Page:The book of public arms, 1915.pdf/21

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PREFACE

virtue. But there are still many spurious coats of arms in use, and one cannot help wondering whether it might not be possible to put some of these right by private initiative. The chairmen of at least two County Councils paid the fees for grants of arms to their counties. The old scholars of a famous Scottish School collected the cost of a matriculation of arms. The fees on a recent grant to a famous old town were raised by private subscription. I know of a number of such cases, and would myself chcerfully subscribe to the fees for grants of arms to be made to the Boroughs of Much Wenlock, Cardigan, and Carmarthen, and to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, with all of which I have personal associations. Also would I subscribe to get the arms matriculated which have been in use by Inveraray and New Galloway. I have never been near either place, and don't know that I want to go, but the two coats of arms interest me, particularly the alleged Inveraray arms, and I want to see what Lyon King of Arms would do with them and what Ulster will do with the arms of Waterford. I never had any very high opinion of the Society of Antiquaries. But it would really give me pleasure to subscribe to a fund to get the Society a genuine coat of arms and bring to a close the scandal of its present heraldic criminality.

There are still several colonies which need Royal Warrants to be issued for the assigning of arms to them, and I would like to see arms assigned by warrant to Rhodesia, with authority for them to be placed on a monument to the memory of Cecil Rhodes, and to be borne by the Rhodes family. India and her Provinces have no arms, the City of London will not see the error of her ways; Newport, Swansea, and Carnarvon have all yet to learn righteousness. The Counties and the Episcopal Sees are hotbeds of heraldic iniquity.

In twenty years one's friends and correspondents change, and the list of those to whom herein I make my acknowledgments of indebtedness for assistance is a different list from the one which figured in my first edition. To those whose names I then gave my indebtedness still remains, and is remembered with gratitude for the help which then enabled me to call this book into being.

A. C. FOX-DAVIES