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Strangely gravestones at All Saints, Liddington, dating back to the 18th century, show a different view of the Brind crest from Vincent's Ordinary (see below).
| HUBERT CHESSHYRE LVO MA FSA |
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| NORROY AND ULSTER KING OF ARMS |
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| COLLEGE OF ARMS QUEEN VICTORIA STREET LONDON EC4V 4BT TEL:0171 248 1137 |
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| Major General P H W Brind |
28 June 1996 |
Dear General Brind
Norroy & Ulster King of Arms has asked me to answer your letter of 15 January from which I understand that you wish to determine which of the several arms attributed to Brind is correct.
Since the 15th century the Kings of Arms have been making grants 'to men of virtue, worthy to be received among noble gentlemen' and the official records of these grants are recorded here at the College and have been ever since its foundation in 1483/4. In order to establish a right to a particular coat of arms, it is necessary to prove and register here a legitimate male-lined descent from an ancestor to whom arms have previously been granted or allowed.
In his letter of 12 September 1984 to Mrs Graham, Mr Chesshyre advised her that despite a lengthy search of all the official records of Grants here, only one Grant had been made in the name of Brind and that was to Hugh George Brind of Billbrook co Somerset in 1980. I am sorry to have to tell you therefore that there is not a right or wropng version of the arms you mention in your letter because none of them has been granted in your surname.
I knew how much this will be a disappointment to you. So I decided to look into this matter a little further to see where the arms had come from. Burke's General Armory is not as authoritative a work as many believe- it is an interesting collection of examples of arms used on monuments, bookplates, silver, seals etc. but was not checked against the College Records for validity. Many of the arms had been granted officially to the ancestors of the families named in Burke's volume but probably as many had not. Nevertheless Burke had collected these examples from somewhere where they had been displayed.
Nowadways, when a grant is made, much care has to be taken to ensure that the arms are distinct in at least two visible ways from any other already on record; to assist the Heralds in the checking process, the College has a series of Indexes known as Ordinaries which contain pages of miniature shields grouped together by the various elements.
As a senior army officer, it would of course be open to you to apply for a grant on your own behalf and after searches ahve been made in all the Ordinaries, it may be possible to include some of the elements from the assumed arms. On the other hand you may prefer to start afresh with a completely new design. furthermore, your cousin might wish to join forces with you.
The fees for a grant of Arms and Crest to an individual and his descendants stand at present at £2450, plus £50 for coloured approval sketches and other preliminary disbursements. The limitations of the grant could be extended backwards for one or two generations (for additional fees) to include cousins is this was wanted.
Please let me know if you think we can be of further help.
Yours sincerely,
pp Mrs John Comyn
Assistant to Norroy & Ulster King of Arms
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| HUBERT CHESSHYRE LVO MA FSA |
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| NORROY AND ULSTER KING OF ARMS |
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| COLLEGE OF ARMS QUEEN VICTORIA STREET LONDON EC4V 4BT TEL & FAX:0171 248 1137 |
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| Lt Col David Brind |
16 July 1997 |
Dear Colonel Brind
Thanks you for your letter of 1 July which was awaiting my July visit.
I have now had another good dig in the records and I hope the information will be helpful for your family history. First, I enclose an article on the Visitations in England which comes from A New Dictionary of Heraldry, edited by Stephen Friar and published by Alpha Books, which you may find useful. It explains what happened during Visitations and why there often appear to be discrepancies between the published versions of some counties' Visitations and the College's official records.
Next I had a quick look (at home) in my copy of the Concise Dictionary of National Biography which tells me that there is a fully entry in the DNB for Augustine Vincent; however all you may wish to know of him is that he was born c1584 and died 1626 and that he was one of the few early seventeenth century heralds who really understood the necessity of making proper searches in original records in order to prove (or disprove) a pedigree's authenticity. He was apparently Rouge Rose Pursuivant in 1616 (a position no longer in existence), Rouge 1624. He was a great collector of genealogical and heraldic information and many of his private volumes, some in his attractive and legible handwriting, were acquired from his son John by Ralph Sheldon of Beoley co Worcestor and were given/ sold by him to the College in 1684.
