FORTY-FOUR

[CHIFFINCH, Thomas (1600–1666); WALKER, Sir Edward (1611-1677)]. Fine 17th-Century Grant of Arms subjects were rewarded for their fidelity. One such was Thomas Chiffinch who, we learn from this grant of arms, “served & attended his Sacred Matie. even from his Infancy” as “one of the Pages of his Maties. Bed Chamber”. Having “served all the time of his Exile in Forraigne parts, & returned unto England with his Matie.”, Chiffinch was promoted to “Keeper of his Private Clossett, & Comptroller of the Excise”, and granted the “Coate of Armes & Creast” detailed here.

[Circa 1664]. Single skin (515 x 393 mm). Vellum. Fine and clean condition but lacks the seal. The colours are bright and crisp, including the gold, which is uniformly bright.

This grant, confirming a new patent which could be passed to his “Heires & Descendants of his Body for ever”, was issued in 1664 (not 1644 as stated by Westminster Abbey, ODNB, Wikipedia, etc where it is also wrongly recorded as granted by Charles I, rather than by “our Soveraigne Lord Charles the Second”, a fact confirmed by Foster1). It includes additional information and a more flowing description than appears in the abridged patent and in printed heraldic works (Guillim gives a shortened version; Papworth only records the slightly later shield which was differenced to silver for Thomas’ brother, William, and the Crest does not appear in Fairbairn) which usually repeat the abridged notes found in early printed or manuscript works (Add. MSS 14,293 and 14,249).

The iconography is intriguing and raises many questions. The “Coate of Armes” are: “Or. on a Chiefe Imbatled Gules three Leopards heads, Or, Langued Azure”. Leopards are regarded as a royal emblem and, according to Guillim, “the head […] in heraldry is considered the most honourable member”. The colours red and gold (“Gules” and “Or”) often have royal associations, so may refer to his long and close connections to Charles II. The “chiefe imbatled”, also an unusual choice, may be a remark on his loyalty during the recently concluded “time of Warr”. The “Creaste” is similarly enigmatic: “upon a Helmet Proper Mantled Gules, Doubled Argent, & Wreath of Colours. A Demy Drago Gules holding in the Dexter Paw a Key Argent”, which, for those unacquainted with heraldry’s obfuscatory language, is illustrated “As in the Margent hereof more lively depicted”

The beautifully painted dragon is something of a mystery, but the key (associated with Saint Peter’s keys to heaven, and more widely with knowledge) probably refers to his new office (“Keeper of his Private Clossett, & Comptroller of the Excise”).

The grantee, “Thomas Cheffinch” (i.e. Chiffinch), was born at Salisbury, Wiltshire and “was brought to the court of Charles I by Brian Duppa, bishop of Salisbury, in 1641” (ODNB). He became a dependable courtier and royal official who “was trusted fully in delicate money matters, and he seems to have been worthy of the confidence reposed in him.”2 Following the execution of Charles I, he accompanied the future Charles II into exile in France. In 1663 Charles granted Chiffinch, jointly with Thomas Ross, the office of receiver-general of the revenues from the foreign plantations in America and Africa.

Chiffinch died in Whitehall on 6 April 1666. The royal court were shocked and saddened by the event, and Samuel Pepys shuddered at the memento mori:

“He was well last night as ever, playing at tables [backgammon] in the house and not very ill this morning 6 aclock; yet dead before 7 they think, of an imposthume in his breast. But it looks fearfully among people now a days, the plague, as we hear, increasing everywhere again.”3

The grant was issued by Sir Edward Walker (1612-1677), a highly regarded herald who began his career in 1633 in service of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, through whose recommendation he was appointed Blanch Lyon pursuivant-extraordinary in 1635. He was promoted through the College of Arms, becoming Garter in 1645 and receiving a the same year.The grant is signed “Edw: Walker, Garter”, without a countersignature, perhaps reflective of the eminence he regained after 1660.

Sir Edward also merits a footnote in the after-history of William Shakespeare. As ODNB notes: “On 18 May 1675 Walker bought for £1060 from the surviving trustee of Elizabeth, Lady Barnard, William Shakespeare's grandchild and heir, a house called New Place in Stratford upon Avon, which had been the poet's last home. However, he does not seem to have lived there”4 – so perhaps the purchase was intended simply to burnish his own pedigree by association, as so many heraldic works are designed to do.

£2,800 Ref: 8162

1. Foster Joseph; Ryland, W. Harry Rylands. Grantees of arms named in docquets and patents to the end of the seventeenth century. p.50 (2016).

2. < https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-5280? rskey=GnI6Xw&result=2>

3. Ibid.

4. < https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-28475? rskey=XTf5qe&result=2>

I specialise in interesting and unusual manuscripts and antiquarian books that record their histories as material forms, through the shaping of objects and the traces left on the surface, by the conscious and unconscious acts of their creators and users.