Arms query

[Cameron Campbell]

The arms are "Or, a lion rampant Az., quartered with Ar., 3 trefoils, slipped Sa." The arms in 1st and 4th are Redvers, long extinct in the male line, now merged with the Courtenay arms. The arms in 2nd and 3rd are unknown to me. Would anyone here at IAAH know these arms?

This COA is supposed to be a Courtenay family arms, and I assume from a cadet line. But I am actually not all that certain about the provenance. Especially since Redvers is in the 1st quarter.

Thank you for any help.

[Chris Green]

Or a Lion Rampant Azure were the arms of the de Redver Earls of Devon, but also of the de Percys. The Caerlaverock Roll of Arms (1300) confirms Henry de Percy, 1st Baron Percy as bearing those arms. But William de Redvers, 5th Earl of Devon, may have born those arms a hundred years earlier.

Argent three Trefoils slipped Sable were the arms of Champion (Berkshire) according to Parker's "Heraldry", or of Westley according to Newton's "Armorial Register", or of Payn according to Payne's "Armorial of Jersey".

The Courtenays bore Or three Torteaux or Or three Torteaux a Label of three points Azure. The 1st Earl (1485 creation) bore Courtenay Q1/Q4 de Redvers Q2/Q3 according to his Garter stall plate. But the Courtenays and the de Redvers were never allied by marriage. They inherited the Earldom of Devon from a distant de Redvers cousin.

[Arthur Radburn]

Burke's General Armory gives 'Argent three trefoils slipped Sable' as the arms of (1) Champion (of Berkshire and Essex) and (2) Payn (of Norman origin). Do either of those names make senses in this context?

[Cameron Campbell]

Mr. Radburn,
I don’t really know how to answer your question. Here’s the story: I’ve done business with Armorial Gold in the past (and would in the future). One of the benefits of being a customer of AG is access to a searchable blazon database by surname. I did a search for Courtenay/Courtney and one of the blazons that came up was the quartered COA in post#1 of this thread. I noticed that 1/4 of that COA was Redvers, but I did not know the arms in 2/3. I wondered why a quartered Redvers COA was being displayed in a Courtenay family search, and since my geneology/heraldry library is limited, I decided to ask IAAH.

When informed that the arms in 2/3 could be the Champion or Payne family, it began to make more sense. Champion was/is a south England family and Payne is of the Channel islands, so those families could have been acquainted with the Redvers since they were in Devon.

Of course this doesn’t explain why a Redvers blazon is in a Courtenay family search, but I figure it’s just a mistake by the Armorial Gold folks who maintain that database.

Thank you.

[Chris Green]

Of course this doesn’t explain why a Redvers blazon is in a Courtenay family search, but I figure it’s just a mistake by the Armorial Gold folks who maintain that database.

I thought I had explained the de Redvers/Courtenay connection!

[Cameron Campbell]

You did. It just seems to me that the Redvers/Champion-Payne COA should appear in a Redvers search.