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Armorial   Listen
adjective
Armorial  adj.  Belonging to armor, or to the heraldic arms or escutcheon of a family. "Figures with armorial signs of race and birth."
Armorial bearings. See Arms, 4.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Armorial" Quotes from Famous Books



... prevaricated on his examination, and behaved with great contempt of their authority. The duke of Ormond and lord viscount Bolingbroke having omitted to surrender themselves within the limited time, the house of lords ordered the earl-marshal to raze out of the list of peers their names and armorial bearings. Inventories were taken of their personal estates; and the duke's achievements, as knight of the garter, were taken down from St. George's chapel at Windsor. A man of candour cannot, without an emotion of grief and indignation, reflect upon the ruin of the noble family of Ormond, in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... benediction, and relinquished his grasp. No sooner did I fairly find myself on the right side of the barricade, than, all my terrors overcome by pain, I seized an inkstand and discharged it point blank at the fleecy curls of the ferulafer with an unlucky fatality of aim! Mr Root's armorial bearings were now, at least, on his crest, blanche ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... gloom below, by wandering over its quaint devices and gaudy hues. It is divided into three longitudinal departments, panelled with richly-carved oak; and at each intersection of the divisions of the compartments with the cross-beams, there is emblazoned a shield armorial, with ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... slept so long, and raise their heads in the sunlight; the drawbridge slide on its hinges, and men-at-arms in dazzling cuirasses pass and repass behind the battlements. You should sit beside me as my chatelaine, in the great hall, under a canopy emblazoned with armorial bearings, the centre of a brilliant retinue of ladies in waiting, archers and varlets. You should be the dove ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... the master of Les Aigues), had made four rooms out of the space. First, an ante-chamber, at the farther end of which was a winding wooden staircase, behind which came the kitchen; on either side of the antechamber was a dining-room and a parlor panelled in oak now nearly black, with armorial bearings in the divisions of the ceilings. The architect chosen by Madame de Montcornet for the restoration of Les Aigues had taken care to put the furniture of this room in keeping with its ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... it, filled me with unaccountable terror. Never since I was a mere infant have I been within it till to-day, and yet it was quite familiar to me—horribly familiar. I knew the hall in which we stood together, with its huge arched fireplace, and the armorial bearings upon it, and could point out the stone on which were carved my father's initials 'R.N.,' with the date '1572.' I knew the tapestry on the walls, and the painted glass in the long range windows. I knew the old oak staircase, and the gallery beyond it, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... is an extended application of this art, the arms and crests of persons or families being emblazoned in their proper colours according to the rules of heraldry, and prepared for Decalcomanie. Armorial bearings, thus embellished, serve admirably to ornament and identify the books of a library and pictures of a gallery, to decorate menus for dinner, the invitations to a soiree, &c. By their brilliant colours they give an elegant effect to the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy—while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this—I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... that Cherry preferred Lance and her crutch; advancing to the door opposite that by which they had entered, he unlocked it, and Geraldine found herself passing through a beauteous old lofty chamber, with a groined Tudor roof, all fans, and pendants, and shields; tall windows stained with armorial bearings, parchment charters and blazoned genealogies against the walls, and screens upon screens loaded with tomes of all ages, writing-tables and chairs here and there, and glass-topped tables containing illuminations ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... difficulty of interpretation in the normal state of consciousness a symbol may be cited which was seen in the crystal for Miss X. "A shield, and a lion rampant thereon, in red." Now this might mean anything. It suggests the armorial bearings of a princely family. The lion rampant might mean the anger of a person in authority, as the lion is the avowed king of beasts. Its colour, red, and its attitude are naturally expressive of anger. The shield ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial

... ago Claudine drove to La Palferine's door in her splendid carriage with its armorial bearings. Du Bruel's grandfather was a farmer of taxes ennobled towards the end of Louis Quatorze's reign. Cherin composed his coat-of-arms for him, so the Count's coronet looks not amiss above a scutcheon innocent of Imperial ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac

... do and bear, Assured in right, and mailed in prayer, Thou wilt not bow thee to despair, Carolina! Throw thy bold banner to the breeze! Front with thy ranks the threatening seas, Like thine own proud armorial trees, Carolina! Fling down thy gauntlet to the Huns, And roar the challenge from thy guns; Then leave the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... the coffin was put in the hearse, two empty carriages, with the armorial bearings of the Comte de Restaud and the Baron de Nucingen, arrived and followed in the procession to Pere-Lachaise. At six o'clock Goriot's coffin was lowered into the grave, his daughters' servants ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... Miguel Lopez de Legaspi succumbed to the fatigues of his arduous life, leaving behind him a name which will always hold a prominent place in Spanish colonial history. He was buried in Manila in the Augustine Chapel of San Fausto, where hung the Royal Standard and the hero's armorial bearings until the British troops occupied the city in 1763. A street in Manila and others in provincial towns bear his name. Near the Luneta Esplanade, Manila, there is a very beautiful Legaspi (and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... the characters who come up to my notion of perfect chivalry, or rather of Christian perfection. I am making a book of true knights. I copy their portraits when I can find them, and write the names of those whose likenesses I cannot get. I paint their armorial bearings over them when I can find out what they are, and I have a great red cross in ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... which is shown on the third quarter; that on the left, a wyvern argent, also gorged with a coronet, from which depends a long gold chain, is that of the Parr family. The wyvern is a piece of blue silk, finished in gold and silver cords, in applique. The gold cord enclosing the armorial design is amplified at each corner into an arabesque scroll. The book has been most unfortunately rebound, and the work is badly strained in consequence—the back being entirely new; nevertheless it is in a wonderful state of preservation. It is said to have been worked ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport

... be impossible to describe all the luxuries. Among them a boar's head was seen, highly ornamented, while on either side were two peacocks, the feathers of their tails spread out, while on their necks hung two golden grasshoppers, the armorial bearings of the host. The peacocks, which had been roasted, and covered with the yolk of eggs, after having cooled, had been sewed into their skins, and thus looked almost as if they were alive. There were two pair of cocks which had been roasted, and then covered, one with ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... doubtless alludes to the House of Hanover, the principal charge on whose armorial bearings ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... sufficed to cover the gilding and armorial bearings upon the chair. The torches were still burning on the ground. One of these was stamped out. Desmond took the other. Mike and O'Sullivan went between the poles, and adjusted the leathern straps ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... Castle Melancholia Detail from "The Agony in the Garden" Angel with Sudarium The Small Horse The Great Fortune, or Nemesis Silver-point Drawing St. Michael and the Dragon Detail from "The Meeting at the Golden Gate" Detail from "The Nativity" Duerer's Armorial Bearings Christ haled before Annas The Last Supper Saint Antony, Metal Engraving "In the Eighteenth Year" ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... studies at the University of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice which looked not unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings of a family long since extinct. The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great poem of his country, recollected that one of the ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, had been pictured by Dante ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... centupled in its value, by the eminence of the persons from whom it came. I would hang it round my neck by a string of pearls, and when I came into the presence of knights and of ladies, I would proclaim that this addition to my achievement of armorial distinction, was bestowed by the renowned Count Robert of Paris, and his unequalled lady." The Knight and the Countess looked on each other, and the lady, taking from her finger a ring of pure gold, prayed the old man to accept of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... the black oak of the country, and a few other articles, of a fashion so antique, and of ornaments so ingenious and rich, as to announce that they had been transported from beyond sea. Above the mantel were suspended the armorial bearings of the Heathcotes and the Hardings, elaborately emblazoned ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the body at the bottom of the breastplate, and of the elegant manner of twisting the hanging sword belt, pendant from the military girdle, round the upper part of the sword." The head of the figure reposes on a helmet, a lion couches at his feet. Armorial bearings appear on shields at the sides of the tomb. (See ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White

