The 107th edition of Burke’s Peerage & Baronetage describes Henry Robert Ferguson as the illegitimate son of Robert Ferguson of Raith.  On 22nd March 1823, he married Frances Juliana, daughter of Sir John Davie, 8th Baronet, of Creedy, and niece and heiress of Sir Humphrey Davie, 10th and last Baronet, of Creedy.  (Her eldest brother, Sir John Davie 9th Bt, died unmarried in 1824 and her other brother, William, died in 1822.) On 9th February 1846 he assumed by Royal license the additional surname and Arms of Davie and the following year the baronetcy held by his wife’s family was revived when he was created a Baronet, of Creedy in the County of Devon on 9 January 1847. The hatchment does differ from the modern blazon and is probably also incorrect in its background colours.

Arms (Hatchment):  Quarterly 1st & 4th Argent a chevron Sable between three mullets pierced Gules 2nd Azure three cinquefoils two and one Or upon a chief of the last a lion passant Gules 3rd three cinquefoils two and one Or on a canton Argent [details are not clear] in centre point the Badge of Ulster.

Impaling: Argent a chevron between three mullets Gules.

Arms (modern):  Quarterly 1st & 4th Argent a chevron Sable between three mullets pierced Gules 2nd & 3rd Azure three cinquefoils two and one Or upon a chief of the last a lion passant Gules  in centre point the Badge of Ulster.

Crest: A pascal lamb reguardant Gules.

Motto:  ”Auspice Christo”  (Under the auspices of Christ)

Sir Henry Robert Ferguson Davie died 30th November 1885 with his wife predeceasing him on 12th April 1882.  On that basis the right hand half of the hatchment, representing his wife’s Arms, should  also have been painted black.

A couple of weekends ago I was in Salisbury with the family and I re-visited the Parish Church of St Thomas and St Edmund.  My first visit was a bit of a failure because my digital camera died on me.  However, this time armed with my new camera and in the company of my father-in-law I had more success.

As a interim step I have uploaded some of the pictures to photobucket.  The link below will take you to the gallery via the main website.

The Arms seem to be those of Vessey:

Arms: Ermine on a cross Sable five martlets Or

Crest: An arm embowed and couped at the shoulder erect from the elbow habited Gules cuffed ermine holding in the hand proper four leaves Vert.

The hatchment was made by Winsor & Newton of London and is just 14 inches by 14 inches which is somewhat smaller that the usual.  I could not find it listed in the Hatchments of Britain.  These last two factors might indicate it was a “sample”.

Edward Langford of Trungle b.1730 d.1781

In the Parish Church of Paul in Cornwall there is the Hatchment of Edward Langford.  He married Elizabeth,  daughter of Frederick Dansey Esq. of Plymouth Dock, Devon.

The hatchment:

Paly of six Argent and Gules on a chief Azure a lion passant guardant Or (Langford).

Impaling

Per pale Argent and Or a fesse nebulee Gules between three lions’ heads erased of the last (Dansey)

In the late Middle Ages up until the 20th century funeral hatchments were used to proclaim the death of a member of a titled or landed family and were emblazoned with the arms of the deceased person. The custom of displaying coats of arms in connection with funerals dates from the early days of heraldry, but the diamond shaped canvas in a wooden frame -the hatchment – was apparently introduced into Britain, from Holland, around the time of the Restoration. The word itself is a corruption of achievement, which means a coat of arms with all its appropriate accessories, such as helmet, crest, mantling and so on. Hatchments remained in fashion for about two hundred years. During the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, their use was general among the titled and landed classes. Normally, they remained hanging on a house front for about a year after a funeral. After the funeral these hatchments were hung in the church. While some of these memorials were temporary, others were permanent, and were mainly aimed at maintaining the status quo- the chief weapon in the armory of status being heraldry. On early memorials, in stone or brass, enameled or carved, the heraldry included was limited to the bearer’s own personal shield and crest.

Over time the place of burial began to be used as a platform upon which the nobility could show off not only the arms of their own family, but also those to whom they were united through marriage. With the arrival of the Renaissance the grand monuments of the aristocracy had expanded to include a series of shields for family marriages, often borne by figures such as angels and mythical creatures such as griffins and dragons. The offspring of the deceased were also often depicted on the tombs, kneeling with shields for boys and lozenges (diamond shape) for girls. The canopies and sides of the tombs were used to support a display of heraldry. Death itself could be called upon to support the shield, or sometimes the shield of the deceased might be shown upside-down. In Italy, Portugal and Spain, gravestones often bear fully colored arms of the deceased executed in pietra dura, an inlaying technique using a variety of colored stones, but in most countries they tend to be carved in local stone and uncolored. While in Britain the flat stones set into the floors of many parish churches bear the arms of the deceased only, in Germany, Belgium and Holland they often bear a series of shields down the sides of the stone, those on the left for the father’s side, those on the right for the mother’s side.

As noted previously Coats of Arms played a large part in the tombs of the deceased in the Middle Ages. Another instance of this particular usage can be found on the brasses on the floor of many churches and cathedrals. In the medieval and early modern periods in particular, monumental brasses and incised slabs were popular forms of monuments or memorials used to cover the tombs of those buried inside churches. An incised slab is a flat memorial with an effigy of the deceased, a cross or Coat of Arms, with epitaph, cut directly into the stone; they originated before the Norman Conquest. A monumental brass, by contrast, is engraved on sheets of metal inlaid in matrices cut into the stone; they have been made in England from the thirteenth century to the present day.

The earliest known example of English Brass is the brass of Sir John D’Abernon at St. Mary’s, Stoke D’Abernon which dates from 1277.The D’Abernons came to England as retainers to the Clare family, who served William the Conqueror. For their part in the Conquest the Clares were given lands in Surrey and Sussex some of which they passed on to their followers. At first the D’Abernons had two manors, one in Molesey and one in Albury. Later they acquired the Manor of Stoke and went to live there, giving it the name of Stoke D’Abernon.Three knights called John D’Abernon, are buried in Stoke D’Abernon Church. The Brass is question, see image above, shows the knight in chain mail armor and bearing his Coat of Arms on a shield Azure a chevron or ( a gold chevron on a blue field).Tombs brasses and hatchments, these were the honors of the dead, their epitaphs being the Coats of Arms displayed thereon. These nobles lived on through the depiction of their arms in their final resting places and these arms have in many cases endured to the present day.