé." (Menêtrier, _L'Origine des Armoiries_, pp. 79-81.) Whilst one can call to mind no instance of importance of ancient date where this practice has been followed in this country, there are one or two instances in the Garter plates which approximate closely to it. The mantling of John, Lord Beaumont, is azure, semé-de-lis (as the field of his arms), lined ermine. Those of Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, and of Sir Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, are of gules, billetté or, evidently derived from the quartering for Louvaine upon the arms, this quartering being: "Gules, billetté and a fess or." According to a MS. of Vincent, in the College of Arms, the Warrens used a mantling chequy of azure and or with their arms. A somewhat similar result is obtained by the mantling, "Gules, semé of lozenges or," upon the small plate of Sir Sanchet Dabrichecourt. The mantling of Sir Lewis Robessart, Lord Bourchier, is: "Azure, bezanté, lined argent." "The azure mantling on the Garter Plate of Henry V., as Prince of Wales, is 'semé of the French golden fleurs-de-lis.'... The Daubeny mantling is 'semé of mullets.' On the brass of Sir John Wylcote, at Tew, the lambrequins are chequy.... On the seals of Sir John Bussy, in 1391 and 1407, the mantlings are barry, the coat being 'argent, three bars sable.'" There are a few cases amongst the Garter plates in which badges are plainly and unmistakably depicted upon the mantlings. Thus, on the lining of the mantling on the plate of Sir Henry Bourchier (elected 1452) will be found water-bougets, which are repeated on a fillet round the head of the crest. The Stall plate of Sir John Bourchier, Lord {390} Berners, above referred to (elected 1459), is lined with silver on the dexter side, semé in the upper part with water-bougets, and in the lower part with Bourchier knots. On the opposite side of the mantling the knots are in the upper part, and the water-bougets below. That these badges upon the mantling are not haphazard artistic decoration is proved by a reference to the monumental effigy of the Earl of Essex, in Little Easton Church, Essex. The differing shapes of the helmet, and of the coronet and the mantling, and the different representation of the crest, show that, although depicted in his Garter robes, upon his effigy the helmet, crest, and mantling upon which the earl's head there rests, and the representations of the same upon the Garter plate, are not slavish copies of the same original model. Nevertheless upon the effigy, as on the Garter plate, we find the outside of the mantling "semé of billets," and the inside "semé of water-bougets." Another instance amongst the Garter plates will be found in the case of Viscount Lovell, whose mantling is strewn with gold padlocks. Nearly all the mantlings on the Garter Stall plates are more or less heavily "veined" with gold, and many are heavily diapered and decorated with floral devices. So prominent is some of this floral diapering that one is inclined to think that in a few cases it may possibly be a diapering with floral badges. In other cases it is equally evidently no more than a mere accessory of design, though between these two classes of diapering it would be by no means easy to draw a line of distinction. The veining and "heightening" of a mantling with gold is at the present day nearly always to be seen in elaborate heraldic painting. From the Garter plates of the fourteenth century it has been shown that the colours of a large proportion of the mantlings approximated in early days to the colours of the arms. The popularity of gules, however, was then fast encroaching upon the frequency of appearance which other colours should have enjoyed; and in the sixteenth century, in grants and other paintings of arms, the use of a mantling of gules had become practically universal. In most cases the mantling of "gules, doubled argent" forms an integral part of the terms of the grant itself, as sometimes do the "gold tassels" which are so frequently found terminating the mantlings of that and an earlier period. This custom continued through the Stuart period, and though dropped officially in England during the eighteenth century (when the mantling reverted to the livery colours of the arms, and became in this form a matter of course and so understood, not being expressed in the wording of the patent), it continued in force in Lyon Office in Scotland until the year 1890, when the present Lyon King of Arms (Sir James Balfour Paul) altered the practice, and, as had earlier been done in England, {391} ordered that all future Scottish mantlings should be depicted in the livery colours of the arms, but in Scotland the mantlings, though now following the livery colours, are still included in the terms of the grant, and thereby stereotyped. In England, in an official "exemplification" at the present day of an ancient coat of arms (_e.g._ in an exemplification following the assumption of name and arms by Royal License), the mantling is painted in the livery colours, irrespective of any ancient patent in which "gules and argent" may have been _granted_ as the colour of the mantling. Though probably most people will agree as to the expediency of such a practice, it is at any rate open to criticism on the score of propriety, unless the new mantling is expressed in terms in the new patent. This would of course amount to a grant overriding the earlier one, and would do all that was necessary; but failing this, there appears to be a distinct hiatus in the continuity of authority. Ermine linings to the mantling were soon denied to the undistinguished commoner, and with the exception of the early Garter plates, it would be difficult to point to an instance of their use. The mantlings of peers, however, continued to be lined with ermine, and English instances under official sanction can be found in the Visitation Books and in the Garter plates until a comparatively recent period. In fact the relegation of peers to the ordinary livery colours for their mantlings is, in England, quite a modern practice. In Scotland, however, the mantlings of peers have always been lined with ermine, and the present Lyon continues this whilst usually making the colours of the outside of the mantlings agree with the principal colour of the arms. This, as regards the outer colour of the mantling, is not a fixed or stereotyped rule, and in some cases Lyon has preferred to adopt a mantling of gules lined with ermine as more comformable to a peer's Parliamentary Robe of Estate. In the Deputy Earl-Marshal's warrant referred to on page 375 are some interesting points as to the mantling. It is recited that "some persons under y^e degree of y^e Nobilitie of this Realme doe cause Ermins to be Depicted upon ye Lineings of those Mantles which are used with their Armes, and also that there are some that have lately caused the Mantles of their Armes to be painted like Ostrich feathers as tho' they were of some peculiar and superior degree of Honor," and the warrant commands that these points are to be rectified. The Royal mantling is of cloth of gold. In the case of the sovereign and the Prince of Wales it is lined with ermine, and for other members of the Royal Family it is lined with argent. Queen Elizabeth was the first sovereign to adopt the golden mantling, the Royal tinctures before that date (for the mantling) being gules lined ermine. The mantling of or and ermine has, of course, since that date been rigidly denied to {392} all outside the Royal Family. Two instances, however, occur amongst the early Garter plates, viz. Sir John Grey de Ruthyn and Frederick, Duke of Urbino. It is sometimes stated that a mantling of or and ermine is a sign of sovereignty, but the mantling of our own sovereign is really the only case in which it is presently so used. In Sweden, as in Scotland, the colours of the mantling are specified in the patent, and, unlike our own, are often curiously varied. The present rules for the colour of a mantling are as follows in England and Ireland:--