... Perrots seem to have set great store by their armorial bearings: at least we are told that two branches of them lived at Northleigh at the same time in the eighteenth century, hardly on speaking terms with each other, and that one cause of quarrel was a difference of opinion as to whether the three 'pears'—which, in punning ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... they entered; and though the window rose to the cornice of the ceiling, and took up one side of the apartment, the daylight was subdued by the heaviness of the stonework in which the narrow panes were set, and by the glass stained with armorial bearings in the upper part of the casement. The bookcases, too, were of the dark oak which so much absorbs the light; and the gilding, formerly meant to relieve ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... name was usually a patronymic, expressive of his descent from the founder of the family. Thus the Duke of Argyll is called MacCallum More, or the son of Colin the Great. Sometimes, however, it is derived from armorial distinctions, or the memory of some great feat; thus Lord Seaforth, as chief of the Mackenzies, or Clan-Kennet, bears the epithet of Caber-fae, or Buck's Head, as representative of Colin Fitzgerald, founder of the family, who saved the Scottish king, when endangered ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... 1235 the Emperor Frederick had sent the King three leopards, in allusion to the royal armorial bearings ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... poised on one leg, and a vacant though good-humored eye, he appeared to attend some beck of authority ere he quitted the spot. A silken jacket, in whose tissue flowers of the gayest colors were interwoven, the falling collar of scarlet, the bright velvet cap with armorial bearings embroidered on its front, proclaimed him to be a gondolier ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... illustrious in France from time immemorial. Generation after generation, many of its members had obtained renown, not only for chivalric courage, but for every virtue which can adorn humanity. Their ancestral home was a massive feudal castle on an eminence near the stately city of Leon. The armorial bearing of the family commemorates deeds of heroic enterprise five hundred years ago. They ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... similar pieces of panel-work exist in other parts of the Abbey, in all of which are to be seen the Christian lady and her Saracen guardian or lover. At the bottom of these sculptures are emblazoned the armorial bearings of the Byrons. ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... any of your correspondents inform me what were the arms, crest, and motto (if any), borne by Sir John Davies, the eminent lawyer and poet? In a collection which I have made of the armorial bearings of the families of Davies, Davis, and Davys, amounting to more than fifty distinct coats, there occur the arms of three Sir John Davies or Davys, but there is nothing to distinguish which of them was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various

... Eighth then occupied the papal chair, of the family of the Barbarini, nicknamed the Mosche, or Flies, from the circumstance of bees being their armorial bearing. The Emperor having exhausted all his money in endeavouring to defend the church against Gustavus Adolphus, the great King of Sweden, who was bent on its destruction, applied in his necessity to the Pope for a loan of money. The Pope, however, and his relations, whose cellars were at ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... window-sills, one above the other, light up the gloom with many a patch of vivid green. You venture down some dim passage and come suddenly upon a little court where an old Gothic portal with quaint sculptures, or a Renaissance doorway with armorial bearings carved over the lintel, bears testimony to the grandeur and wealth of those who once lived in the now grimy, dilapidated, poverty-stricken mansion. Pretentious dwellings of bygone days have long since been abandoned ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... sympathise. Monmouth Square had been the name while the fortunes of the Duke of Monmouth flourished; and on the southern side towered his mansion. The front, though ungraceful, was lofty and richly adorned. The walls of the principal apartments were finely sculptured with fruit, foliage, and armorial bearings, and were hung with embroidered satin. [114] Every trace of this magnificence has long disappeared; and no aristocratical mansion is to be found in that once aristocratical quarter. A little way north from Holborn, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... don't you?" It seemed almost sufficient that a man should belong to the Temple for L'Estrange to find him admirable. The dinners in hall were especially delightful. Between the courses he looked in admiration on the portraits and old oak carvings, and the armorial bearings, and would tell how one bencher had been debarred from election as treasurer because he had, on three occasions, attended dinner without partaking of any food. Such an insult to the kitchen could not be forgiven. L'Estrange ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... Mirror, Sagittarius wishes to know the name of the person whose armorial bearings are emblazoned at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various

