Page:The book of public arms, 1915.pdf/14

Temple. At the Visitation of the County of Northampton a family of the name of Temple exhibited and claimed the familiar cross and lamb. To that family the arms were disallowed, the reason entered in the Visitation Book being, " These be the arms of the Hon. Society of the Middle Temple." But there is no proper record of these arms to the Middle Temple, or of any of the arms of the Inns of Court, for the Inns of Court, not being Corporate Bodies, were not in the seventeenth century regarded as competent either to bear arms or receive a grant of arms. More recent precedents may have altered this, but in view of the facts, what is the value, as a determining factor of right or no right, of that entry in the Visitation of the County of Northampton? 1 hold it is entirely negligible, but 1 am bound to add that a distinguished officer of arms has expressed to me the contrary opinion. I may perhaps add that this uncertainty does not arise as to personal arms. The officers of arms had powers of compulsion which they could and did apply to the individuals they summoned to attend them at the Visitations. The lists of "disclaimers" show how they did their work. I have never seen the name of a Corporate Body in the list of "disclaimers," and on that I base my belief in their exemption from compulsory appearance. There has, of course, in bygone days quite as much as in modern times, been the home-made manufacture of coat-armour, but there has been an additional factor in respect of the arms of impersonal corporations. There has always been the desire to do honour to and to perpetuate the memory of the founder by the adoption of his arms. It is a highly laudable sentiment in the abstract, but in operative fact it is illegal. Suppose a School to commemorate its founder, the last Earl of X———, were to style itself "The Earldom of X———" It would not be allowed a vote in the House of Lords. In the same way it would have no right to the arms of the Earl, which were probably granted by Patent with as definitely specified and as well understood a remainder as was his Peerage.

But there are scores of Colleges, Schools, and other institutions which are sinning in this way, and as the use of the arms in many such cases goes back for a prolonged period, and as practically every such body so circumstanced before the Visitations was "allowed" the arms of the founder, I feel practically certain that if one joint petition were lodged by all the Schools and Colleges so circumstanced at the moment, praying that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to issue His Royal Licence that they might continue to use the arms of their founders, that such a petition would be granted. There is, however, the further difficulty-eg. the case of Harrow School -that in some cases the founders themselves had no right at all to the arms attributed to them. And I fancy a Royal Licence would hardly be granted in such a case as Shrewsbury, where the founder was a king, and the use of the Royal Arms would therefore be involved.

But Dulwich College and Charterhouse are cases in which I feel pretty certain a Royal Licence would be granted if it were applied for.

Grants of arms are never made in the ordinary way to Colonies. The arms of a Colony or of a self-governing Dominion are assigned by Royal Warrant under the Sign Manual of the Sovereign. Though there are certain fees payable upon the issue of such a warrant, it is nobody's business to initiate the application