MEMORIALS OF THE PAST

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 9

MEMORIALS OF THE PAST

“DUKE, OF MARMALADE.” Armorial bearings of the Duke of Marmalade and the Count of Lemonade —one-time pillars of the world’s strangest nobility—were among the rare historical exhibits at the Heralds' Commemorative Exhibition recently held here at the College of Arms, states the London correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor.” The exhibition was held to celebrate the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the granting of a Royal Charter to the Heralds by Richard 111. And for the first time hi these four centuries the public have been allowed to view the treasures of history which the college has so long guarded. The “Due de la Marmalade” and the “Comte de Lemonade” wore real people. Their titles show the singular taste of the negro leader Henri Christophe, who, born a slave, eventually crowned himself King of Haiti in 1811, and elevated ninety of his dark subjects to the peerage to lend honour and dignity to the throne. As the titles have not survived, the arms, set forth in the “Armorial General du Royaume d’Hayti” which is in the possession of the British Heralds, present an almost unique relic of this strange aristocracy, founded by a negro who raised himself from slavery to become first a President and then a King. King Henri Christophe created six princes, eight dukes, 20 counts, 41 barons, and 11 chevaliers. Honour was “to be their distinguishing character,” and their resolution, devotion, and fidelity, was to be “unbounded.” The symbols and mottoes which were chosen for the nobles were intended to sum up the recipients’ chief characteristics. For example?" the Due de' L’Artibonite had subscribed beneath his shield “11l s’eleve par sa valeur,” and beneath the owl of wisdom of the Baron de J. La Tortue was inscribed the single word “Integre.” Baron de Beliard had as his arms a watering can and a rake, supported by chameleons rampant. His motto, “Useful.in more ways than one,” suggests that lie was probably as clever a statesman us he was a gardener. The exhibition was full of such visual evidence of the curious, the tragic, the romantic, and the heroic. Written on the fly-leaf at the back of an old book was a description of an eye-witness who had been present when the skeletons of the Princes in the Tower were unearthed. Then, too, there was Nelson’s pedigree, signed by Nelson, with his left hand. On a magnificent strip of vellum the family tree of the. Saxon kings is displayed. The compiler of this record spared himself no pains and traced the kings right back to Adam, who, he asserts, “dyede of ye gowte.” But even the pedigree, drawn to the ultimate conclusion, is not as large as the chart of the first Earl of Carberry. This might well have been used in lieu of a tapestry on the 1 castle walls.

The scroll of Heskets of Rufford lias been adapted to fit a book, which it fills quite amply.

Another large illuminated roll portrays in detail the preliminary events and subsequent proceedings of a jousting tournament in which Henry VIII appears to have played a considerable part.

KEEPING THE SCORE. Aniong the relics of the jousting age is a score book showing the number of hits registered by the combatants. In this book the score was kept by making a mark in the square of the competitor concerned for every hit registered. It was part of a herald’s duty to keep the score at tournaments, with the result that the book contains magnificent coloured pictures of the arms of the competitors. Of particular interest to visitors from the United States was a picture of the Herald’s proclaiming the Peace of Versailles in 1783, whereby the independence of the American colonies was recognised by the Mother Country. Some visitors seemed surprised that among the exhibits were arms accorded as late as 1932. These were the arms of Barnes, the town which flanks the Thames opposite Hammersmith. These arms include two racing oars, coloured respectively with the dark blue of Oxford University and the light blue of Cambridge. Officers of the college present at the exhibition explained that although there was a touch of the romantic and. medieval about titles such as. Garter King-at-Arms, Earl Marshal, Somerset Herald, and Rouge Dragon Poursuivant. the Heralds still performed important functions even to-day. One official declared that Heralds were indispensable to students of the Middle Ages, as well as to artists and genealogists. Further, lie said, crests and arms were still granted, and honours, of which the Heralds were the guardians, were allocated every year. “The granting of the Charter in J. 484 does not mean that at that lime heraldry was a rising craft,” the official declared. “It was an established craft. How long it had been established it is impossible to say. It is only certain . that the idea of hereditary armorial bearings was suddenly taken up by nobles of western Europe in the eleventh century. But the germ of that idea went back further than Roman or even Greek history, in which warriors carried symbols on their shields. In all probability it can be correctly traced both to the totem poles of the Aztecs and to the standards of the tribes in the days of the Israelites.”