... visit, when going to open one of the top drawers in his chamber, he found it sealed, and observed on the black wax the impress of an eagle. It was a large seal. Hardly crediting his eyes, it appeared to be the armorial eagle of Poland, surmounted by its regal crown. Nay, it seemed an impression of the very seal which had belonged to his royal ancestor, John Sobieski, and which was appended to the watch of his grandfather when he was robbed of it on his first ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... must have so much more in common? He might be the equal of the best of them in blood and the superior of many, but his life had not been of the order to equip him with those minor but essential and armorial arts, that assured ease and distinction, possessed by men not only born into the best society but bred in it, and who had lived on their background, not on their nerves. To be "born" is not enough. It is long association that counts, and the "air" may ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... longed to lift the lid and spy among its contents the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying there in state. I dared not ask to have the cover raised for my gratification, as I had often been told I was "too little" to estimate aright what that armorial box contained. "When you grow up, you shall see the inside of it," Aunt Mary used to say to me; and so I wondered, and wished, but all in vain. I must have the virtue of years before I could view ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... and through every sound, for his car. It never came. But because I so wished the place to be a background for our meeting I can see the two large living-rooms of the old house, with the black-beamed ceilings, the Flemish stoves, the tall, carved sideboards and chests with armorial bearings, the deep window-seats that were flower-stands and work-tables combined, and the shelves of ancient pottery and gleaming, antique brass. There was a comfortable fragrance of new-baked bread, mingling with the spicy scent of grass-pinks, in that house: and the hostess ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... particularly grateful to a Frankforter was, that on this occasion, in the presence of so many sovereigns and their representatives, the imperial city of Frankfort also appeared as a little sovereign: for her equerry opened the procession; chargers with armorial trappings, upon which the white eagle on a red field looked very fine, followed him; then came attendants and officials, drummers and trumpeters, and deputies of the council, accompanied by the clerks of the council, in the ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... present time, Henrietta wears the diamonds which formerly belonged to the old Countess, and it is long since she was a ballet girl, for now she sits by the side of her husband in a carriage on whose panels their armorial bearings are painted. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... similar. On each table are printed registers prepared for registering the votes at each scrutiny, the schedules for giving the votes, the means for sealing, etc. On the front of each table is inscribed the name of the cardinal who is to occupy it, together with his armorial bearings. In the midst of the body of the chapel are six little tables covered with green cloth, with a seat at each of them for the use of any cardinal who may fear that his neighbor might overlook him while writing his voting paper if he wrote it on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... armorial bearing. And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing, In the ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... lighted the fuel he had gathered. The gloomy walls were lighted up for a moment, then when the fire died away, we returned to the open air. A little further on is the famous gateway with two lionesses carved in relief above—the armorial bearings, we may call it, of the city—and in every direction are seen massive walls, foundation-stones, ruins of gates and of subterraneous chambers like the first we visited, conical hillocks, probably containing others in equally good preservation, and other marks of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... in those early times, was not without its families which affected state and splendor, rolled about in carriages with armorial emblazonments, and had servants in abundance to every turn within-doors, yet there, as elsewhere in New England, the majority of the people lived with the wholesome, thrifty simplicity of the olden time, when labor and intelligence went hand in hand, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... shocked by dishonesty when they find it, and are less clear in their intellect as to that which constitutes honesty. Where is the woman who thinks it wrong to smuggle? What lady's conscience ever pricked her in that she omitted the armorial bearings on her silver forks from her tax papers? What wife ever ceased to respect her husband because he dealt dishonestly in business? Whereas, let him not go to church, let him drink too much wine, let him ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... from France into other countries. St. Giles was honoured in Edinburgh as early as 11 50, when a monastery existed under his invocation. He became the {128} recognised patron saint of the city, and his figure appeared in the armorial bearings of Edinburgh, accompanied by the hind which is said in his legend to have attached herself to the saint. Since the Reformation the figure of the saint has disappeared, though ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett

... purpose of my whole life to substantiate these claims, and not merely to conquer back what is my own, but, an' it please God, to enlarge my territories and give to them unity and compactness. I am now a Prince only by my armorial bearings, but I will be a veritable Prince. I now wear only the most delapidated semblance of a Prince's mantle, inflated by hollow wind, but I shall change it into a purple mantle, such as no German Prince would be ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... of Essays upon the following Subjects: 1. Generosity, &c., by Whitelock Bulstrode, Esq., 8vo. Lond. 1724, there is a portrait of the author, bearing this note in MS.: "This scarce portrait has sold for 7l." It is engraved by Cole from a picture by Kneller, in oval with armorial bearings below, and is subscribed "Anno Salutis 1723, aetatis 72." I am at a loss to suppose it ever could have fetched the price assigned to my impression by its previous owner, and should feel obliged if any of your correspondents would state whether, from any peculiar circumstances, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... Red Cow," but I will not omit to hazard an idea for the consideration of GLYWYSYDD. Marlborough has changed its armorial bearings several times; but the present coat, containing a white bull, was granted by Harvey, Clarenceux in A.D. 1565. Cromwell was attached to Cowbridge and its cow by family {307} descent; so he was to Marlborough by congeniality of sentiment with the burghers. Query, Whether, in affection ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various

... they have given rise to; all the metaphors and allegories which poets have drawn from them; the attributes that have been assigned to them; the representations that have been made of them in hieroglyphics and armorial bearings, in a word all the histories and all fables in which there was ever yet any mention either of a cow or hen. How much natural history is likely to be found in such a lumber-room? and how is one to lay ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... the salute to which he was entitled being fired while the procession moved on. He was then presented by the Foreign Secretary to the Viceroy, who placed him on a chair on his right, immediately below a full-length portrait of Her Majesty. A satin banner, richly embroidered with the Chief's armorial bearings, surmounted by the Imperial crown, was next brought in by Highland soldiers and planted in front of the throne, when the Viceroy, leading the particular Chief towards it, thus addressed him: 'I present Your Highness with this banner as a personal gift from Her Majesty ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... luxury and amusements by taxing hot-houses, horses and carriages let out on Sundays, organs, pianos, and all musical instruments, as well as the owners thereof, on the ground that this step will lessen the alarming growth of bankruptcies and divorces. A tax on armorial bearings is suggested as one which will not be resented by the rich. A fourth correspondent advocates a graduated Income Tax, ranging from 6d. in the pound on incomes under L400, up to 5s. in the pound ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... hall, with its big stone chimney-piece and its Gothic arches supporting the balcony above. To be sure the arches were ugly, the chimney-piece of cardboard-like carved stone, with its armorial decoration, looked silly just opposite the bicycle stand and the radiator, whilst the great notice-board with its fluttering papers seemed to slam away all sense of retreat and mystery from the far wall. Nevertheless, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... Navesink Mountains, and was, moreover, patroon of Gibbet Island. His standard was borne by his trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of a huge oyster recumbent upon a sea-green field; being the armorial bearings of his favorite metropolis, Communipaw. He brought to the camp a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being each clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey breeches, and overshadowed by broad-brimmed beavers, with short pipes twisted in their hatbands. These were the men who ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the first acquirers of any distinction. By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings and its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of portraits; its monumental inscriptions; its records, evidences, and titles. We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere individual men; on account of their ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... WILLIAM HOGARTH (1697-1764), and he may really be named as the first master of a purely English school of painting. When Hogarth was fifteen years old he was apprenticed to a silversmith, and the grotesque designs which he copied for armorial bearings helped to increase his natural love for all that was ridiculous and strange. After 1718 he was much occupied in engraving for booksellers, and at length he began to paint small genre pictures and some portraits, ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised Oriental Japan; massive musical clocks, richly chased with ormulu and tortoise-shell; ottomans superbly damasked; Persian and other carpets, with corresponding hearth-rugs bordered with ancient family crests and armorial ensigns in the centre, and rich hangings of English tapestry. The carved chimney-pieces were adorned with the choicest bronzes and models in wax and terra-cotta. The tables were covered with Sevres, blue Mandarin, Nankin, and Dresden ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... was confined almost entirely to writers, but in little more than a generation architects and sculptors began to have their part. The passion for building is in itself one of the most instinctive, and a man's name and armorial bearings, tastefully but prominently displayed upon a church or palace, were as likely, it was felt, to hand him down to posterity as the praise of poets or historians. It was the passion for glory, in reality, rather than any love of beauty, that gave the first impulse to the patronage of the ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson

