Kathy McClurg;74260 wrote:

I periodically "google" people’s mottos to see what they mean when I don’t know the language or recognize them.  I’m wondering if folks would like to share why they chose or where their mottos come from (if "inherited").

My father’s motto, "Omnia Pro Bono" or "All things for the good" comes from a grave in Minnigaffe Churchyard in Scotland where there are arms engraved on a McClurg family tombstone.  As I explained in a thread elsewhere, McClurgs have no records of arms in Scotland, and the Scottish authority believes the gravestone is an usurption of the Murdoch Arms.  But we decided to keep it to give a nod to the earliest arms we can find associated with McClurgs and some family lore which relates us through the maternal to the Murdochs and McKies.

 

Anyone else want to share?

I don’t have a coat of arms so I’ll comment on the one Andy did recently for my dad.  Once I marry Andy he tells me that we can impale the arms.  (Kathy no funny comments on this sentence.  )  My dad is a no nonsense type of guy.  A fearless bull rider and soldier.  He’d just as well punch a joker in the nose than stand around and talk about it.  He’s not a man of many words—an honest straight shooter, could give a hoot what people think about him and he has zero tolerance for b.s.  So, he and Andy chose a very simple motto, ‘Fear Nothing’. :USA:

http://jamiesongallery.com/choward2011.html

Aquilo;88519 wrote:

Could be interesting to find out what family links lead to this ancestral Howard coat of arms ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Howard_Coat_of_Arms.JPG

 

The characteristic chapeau on top of the shield is used in England to denote peers.

This is not true.  A. C. Fox-Davies thought it should be true, and said that as of the time he was writing (1908) it was true, but he admits after a lot of fallacious reasoning based on Garter stall plates* that "About the Stuart period the granting of crests upon chapeaux became far from unusual, and the practice appears to have been frequently adopted prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century."  He goes on to caution that not all of these commoners’ chapeaux were gules turned up ermine—and then cites an 1840 grant to a peer as one of two examples of a non-gules chapeau.

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In Scotland it is the symbol of the feudal baronage ,which still exists in Scotland but has nothing to do with peerage,and is therefore particularily useful for indicating the arms of barons who ,not being peers of Parliament , are not entitled to coronets.

It was the symbol of the feudal baronage for a very short fraction (about 8%) of heraldic history and is no longer being granted for this purpose.  Moreover, this usage, which was invented by Sir Thomas Innes of Learney based on some of his usual muddled scholarship and killed by Lyon Sellar a few years ago, involved putting the chapeau directly on top of the shield and below the helm, not using it as the support for a crest.  There are a number of pre-Learney Scottish crests of non-peers that are placed upon such a chapeau, and no persuasive correlation between their use and possession of a barony.**

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I believe , there are still many descendants who are related to this particular family using this historic coat of arms.

And why not, if they are legitimate male-line descendants of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, to whom the augmentation for Flodden was granted?

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Even submitted to Wikipedia drawing was offered by someone who claims to be one.

How do you know he isn’t?

______________

* F-D reasons from the following data, drawn from W. H. St. John Hope’s 1901 book The Stall Plates of the Knights of the Order of the Garter, 1348-1485):

- 20 out of the plates described by Hope have crest chapeaux.

- 19 out of these 20 are the arms of peers

- 1 out of the 20 belongs to the heir apparent of a peer

But F-D notes that 12 of the 20 involve the use of the royal crest by close relatives of the King.  So that makes 7/8 of the non-royal peers using the chapeau.  But what of the other 66 stall plates that don’t display the chapeau?  How many of these are the arms of peers?  And since the Order of the Garter was always heavily populated by peers and almost exclusively so after the conclusion of the Hundred Years War, the failure to go outside this sample to examine the possible use of the chapeau by other English armigers makes F-D’s conclusion almost worthless. 

** The heads of the families listed probably were feudal barons, but the fact that hundreds of other feudal barons did not have their crests issuing from a chapeau negates the conclusion that its use was a distinctive mark of the baronage.

Thank you Joseph for your detailed answer , but you targeted all except the most important and intriguing issues in my post.

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And why not, if they are legitimate male-line descendants of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, to whom the augmentation for Flodden was granted?

That’s my point ,IF they are legitimate male-line descendants of Thomas Howard ,2nd Duke of Norfolk , I don’t see the problem.

Here’s point number one:

It may or may not be true that in the early heraldic centuries in England only peers and royals used the chapeau to support their crests. This was a pre-regulated period, so we can only say what was done rather than what was allowed by authority.

Whatever the early practice, from the 17th century and for at least 200 years, chapeaux were granted by authority to English commoners. At some point before 1908 this practice was stopped.

Everyone, peer or otherwise, who is a legitimate patrilineal descendant of someone who bore a crest with a chapeau before heraldry was regulated, or to whom a crest with a chapeau was granted or confirmed since then, is entitled to bear the crest with the chapeau, unless otherwise provided in the original destination of the grant. Unless, of course, he or one of his ancestors was foolish enough to go back to the College of Arms for a reexemplification since circa 1900, and the heralds deleted the chapeau at that point.

The same applies in Scotland mutatis mutandis, the mutandi being the addition of feudal barons before "otherwise," and the substitutions of "heir male," "Lyon Court," and "matriculation" for "legitimate patrilineal descendant," "College of Arms," and "reexemplification."

Here’s point number two:

I have no idea what Ce Howard’s genealogy is.  It doesn’t matter.  This is a new grant to her father.  The differences between these arms and those of the Dukes of Norfolk are more than sufficient to distinguish between strangers in blood by English heraldic norms.

Point number three:  what does any of this have to do with mottoes, which is the topic of the thread?

Joseph McMillan;88537 wrote:

The differences between these arms and those of the Dukes of Norfolk are more than sufficient to distinguish between strangers in blood by English heraldic norms.

Our discussion escaped the main topic indeed, but my interest is in this particular aspect of assuming new arms that share a substantial similarity with these historically recognized and specific for well known blood lines of ancient aristocracy.Without knowledge of the genealogy there is no way to say the difference between strangers and true descendents of the family. Just looking at very similar coats of arms you are mislead to believe that they represent ‘true’ line. As far as you know Polish heraldry ,this wouldn’t be anything surprising in our system where it’s common to use even identical arms by many non related families, but to see this in Scottish system is rather something new for me.Specially this what you called ‘substitution ’ of the legal ‘heir male’  leading to creation of mutatis mutandis artificial line is puzzling ... My question is ,what is this ‘thin red line’ that draws the clear difference between two similar coats of arms ( specially sharing identical charges on the shield) not to be considered usurpation of arms?

I saw it number of times that so called ‘Houses of names ’ are selling arms directly related to particular historical surnames .

Maybe admin of the forum could divert this ‘mutated ’ thread to more suitable place?

aquilo;88536 wrote:

thank you joseph for your detailed answer , but you targeted all except the most important and intriguing issues in my post.

 

That’s my point ,if they are legitimate male-line descendants of thomas howard ,2nd duke of norfolk , i don’t see the problem.

 

In this context ,i suggested that it could be interesting to find out what family links lead howard esquire bull rider and vietnam veteran of the native american seminole roots to this ancestral howard coat of arms of an english peer ?

Or after all your corrections to my way of reasoning - to non feudal barons?

anna drop this nonsense and leave ce alone!