Bedfordshire Heraldry: A Conspectus

Summary

Camden in his Remains Concerning Britain published in 1674, comments upon the ‘borrowing by many gentlemen of their lords’ arms of whom they held fee or to whom they were most devoted’ and cites as examples ‘whereas the Earl of Chester bare garbs or wheatsheafs many gentlemen of that county took wheatsheafs; whereas the Earls of Warwick bare cheeky or and azure a chevron ermine, many thereabout took ermine and azure cheeky’. He further illustrates this custom with the cinquefoils of the Earl of Leicester being used in that county and he might have added the bezants of Cornwall, and the red and white roses of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Moreover the civic heraldry of these regions in recent times has also borrowed charges from early feudal families. Thus, for example, the swan badge which the Staffords took from the de Bohuns has been used in the arms of both the county and borough of Buckingham and occurs in the arms of High Wycombe and Slough. The garbs to which Camden refers appear in the county arms of Cheshire, the city arms of Chester and in the arms of several boroughs in that county. Likewise bezants from the early Earls of Cornwall appear in the arms of several Cornish towns and the cinquefoil of Robert Fitzbernel figures in the arms of both the city and county of Leicester, but when we come to Bedfordshire we find there is no such use of a county emblem. This may be due to the relatively short duration of the barony of Bedford although their quartered coat did have some interesting influence on the arms of those families related to the barony by blood or feudal service.

Unfortunately there has been confusion at times between the Beauchamps of Warwick or Elmley and those of Bedford. There is palpable evidence of this in the shield carved in stone over the south doorway of the chapel in St. Paul’s Church in Bedford where, about 1920, the architect who undertook certain restorations placed the arms of Beauchamp of Warwick. Moreover I think Joyce Godber will recall a day in Bedford in 1951 when the Bedfordshire County Council was seeking a grant of arms to replace the device until then used as arms and seal for the county.