... Justice promulgated about that time, which expressly requires this as a condition to the enjoyment by any of the old families of popular rights. It gave rise to great varieties of surnames and armorial bearings in different branches of the same house. But it has nevertheless been noted that in all these mutations it was still the endeavour of the parties to retain as much as possible of the ancient ensigns and appellations, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various

... room over the chapel on the north side of Redcliff church;" and thence, most rare young conjurer, he evoked its spirit in the shape of fragments of law-parchment, quaintly inscribed with spells of verse and armorial hieroglyphics, to puzzle antiquaries and make fools of scholiasts. Puzzle them he did; and they could not forgive a clever stripling, whom hunger had tempted to don an ancient mask, and impose himself on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... brought for me also, item, a glass of foreign wine in a glass painted with armorial bearings, whereupon I humbly took my leave, together with ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... not more than those to which the inhabitants of England and Scotland are subject. Thus, while the English and Scotch gentleman is taxed for his servants, his carriages, his horses, his dogs, and his armorial bearings—and, in addition, pays, in common with the trading and operative classes, his window-tax—the Irish gentleman and tradesman are totally free from all such imposts. And though, at first sight, this exemption ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... objects of outward show. A bearer of plumes precedes the procession. The horses employed are dressed in trappings. The hearse follows ornamented with plumes of feathers, and gilded and silvered with gaudy escutcheons, or the armorial bearings of the progenitors of the deceased. A group of hired persons range themselves on each side of the hearse and attendant carriages, while others close the procession. These again are all of them clad in long cloaks, or furnished, in regular order, with scarfs and hat-bands. ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... he arrived, Sebastian del Cano went to Valladolid, where the court was, and received from Charles V. the welcome which was merited after so many difficulties had been courageously overcome. The bold mariner received permission to take as his armorial bearings, a globe with this motto, Primus circumdedisti me, and he also received a ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... engraved in Strutt's "Antiquities of the English," and contemporary European work of the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, we find that the favourite style of embroidery, when not representing historical or sacred subjects, was a parseme pattern. Armorial bearings were generally reserved for cushions, chair-backs, and the baldachinos of altars, beds, and thrones.[459] Richer and more ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... it must have been surmounted in the middle of the arch by an ornamental design. But later, when the chapel belonged to the Hautecoeurs, they replaced the original work by their family coat of arms. And that was why, in the obscure nights, armorial bearings of a more recent date shown out above the painted legend. They were the old family arms of Hautecoeur, quartered with the well-known shield of Jerusalem; the latter being argent, a cross potencee, or, between four crosselettes of the same; and those of the family, azure, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... there was about to be a muster of the Chicos, and I would have a leisurely opportunity of passing them under inspection. The Plaza is a flagged space enclosed on two sides by houses, some of which are over a couple of centuries old, with armorial bearings sculptured over the doors; on the third by the Municipality; and on the fourth by a grey church, lofty and large, seated on an eminence and approached by a flight of stone steps. The Municipality is a massive building, level ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... a month in a second- hand carriage purchased at the sale of the effects of Mr. Paulding, the Secretary of the Navy under Mr. Van Buren, and having the Paulding coat-of-arms emblazoned on the door-panels. The President laughed at the sally, and gave orders at once to have the armorial bearings of the Pauldings painted over. Economy also prompted the purchase of some partly worn suits of livery at the sale of the effects of a foreign Minister, and these were afterward worn by the colored waiters ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... gods, displayed to the eyes of the spectators on both sides of the river the luxury of his hatred; he slowly proceeded on his course up the river in barges with gilded oars and emblazoned with his armorial bearings, reclining in the first and followed by his two victims in the second, which was fastened to his own by a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... alter her appearance. But the dining saloon. Was there a long carved oak buffet with a big, heavy cornice with three gilt dolphins in the center—and were there not dolphins in gilt on the backs of the chairs—an armorial device?" ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... grave in his banner," alluding to splendid funerals, the hearse being ornamented with banners captured in war, or armorial bearings.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... is probably of English origin, but we have been unable to ascertain the period of its first establishment in the island. The parochial register of St. Peter-Port extends only to the year 1563, soon after which time it contains the name of Philip Brock. By "Robson's Armorial Bearings of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland," eight families of the name of Brock appear to bear different arms, one of which was borne by all the Brocks of Guernsey—viz. azure, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... men than those of Loo-Choo. Their dress also was different. One of the chief people in the place, if he was not the governor, wore a gaily-coloured robe of rich silk, with the back, sleeves, and breast, covered with armorial bearings. He wore a very short pair of trousers, with black socks and straw slippers. His hat, something like a reversed bowl, shone with lacquer and ornaments of gold. I must say, however, that Europeans have no right to quiz the head covering of any nation in the world, as ours far surpass all ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... is a word frequently heard in this quarter. In tracing its origin, it is found to be a corruption of the Indian "dodaim," signifying family mark, or armorial bearing. The word appears to be a derivative from odanah, a town or village. Hence neen dodaim, my townsman, or kindred-mark. Affinity in families is thus kept up, as in the feudal system, and the institution seems to be of some importance to the several ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... Lord Byron's armorial motto; 'Trust Byron' is the translation in the Red-book. We cannot but admire the ingenuity with which his Lordship has converted the good faith of his ancestors into a sarcasm on his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... Taymouth Castle, though not more than fifty years old, has the air of an old feudal castle. . . . As we were ushered up the magnificent staircase through first a large antechamber, then through a superb hall with lofty ceiling glowing with armorial bearings, and with the most light and delicate carving on every part of the oaken panelling, then through a long gallery, of heavier carving filled with fine old cabinets, into the library, it seemed to me that the whole Castle was one of those magical delusions that one reads of ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... Alexander Lameth's brother, Charles, supported the demand with almost equal brevity; a representative of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, the Viscount Matthieu de Montmorency moved a prohibition of the use of armorial bearings; another noble, M. de St. Targeau, proposed that the use of names derived from the estates of the owners should be abolished. Every proposal was carried by acclamation. Louder and louder cheers followed each suggestion of a new ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... stout bough out of the first thorn bush he happened to see. This however chanced to be so large—knotty—and clublike, that Bertram could not forbear secretly comparing his own appearance with that of the Heraldic wild man of the woods as emblazoned in Armorial Bearings. Indeed this whole ceremony of initiation struck him as so whimsical, and so nearly resembling the classical equipment for the funeral regions dictated by the Sibyl to AEneas,[1] that he took the liberty—on assuming his place in the funeral ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... Which Scotland's royal scutcheon bore: Heralds and pursuivants, by name Bute, Islay, Marchmount, Rothsay, came, In painted tabards, proudly showing Gules, argent, or, and azure glowing, Attendant on a king-at-arms, Whose hand the armorial truncheon held, That feudal strife had often quelled, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... 10s. silver crowns, half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences. The double-sovereigns have for the obverse the king's effigy, with the inscription, 'Gulielmus IIII. D.G. Britanniarum Rex. F.D.;' and for the reverse, the ensigns armorial of the United Kingdom contained in a shield, encircled by the collar of the Order of the Garter, and upon the edge of the piece the words 'Decus et Tutamen.' The crowns and half-crowns will be similar. The shilling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various

