A Book of English Heraldry (1589)

[JMcMillan]

The problem is that the arms tell and are based on a genealogical lie.

If the case were that the Spencers reasonably believed themselves to be descended from the Le Despenser earls of Winchester and Gloucester but either didn't know for sure or couldn't prove it, then making these minor changes to the old arms--differencing them for indeterminate cadency, as the Scots would say--would be fine. But there was in fact no reason to suppose the Spencers to have descended from the Le Despensers. They had no such tradition in the family and were happily using arms of a completely different design. Moreover, as far as anyone knew at the time or knows today, the Le Despensers had been extinct in the male line for over 100 years until Lee came along to fix the unrelated Spencers up with something grander than what they had. The process was not, "oops, this design I've got looks an awful lot like the old arms of Le Despenser, I'd better make some changes to make it okay." Arms already existed that made the lack of a relationship absolutely clear. It was, "I'm going to make this family a cadet branch of the old Le Despensers; now what can I add as a mark of difference for a cadet line?"

Lee knew perfectly well that the design he granted screams of a genealogical connection between the medieval magnates and the newly-risen family of successful sheep farmers. That was the whole point. X number of changes may suffice to differentiate one coat of arms from another for purposes of avoiding duplication in a new grant, but if I take "Azure a bend Or" and add a bordure with eight stars on it (that would be nine differences, by Chas's method of counting), it still screams "Scrope," especially if my name happens to be Scroope.

Obviously it would be too troublesome for the kings of arm to fix things now, but refusing to acknowledge the offense out of fear of embarrassment is unworthy of a serious institution.

[Chas Charles-Dunne]

(that would be nine differences, by Chas's method of counting)

Not my method of counting, but rather the method put forward to me by Sir Henry Paston-Bedingfeld (known as Young Henry to his friends), while he was Norroy and Ulster King at Arms.

[Chas Charles-Dunne]

We accept it quite happily north of the border.

Someone called Campbell, from anywhere in the world, if petitioning for arms from Lord Lyon will receive some form of gyronny Sable and Or.

[Chris Green]

Someone called Campbell, from anywhere in the world, if petitioning for arms from Lord Lyon will receive some form of gyronny Sable and Or.

A system that works - just - in Scotland would never have worked in England where there was never a system of clans. No-one south of the border would seriously suggest that everyone with the surname Spencer is related, or entitled to Spencer arms duly differenced, any more than I might claim to be related to all the Sussex Greens and sprung from the loins of the Grene named in Domesday Book as holding Cokeham in West Sussex from King Harold.