no doubt originally given to the chief or principal officer, who presided over the heralds of a kingdom, or some principal province, which heraldic writers formerly termed marches; or else the title was conferred upon the officer of arms attendant upon some particular order of knighthood. Garter King of Arms, who is immediately attached to that illustrious order, is likewise Principal King of Arms, and these, although separate and distinct offices, are and have been always united in one person. Upon the revival and new modelling of the Order of the Bath, in the reign of George the First, a King of Arms was created and attached to it, by the title of Bath King of Arms; and King George III., upon the institution of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order of Knighthood, annexed to that order a King of Arms, by the appellation of Hanover. At the time of the creation of his office, Bath King of Arms was given Wales as his province, the intention being that he should rank with the others, granting arms in his own province, but he was not, nor was Hanover, nor is the King of Arms of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, a member (as such) of the corporation of the College of Arms. The members of that corporation considered that the gift of the province of Wales, the jurisdiction over which they had previously possessed, to Bath King was an infringement of their chartered privileges. The dispute was referred to the law officers of the Crown, whose opinion was in favour of the corporate body.
Berry in his Encyclopædia Heraldica further remarks: "The Kings of Arms of the provincial territories have the titles of Clarenceux and Norroy, the jurisdiction of the former extending over the south, east, and west parts of England, from the river Trent southwards; and that of the latter, the remaining part of the kingdom northward of that river. Kings of Arms have been likewise assigned other provinces over different kingdoms and dominions, and besides Ulster King of Arms for Ireland, and Lyon King of Arms for Scotland, others were nominated for particular provinces abroad, when united to the Crown of England, such as Aquitaine, Anjou, and Guyenne, who were perhaps at their first creation intended only for the services of the places whose titles they bore, when the same should be entirely subdued to allegiance to the Crown of England, and who, till that time, might have had other provinces allotted to them, either provisionally or temporarily, within the realm of England.
There were also other Kings of Arms, denominated from the dukedoms or earldoms which our princes enjoyed before they came to the throne, as Lancaster, Gloucester, Richmond, and Leicester, the three first having marches, or provinces, and the latter a similar jurisdiction. Windsor, likewise, was a local title, but it is doubtful whether that officer was ever a King of Arms. Marche also assumed that appellation, from his provincial jurisdiction over a territory so called.
But although anciently there were at different periods several Kings of Arms in England, only two provincial Kings of Arms have, for some ages, been continued in office, viz. Clarenceux and Norroy, whose provinces or marches are, as before observed, separated by the river Trent, the ancient limits of the escheaters, when there are only two in the kingdom, and the jurisdiction of the wardens of the forests.
Norroy is considered the most ancient title, being the only one in England taken from the local situation of his province, unless Marche should be derived from the same cause. The title of Norroy was anciently written Norreys and Norreis, King of Arms of the people residing in the north; Garter being styled Roy des Anglois, of the people, and not d'Angleterre, of the kingdom, the inhabitants of the north being called Norreys,[1] as we are informed by ancient historians.
It appears that there was a King of Arms for the parts or people on the north of Trent as early as the reign of Edward I., from which, as Sir Henry Spelman observes, it may be inferred that the southern, eastern, and western parts had principal heralds, or Kings of Arms, although their titles at that early age cannot now be ascertained.
Norroy had not the title of King till after the reign of Edward II. It was appropriated to a King of Heralds, expressly called Rex Norroy, Roy d'Armes del North, Rex Armorum del North, Rex de North, and Rex Norroy du North; and the term Roy Norreys likewise occurs in the Pell Rolls of the 22nd Edward III.; but from that time till the 9th of Richard II. no farther mention is made of any such officer, from which it is probable a different person enjoyed the office by some other title during that interval, particularly as the office was actually executed by other Kings of Arms, immediately after that period. John Otharlake, Marche King of Arms, executed it in the 9th of Richard II., Richard del Brugg, Lancaster King of Arms, 1st Henry IV., and Ashwell, Boys, and Tindal, successively Lancaster Kings of Arms, until the end of that monarch's reign.
Edward IV. replaced this province under a King of Arms, and revived the dormant title of Norroy. But in the Statute of Resumptions, made 1st Henry VII., a clause was inserted that the same should not extend to John Moore, otherwise Norroy, chief Herald King of Arms of the north parts of this realm of England, so appointed by King Edward IV. by his Letters Patent, bearing date 9th July, in the eighteenth year of his reign. It has since continued without interruption.
Falcon King of Arms seems the next who had the title of King conferred upon him, and was so named from one of the Royal badges of King Edward III., and it was afterwards given to a herald and pursuivant, under princes who bore the falcon as a badge or cognisance, and it is difficult to ascertain whether this officer was considered a king, herald, or pursuivant. Froissart in 1395 calls Faucon only a herald, and in 1364 mentions this officer as a King of Arms belonging to the King of England; but it is certain that in the 18th Richard II. there was a King of Arms by that appellation, and so continued until the reign of Richard III., if not later; but at what particular period of time the officer was discontinued cannot be correctly ascertained.
Windsor has been considered by some writers to have been the title of a King of Arms, from an abbreviation in some old records, which might be otherwise translated. There is, however, amongst the Protections in the Tower of London, one granted in the 49th Edward III. to Stephen de Windesore, Heraldo Armorum rege dicto, which seems to favour the conjecture, and other records might be quoted for and against this supposition, which might have arisen through mistake in the entries, as they contradict one another.
Marche seems the next in point of antiquity of creation; but although Sir Henry Spelman says that King Edward IV. descended from the Earls of Marche, promoted Marche Herald to be a King of Arms, giving him, perhaps, the marches for his province, it is pretty clearly ascertained that it was of a more early date, from the express mention of March Rex Heraldorum and March Rex Heraldus in records of the time of Richard II., though it may be possible that it was then only a nominal title, and did not become a real one till the reign of Edward IV., as mentioned by Spelman.
Lancaster King of Arms was, as the same author informs us, so created by Henry IV. in relation to his own descent from the Lancastrian family, and the county of Lancaster assigned to him as his province; but Edmondson contends "that that monarch superadded the title of Lancaster to that of Norroy, or King of the North, having, as it may be reasonably conjectured, given this province north of Trent, within which district Lancaster was situated, to him who had been formerly his officer of arms, by the title of that dukedom, and who might, according to custom, in some instances of former ages, retain his former title and surname of heraldship, styling himself Lancaster Roy d'Armes del North."
Leicester King of Arms was a title similar to that of Lancaster, and likewise a creation to the same Sovereign, Henry IV., who was also Earl of Leicester before he assumed the crown, and was given to a person who was before that time a herald. It appears that Henry Grene was Leicester Herald, 9th King Richard II., and in the 13th of the same reign is called a Herald of the Duke of Guyen and Lancaster, but prior to the coronation of Henry IV. he was certainly a King of Heralds, and so styled in a privy seal dated antecedent to that ceremony. A similar instrument of the tenth year of that monarch's reign also mentions Henry Grene, otherwise Leicester King of