... Prince of Orange was now proposed by the Viceroy. This was, to execute him solemnly in effigy, to drag his escutcheon through the streets at the tails of horses, and after having broken it in pieces, and thus cancelled his armorial bearings, to declare him and his descendants, ignoble, infamous, and incapable of holding property or estates. Could a leaf or two of future history have been unrolled to King, Cardinal, and Governor, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... cares was to select a flag for the Elbese Empire, and after some hesitation he fixed on "Argent, on a bend gules, or three bees," as the armorial ensign of his new dominion. It is strange that neither he nor any of those whom he consulted should have been aware that Elba had an ancient and peculiar ensign, and it is still more remarkable that this ensign should ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... they met the carriage—Jos Sedley's open carriage, with its magnificent armorial bearings—that splendid conveyance in which he used to drive, about at Cheltonham, majestic and solitary, with his arms folded, and his hat cocked; or, more happy, with ladies ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and appeared to follow the old woman regretfully, seeming to be at once her mistress and her slave; she could break her with blows, but could not dismiss her. All that was perceptible. The two friends reached the gate. Two men in livery let down the step of a tasteful coupe emblazoned with armorial bearings. The girl with the golden eyes was the first to enter it, took her seat at the side where she could be best seen when the carriage turned, put her hand on the door, and waved her handkerchief in the duennna's despite. ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... projecting pedestals, and playing with the world as a ball; not doubting but for this piece of vanity, the world, or the reviewers for them, will knock them about in return. On the front of the pedestals are the arms of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; and in the centre armorial shields of the Cities of London and Westminster. The picture of a modern Hell, in the centre, between the pedestals, has the very appropriate emblems of Misery and Death, in the niches on each side. Crowning the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... Manchester Exhibition, that I shall say nothing of them here. The seal-ring of Mary, Queen of Scots, is in one of the cases; it must have been a thumb-ring, judging from its size, and it has a dark stone, engraved with armorial bearings. In another case is the magic glass formerly used by Dr. Doe, and in which, if I rightly remember, used to be seen prophetic visions or figures of persons and scenes at a distance. It is a round ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the name of her family, nor their armorial bearings, nor the name of their estate, nor even that of the ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Julian was aware, must have taken place, both in the village and in the Castle, ere these sounds of unseemly insult could have been poured forth in the very inn which was decorated with the armorial bearings of his family; and not knowing how far it might be advisable to intrude on these unfriendly revellers, without the power of repelling or chastising their insolence, he led his horse to a back-door, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... note of this; that so called modest women, and ladies whose skirts bear their armorial bearings, are thoroughly ignorant of the nature of man, because they keep to one alone, like the Queen of France who believed all men had ulcers in the nose because the king had; but a great courtesan, like Madame Imperia, knew man to his core, because she had handled ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... costly fashion. Although it was the height of summer, a low fire burned in the grate; and, stretching his hands over the feeble flame, an old man of about sixty sat in an armchair curiously carved with armorial bearings. The dim yet fitful flame cast its upward light upon a countenance, stern, haughty, and repellent, where the passions of youth and manhood had dug themselves graves in many an iron line and deep furrow: the forehead, though high, was narrow ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... properly placed, and not viewed too near, their effect is far from bad. They help to give the edifice its fretted appearance, or a look resembling that of lace. Various other features, which have been taken from familiar objects, such as parts of castellated buildings, portcullises, and armorial bearings, help to make up the sum of the detail. On Henry the Seventh's chapel, toads, lizards, and the whole group of metaphorical sins are sufficiently numerous, without being offensively apparent; while miniature portcullises, escutcheons, and other ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... style of place cards. Several stationers maintain special departments where crests are looked up and authenticated and such families as are found in Fairbairn's Crests, Burke's Peerage, Almanche de Gotha, the Armoire General, are utilized to help in the establishment of the armorial bearing of American families. Of course, the College of Heraldry is always available where the American family can trace its ancestors ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther

... fermenting under the crust of mediaeval monarchy and aristocracy; where productive implements often took on the pomp of heraldry. The Guilds often exhibited emblems and pageantry so compact of their most prosaic uses, that we can only parallel them by imagining armorial tabards, or even religious vestments, woven out of a navvy's corderoys ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton

... journeys of discovery along the banks of the Lower Orinoco. The former is the famous Conquistador of Mexico, who boasted that he had taken sulphur out of the crater of the Peak of Popocatepetl, and whom the emperor Charles V permitted to wear a burning volcano on his armorial bearings. Ordaz, named Adelantado of all the country which he could conquer between Brazil and the coast of Venezuela, which was then called the country of the German Company of Welsers (Belzares) of Augsburg, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... taught him that our unromantic century attaches no value to armorial bearings, unless their possessor is rich enough to display them upon a ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... demolish a government, just to see the effect of it; a student in his eleventh year. He had nosed about the law, but did not practise it. He had taken for his device: "Never a lawyer," and for his armorial bearings a nightstand in which was visible a square cap. Every time that he passed the law-school, which rarely happened, he buttoned up his frock-coat,—the paletot had not yet been invented,—and took hygienic precautions. Of the school porter he said: "What ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... date, the two panels with armorial bearings seen on the western side of the archway being later insertions. Through the gateway a delightful view is obtained of the picturesque High Street, with many a high-pitched gable rising above the masses of irregular architecture; while an ancient clock ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath

