Talk:Walter fitz Gilbert of Cadzow

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Arms[edit]

Using the heraldry strategy to track the ancestry of Walter fitz Gilbert is a good idea, but a problematic one. A.C. Fox Davies goes to great length to highlight that while the Earls of Leicester used the cinquefoil, the Beaumont family are a Gules, a lion rampant queue-fourchee argent and that it highly probably the Montford Earls used this coat. The following extracts come from 1969 revision by J.P. Brook-Little, the then Richmond Herald of Arms:

pg 91"The arms shown in fig. 97 are interesting inasmuch as they are doubtless an early form of the coat per pale indented argent and gules, which is generally described as a banner born for the honour of Hinckley, by the Simons de Montfort, Earls of Leicester, father and son. In a Roll temp. Henry III, to Simon the young is ascribed 'Le Banner party endentee dargent & de goules' although the arms of both father and son are known to have been 'Gules, a lion rampant queue-fourchee argent'. More probably the indented coat gives the original Montfort arms.

pg 202:"The arms of the town of Leicester are Gules, a cinquefoil ermine and this is the coat attributed to the family of the de Beaumonts or De Bollomonts, Earls of Leicester. Simon de Montfort, the great Earl of Leicester, was the son or grandson of Amicia, coheir of the former Earls, and as such entilttd to quarter the arms the De Bellomonts... there are two coats attributed to De Montford His only status in this country [England] depended solely upon the De Bellomont inheritance, and, conformably with the custom of the period, we are far more likley to find him using the arms of De Bellomont or De Beaumont than that of Montford.

pg 202: "From the similarity of the charge to the better-known Beaumont arms, I am inclined to think the lion rampant to be the real De Bellomont coat. The origin of the cinquefoil has yet to be accounted for. The earliest De Bellomont for whom I can find proof of user thereof is Robert 'fitz Pernell', otherwise De Bellomont, who died in 1206 and who seal show it. Be it noted it is not on a shield, and though of course this is not proof in any way, it is in accodrance with my suggestion that is is nothing more than a pimpernel flower adopted as a device or badge to typify his own name and his mother's name, she being Pernelle or Petronilla, their heiress of Grantmesnil. The cinquefoil was not the coat of Grantmesnil but a quaint little conceit, and is not therfore likley to have been used as a coat of arms by the De Bellomonts, though no doubt they used it as a badge and device, as no doubt did Simon de Motfort.

Please note that Fox-Davies references Sir Anthony Wagner's History of Heraldry of Britain as corroborating evidence for his conclusion, who in turn cites the Great Coucher Book of the Duchy of Lancaster as his authority.

Perhaps the Beaumont connection could be discounted, and make the Umfraville ancestry more likely. Do others believe this information could be included in the article? Comes.amanuensis (talk) 08:04, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]