... William the Conqueror, uniting with whose fortunes, he fared after the Conquest as a feudal baron, founding the line of Winchester; and that he was a baron of the first water is evident from the statement of Gerard Leigh,—that his armorial device was inscribed (and how inscribed, if not memorially and as a mark of eminent distinction?) on the stained glass in the old church ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... I purchased a small but substantial house on Via Calimara, near the Arte della Lana, the guildhouse of the wool weavers. The armorial design of the art, embossed above the portal, is a lamb bearing ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... Its delicacy and grace are very beautiful! There are wonderfully carved oak choir-stalls here also, each having been assigned to a certain Knight of the Order of the Bath, and decorated with the Knight's armorial bearings. Above each stall is a sword and a banner of faded colors. The tomb of the founder, Henry VII, and of his wife, Elizabeth of York, is in the center of the chapel, and surrounded by a brass screen. ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... which the town stood, and passed unchallenged through the opening in the palisade. Within, you would have seen the crowded dwellings of bark, shaped like the arched coverings of huge baggage-wagons, and decorated with the totems or armorial devices of their owners daubed on the outside with paint. Here some squalid wolfish dog lay sleeping in the sun, a group of Huron girls chatted together in the shade, old squaws pounded corn in ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... have the honour to enclose a certified copy of 26th May, Her Majesty's Warrant of Assignment of 1868, Armorial Bearings for the Dominion and Provinces of Canada, which has been duly enrolled in Her Majesty's College of Arms, and I have to request that your Lordship will take such steps as may be necessary for carrying Her Majesty's ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... enshrined in a golden coffer, into the very thickest of the foe, saying, "The heart or death!" On he dashed, fearless of danger, to regain the coffer, but perished in the attempt. The family thenceforth adopted the "bloody heart" as their armorial device. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... had become pretty effectually incorporated with the skin, as so many signs of royal birth; and ordering the youngster to uncase, he drew forth the union-jack that the lad carefully kept about his nether part as a fender, and exhibited it as his armorial bearings—a modification of its uses that would not have been very far out of the way, had another limb been substituted for the agent. As for Captain Poke, he requested the academicians to study his nautical air in general, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... 70 feet wide, with two wings on the S. front. The centre between the two wings is Italian Renaissance in style; the central tower, pierced by the great gate, being of rich Elizabethan design. On the face of the third storey of the tower are the armorial bearings of the Earl of Salisbury. This S. front and the two wings enclose on three sides a quadrangle about 130 feet wide by 100 feet deep, beautifully laid out with flower beds and lawns. The extremities of each wing take the shape of square, three storeyed towers, ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... and another made their appearance in Broadway, principally conveying the children of their different owners. All these belonged to people of the first mark; and I saw the Ship that denotes the arms of Livingston, the Lance, of the de Lanceys, the Burning Castle, of the Morrises, and other armorial bearings that were well known in the province. Carriages, certainly, were not as common in 1757 as they have since become; but most of our distinguished people rode in their coaches, chariots, or phaetons, or conveyances of some sort or other, when there ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... found the church door open, and made these notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... and gilded. The gallery was lighted by long lanceolated Gothic casements, divided by heavy shafts, and filled with painted glass, where the sunbeams glimmered dimly through boars'-heads, and galleys, and batons, and swords, armorial bearings of the powerful house of Argyle, and emblems of the high hereditary offices of Justiciary of Scotland, and Master of the Royal Household, which they long enjoyed. At the upper end of this magnificent gallery stood the Marquis himself, the centre of a splendid circle of Highland and Lowland ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... which were invariably occupied by the same gentlemen. One of these was Mr. Bryant, citizen and stationer, but not bookseller, save that he sold bibles, prayer-books and almanacks; for he seriously considered that the armorial bearings of the Stationers' Company displaying three books between a chevron, or something of that kind, for he was not a dab at heraldry, mystically and gravely set forth that no good citizen had occasion for more than three books, viz. bible, prayer-book ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various

... richly inlaid and embossed, decked with rich surcoats and waving plumes, and superbly mounted on Andalusian steeds, they pranced out of Antiquera with banners flying and their various devices and armorial bearings ostentatiously displayed, and in the confidence of their hopes promised the inhabitants to enrich them with the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... palace. He arrived, passed through the open court-yard, where the water splashed from dolphin's mouths into marble shells, where callas bloomed and fresh roses blossomed. He stepped into the large, lofty hall, whose walls and ceilings were gorgeous with brilliant colours, with paintings and armorial bearings. Well dressed and haughty servants, holding up their heads, (like sleigh horses with their bells,) were pacing up and down; some of them had even stretched themselves out comfortably and insolently on the carved wooden benches; they appeared ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... which has a name—the History of Literature.[47] The critical treatment of illustrative documents, such as the productions of architecture, sculpture, and painting, objects of all kinds (arms, dress, utensils, coins, medals, armorial bearings, and so forth), presupposes a thorough acquaintance with the rules and observations which constitute Archaeology properly so called and its detached ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... Saint George. Away behind him as far as eye could reach rolled the far-stretching, unbroken river of steel—rank after rank and column after column, with waving of plumes, glitter of arms, tossing of guidons, and flash and flutter of countless armorial devices. All day Alleyne looked down upon the changing scene, and all day the old bowman stood by his elbow, pointing out the crests of famous warriors and the arms of noble houses. Here were the gold mullets of the Pakingtons, the sable and ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... person (as everybody in France now knows) who is in open revolt against her husband; she has deserted him in order to cohabit publicly with some one else. Her husband claims his coach, with his own crest and armorial bearings thereon, and we are here for the purpose of carrying out the order of one of the judges of the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... said Louis XVIII. "Really, M. de Blacas, I must change your armorial bearings; I will give you an eagle with outstretched wings, holding in its claws a prey which tries in vain to escape, and bearing ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... town hall is composed of two wings which are parallel at their extremities, and a peristyle between the two former, but which does not so far project. Two columns of the corinthian order support the pediment, on which the armorial bearings of the town are sculptured; they are supported on one side by Mercury and the attributes of Commerce, and on the other by Industry in the likeness of Minerva. On the first floor of the southern wing, ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet

... a tottering house with roughly plastered walls, where an artisan enshrines his tools, rises the mansion of a country gentleman, on the stone arch of which above the door vestiges of armorial bearings may still be seen, battered by the many revolutions that have shaken France since 1789. In this hilly street the ground-floors of the merchants are neither shops nor warehouses; lovers of the Middle Ages will here find the ouvrouere of our forefathers in all its naive simplicity. These ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... especially distinguished for the number and beauty of its chantries, and any who have a taste for examining armorial bearings will find two good-sized volumes devoted to a description of those in this church, by Richardson. Equal distinction attaches to the church owing to the beauty of its steeple, which has been ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... It bore an armorial device on one side in gold and scarlet, and on the other a superscription in a handwriting which had been so trained to affectation that it was recognisable at a glance to anyone who had once ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... of boat, very easily capsized. He had his own will, however, and his own way, because he was a Scot, and only "English" in the sense we use that word for "British,"—too frequently thereby giving dire offence to the blue lion of the North, whose armorial tail is so punctiliously correct as to the precise curl and make up of ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... ceremony as essential to their meeting; for in about half an hour after Damian de Lacy had left the castle, not fewer than twenty soldiers and artificers, under the direction of a pursuivant, whose tabard was decorated with the armorial bearings of the house of Lacy, were employed in erecting before the gate of the Garde Doloureuse one of those splendid pavilions, which were employed at tournaments and other occasions of public state. It was of purple silk, valanced ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... The armorial ensigns which, in the times of chivalry, adorned the crest and shield of the soldier, are now become an empty decoration, which every man, who has money to build a carriage, may paint according to his ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... with the thickened vehicle, at a time when art was in the very lowest state, and when its votaries were ill qualified to contend with unnecessary difficulties, must have been of the commonest description. Armorial bearings, patterns, and similar works of mechanical decoration, were perhaps as much ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... omitted. The following extract from Guillim's Heraldry, shews that Bishop Earle could not have been connected with the Streglethorp family, since, if he had, there would have been no occasion for a new grant of armorial bearings. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... whether Cavaliers or Roundheads or Jacobites, they came from the landholding class in England. The evidence may still be read in old West Indian graveyards, where the crumbling monuments show the carefully engraved armorial bearings, and the inscriptions record the families and homes in England from which those whom ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... since she could read Innocent had stood in front of these armorial bearings in her little white night-gown and had conned over these words. She had taken the memory and tradition of Amadis to her heart and soul. He was HER ancestor,— hers, she had always said;—she had almost learned her letters from the inscriptions he ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... abruptly, 'If I am not mistaken, you are a nobleman, are you not?' I admitted that such was my unhappy lot. 'Then,' he said, 'I presume that number there on your valise is what they call in the nobility armorial bearings, is it not—in fact, your crest?' 'Hardly that,' I modestly replied. 'A number is only borne as a crest, I believe, by much more illustrious persons—for example, the Beast in the Apocalypse.' 'Oh!' he replied, and then, after meditating a moment or two, asked, 'Have your family been ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... peculiarly gifted as a missionary, for already he spoke six Indian languages, and readily adapted himself to any dialect. Marquette, the records tell us, came of "an old and honorable family of Laon," in northern France. Century after century the Marquettes bore high honors in Laon, and their armorial bearings commemorated devotion to the king in distress. In our own Revolutionary War it is said that three Marquettes fought for us with La Fayette. No young man of his time had a pleasanter or easier life offered him at home than Jacques Marquette. But he chose to devote himself to ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... spirit lamp; above the lamp was suspended a sort of tiny crucible, in which was a drop of sealing-wax; as soon as this had melted, the maid poured it on the envelope, presenting to her mistress a seal with armorial bearings. This the countess imprinted on the wax with her own beautiful hands, and ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... palace, and through the vast marble hall, where the banners hung against the walls, and devices and armorial bearings testified to the antiquity and gallantry of his race. The lofty roof, supported by vast ashen beams, echoed to each step as it rang on the pavement. Sculpture and painting decorated the several galleries; but he passed by all unnoticed, for he had one object in view which absorbed ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... free lance; and up he tramped from Plymouth to London in company with an Irishman penniless as himself, gay as a lark, to the world's great capital with the world's great prizes for those with the wits to win them. A carriage with driver {246} and footman in livery wearing the armorial design of his own Ledyard ancestors rolled past in the street. He ran to the coachman, asked the address, and presented himself at the door of the ancestral Ledyards, hope beating high. The relationship was to be the key to open all doors. And the door of the ancestral ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... circumstance, to set it off; "the marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe;" neither tradition, reverence, nor ceremony, "that to great ones 'longs": it breaks in pieces the golden images of poetry, and defaces its armorial bearings, to melt them down in the mould of common humanity or of its own upstart self-sufficiency. They took the same method in their new-fangled "metre ballad-mongering" scheme, which Rousseau did in his prose paradoxes— ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... The tiger came and stretched itself at full length before Tomaso, who at once appropriated him as a footstool. The bear and the biggest of the lions posted themselves on either side of their master, rearing up like the armorial supporters of some illustrious escutcheon, and resting their mighty forepaws apparently on their master's shoulders, though in reality on two narrow little shelves placed there for the purpose. Another lion came and laid his huge head ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... the beauty of a piece of silver to bear such engraving, and it is always well to add a motto, or a "posy," as the bid phrase has it, thus investing the gift with a personal interest, in our absence of armorial bearings. Since many pretty ornaments come in silver, it is possible to vary the gifts by sometimes presenting flacons (a pendant flacon for the chatelaine: some very artistic things come in this pretty ornament now, with colored plaques ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... the library, where, across the dark crimson carpet, the last rays of the gorgeous sunset slanted in through the high windows in which were set the armorial bearings of the dead-and-gone ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... from the retail dealer's daughter. The keeper of a great hotel and the editor of a widely circulated newspaper were considered as ranking with the wholesale dealers, and their daughters belonged also to the untitled nobility which has the dollar for its armorial bearing. The second set had most of the good scholars, and some of the prettiest girls; but nobody knew anything about their families, who lived off the great streets and avenues, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... resplendent with inestimable jewels. Thus gorgeously apparelled, he ascended a lofty chariot of ivory, the axle-trees of which were of silver, and the wheels and pole covered with plates of burnished gold. Above his head was a canopy of cloth of gold embossed with armorial devices, and studded with precious stones. This sumptuous chariot was drawn by milk-white horses, with caparisons of crimson velvet, embroidered with pearls. A thousand youthful cavaliers surrounded the car; all ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... and, though not versed in the mysteries of heraldry, he thought he remembered enough of most of the arms he had seen to say that this armorial bearing was a strange one to him. He turned the letter over and over again, and looked at it back and front, with an expression in his face that said, as plain as countenance could speak, "I'd give ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... two standard lamps with yellow shades. Furniture upholstered in yellow and brown brocade. Crimson damask hangings. Parian statuettes under glass, on walnut "What-nots"; cheap china in rosewood cabinets. Big banner-screen embroidered in beads, with the Tidmarsh armorial bearings, as recently ascertained by the Heralds' College. Time, twenty minutes to eight. Mrs. TIDMARSH is seated, flushed and expectant, near the fire, her little daughter, GWENDOLEN, aged seven, is apparently absorbed in a picture-book close by. Miss SEATON is sitting by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various

... monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It stands at the left side of what antiquarians call "the high altar." Two pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with knee-breeches ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... bad, many books have gone to the building of this one. I look round my study table and I survey those which lie with me at the moment, before I happily disperse them forever. I see La Croix's "Middle Ages," Oman's "Art of War," Rietstap's "Armorial General," De la Borderie's "Histoire de Bretagne," Dame Berner's "Boke of St. Albans," "The Chronicle of Jocelyn of Brokeland," "The Old Road," Hewitt's "Ancient Armour," Coussan's "Heraldry," Boutell's "Arms," Browne's "Chaucer's England," Cust's "Scenes of the Middle Ages," Husserand's ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... see the Bargello. I do not know anything more picturesque in Florence than the great interior court of this ancient Palace of the Podesta, with the lofty height of the edifice looking down into the enclosed space, dark and stern, and the armorial bearings of a long succession of magistrates carved in stone upon the walls, a garland, as it were, of these Gothic devices extending quite round the court. The best feature of the whole is the broad stone staircase, with its heavy ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of the transepts.[258] The church is thus the work of many generations, and is the outcome of public and private contributions. That the choir was enlarged at this period is chiefly made evident by the heraldic devices and armorial bearings still existing. While the pillars nearest to the centre are plain octagons, with arches corresponding in simplicity, those at the east end have decorated capitals, supporting moulded arches. The King's pillar, as it is ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... old, lumbering State carriage of Bonaparte, with its faded, gilded trappings and armorial emblazonry, we haste ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... earthenware bowl that had been promised him as a gift.[4] Colston's Hospital, where he was put to school, was built on the site of a demolished monastery of Carmelite Friars; the scholars wore blue coats, with metal plates on their breasts stamped with the image of a dolphin, the armorial crest of the founder, and had their hair cropped short in imitation of the monkish tonsure. As the boy grew into a youth, there were numbered among his near acquaintances, along with the vintners, sugar-bakers, pipe-makers, apothecaries, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... years of age; and since the soldiers called him Cecchino del Piffero, [1] his real name being Giovanfrancesco Cellini, I wanted to engrave the former, by which he was commonly known, under the armorial bearings of our family. This name then I had cut in fine antique characters, all of which were broken save the first and last. I was asked by the learned men who had composed that beautiful epitaph, wherefore I used these broken letters; and my answer was, because the marvellous framework ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... in 1622, and completed by his successor, Urban VIII., and his brother, Cardinal Antonio Barberini, from the plans partly of Bernini and Borromini. On the most prominent parts of the edifice are sculptured bees, which are the well-known armorial bearings of the Barberini family. The Propaganda used to divide with the Vatican the administration of the whole Roman Catholic world. It was compared by the Abbe Raynal to a sword, of which the handle remains in Rome, and the point reaches everywhere. The Vatican takes cognisance ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... LEOPOLD de SEMPACH, of the date of 1386. It is very rarely that you observe portraits of this character, or form, introduced into MSS. of so early a period. A nobler heraldic volume probably does not exist. It is bound in wood, covered with red velvet; and the edges are gilt, over coloured armorial ornaments. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... gentleman was defined to be one who, without any title of nobility, wore a coat of arms. And the descendants of many of the early colonists preserve with much pride and care the old armorial bearings which their ancestors brought with them from their homes in the mother country. Although despising titles and ignoring the rights of kings, they still clung to the "grand old name of gentleman." But race is no longer the only requisite for a gentleman, ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... century; but above it was a paneling of an earlier date, quaintly carved, painted white, and gilded here and there. The white had turned to yellow, and the gilding was tarnished. On the top, the figures ranged themselves into a sort of shield, on which an armorial device was cut. Above it, in relief, was a date—1627. "There you have it," said the young man. "That is old or new, according to your ...
— The American • Henry James

... never capable of any regular defence, yet the place being hastily fortified, refused the summons of the parliamentarian colonel, Okey, by whom it Was invested; but it was speedily taken, when sad havoc was committed by the soldiery, all the armorial bearings, and every symbol of rank and gentility, being ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various

... his arm in a sling. In the centre of his coat of mail and on the shoulder-pieces of his armor, the ensigns armorial of a noble family ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... immortalised by Le Sage in Turcaret. It is a town of about 6,000 inhabitants, built of granite, and therefore little altered from what it was 200 years ago. Over many of the doors are the armorial bearings of the provincial nobility who made it a small winter capital: the practice is not wholly extinct. I asked who was the inhabitant of an imposing old house. 'M. de Neridoze,' answered our landlady, 'd'une tres-haute noblesse.' I went over one in which Madame de Tocqueville ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... years from 1890 to 1899. I was in love with the notion: this contrast between the raw London suburb and its mean limited life and its daily journeys to the City; its utter banality and lack of significance; between all this and the old, grey mullioned house under the forest near the river, the armorial bearings on the Jacobean porch, and noble old traditions: all this captivated me and I thought of my mistold tale at intervals, while I was writing "The Great God Pan," "The Red Hand," "The Three Impostors," "The Hill of Dreams," "The White People," and "Hieroglyphics." It was at the back of ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... were tall four-posters, such as he had seen elsewhere, but with the difference that a canopy covered them. Each had a carved wooden frame, surmounting the top of the posts like a roof. The wood was black with age, its surface being covered with elaborate foliage and armorial devices, representing the toil of some old French artisan of the seventeenth century. They probably had been brought across the Atlantic by the original emigrant, and carefully preserved ever since. They stood in diagonally opposite corners of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... Hampshire lady who, the day before she was married, went to sleep in her father's garden, and was killed by a lizard crawling down her throat. And, my informant said, the lizard is carved on her tomb—a fact which makes it appear likely that the story was made for the armorial bearings of ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... decoration at first denoted the valor, afterwards the nobility, of the bearer; and in process of time gave origin to the armorial ensigns so famous in the ages of chivalry. The shields of the private men were simply colored; those of the chieftains had the figures of animals ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... fourteenth century; their cross-legged attitude leading to the erroneous notion that they were Crusaders. They probably represent Humphrey de Bohun, father of Margaret, wife of Hugh Courtenay, 1332, and Sir Arthur Chichester of Raleigh, 1301. Old histories describe armorial bearings painted on their shields, but these have long ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw

... Flemish inns are very neat; but the traveller who has recently quitted Germany, is struck with their inferiority in point of decoration (although, perhaps, in no other respect) to those of that country, which abound with gilding, trophies, and armorial bearings, to invite the stranger, who here has a less shewy intimation of the entertainment he seeks for. The peasants here commonly wear wooden shoes; and they who do not consider how powerful is the force of custom, ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... interposed his own person between the exasperated animal and his Majesty, and shot it with an arrow in the forehead. The King in acknowledgment of the Royal gratitude at once issued a diploma in favour of Colin granting him armorial bearings which were to be, a stags head puissant, bleeding at the forehead where the arrow pierced it, to be borne on a field azure, supported by two greyhounds. The crest to be a dexter arm bearing a naked sword, surrounded by the motto "Fide Parta, Fide Acta," ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... Nason, from whose admirable picture of Boston in Frankland's time all writers must draw for reliable data concerning our hero,—"a baronet was then approached with greatest deference; a coach and four, with an armorial bearing and liveried servants, was a munition against indignity; in those dignitaries who, in brocade vest, gold lace coat, broad ruffled sleeves, and small-clothes, who, with three-cornered hat ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford



Words linked to "Armorial" :   arms, heraldry



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