I looked for and found Vincent's "Ordinary of Arms" which is in two large leather bound volumes. There are two types of Ordinaries of Arms-- which are both armorial reference books- the first lists the blazons of shields of arms alphabetically by the first charges they contain (and the best known example is probably J W Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials first published in 1874) while the second contains 'tricks' (ie black and white sketches with the tinctures indicated by letters), again arranged by the charges but usually without any text.
Vincent's Oridnary is of the second type so each page contains rows of little shields set within rectangles at the top of which are (usually)the names of the family using the arms and sometimes a cross reference to a Visitation. It is in the nature of an 'aide-memoire' or collection of arms which Vincent (or his assistants) had seen displayed or had read about but is not in itself confirmation that the arms were valid (except where there is a cross reference to an official record). The same is true of Papworth- he collected arms from all sorts of souces and gave attribtuions in the majority of cases but inclusion in his armorial does not necessarilymeans that the arms were genuine.
On page 446 of Vincent is a picture of the arms you sent with your letter of 16 May: the letters A (for Argent) and S (for Sable) appear as on your diagram but nothing more in the way of text. The title is merely 'of Bren' (ie Arms of Bren) with no place. This trick is next to similar arms (with variations in the chevron and/ or the colours) attributed to the families of Berne, Godhand and Maynard (of which there are two examples, both linked to Visitation volumes).
I then looked through our index to the various families named in the Visitations and checked for Brend(e)/ Brind(e)/ Brynd(e).
The Visitation of Wiltshire (our reference C.2294) of 1623 shows the pedigree of Brind of Wanborough-- as do the pruinted versions (a) edicted by George W Marshall in 1882 and (b) of the Harleian Society Vol 105/6. Our volume shews no arms and has no comment; Marhsall's says "A coate produced to be better proved" while HS 105/6 gives a blazeon and the same annotation as Marhsall.
There is a pedigree for Brend in the Surrey Visitation of 1662 (but in the volume itself, the name is written Brent), another entry (under Reade) in the Oxfordshire Visitation of 1574 which records the marriage of a Reade daughter to a Brend (no place) and a final reference in the Visiation of Lincolnshire 1592.
This last volume (H.11.19) contains a four generation pedigree headed by Thomas Brend alias Brande of Ledesham in co Lyncoln who married Margaret daughter of ---- Andeley of Welbourne in the smae county and had issue Jerome Brand, Thomas Brande (sic) Christopher and william Brand. The line is continued through Jerome's son Robert Brand of Branston co Lincoln who in 1592 had issue five daughter and coheiresses) Jane, Elixabeth, Anne, Marie and Catherine. NO other date is given so it is not possible to say whether Robert's line ended with daughters or whether they were all quite young and a son might have followed soon after. However, the most siginificant part of this entry is that the arms depicted are Argent on a chevron Sable between 3 sinister hands of the second, 3 spear heads of the Field (ie the arms enclosed with your letter of 1 July) which I shall call coat B.
There are also references to families named Brynn(e), Brins and Bryne(e) but the arms attributed to them bear no relation to the arms claimed by your family.
The 'Index of Grants' (mostly 1673-1880) contains one reference to Brand of Whersted near Ipswich co Suffolk of 1741 and anotehr later one to Brand of London. There is also an example of BRond of Edwarston co Suffolk (see below) but no example of Brend(e) Brind(e) or Brynd(e).
I regret therefore that I must conclude that
(i) the arms attributed to Bren in Vincent's Ordinary do not appear to have been granted nor recognised officially.
(ii)these Bren arms were not connected to the Brewnd(e)/ Brind(e) family of the Wiltshire Visitation of 1623 by Augustine Vincent himself.
(iii) the Brind family of Wanborough were unable in 1623 to substantiate their claim to the arms shen in your letter of 16 May; and
(iv) the arms shewn in hyour letter of 1 July were recognised in 1592 as those belonging to the family of Brend or Brand of Ledensham and Branston, co Lincoln.
I am afraid that I cannot comment on the likelihood or otherwise of arms having been granted by or during the lifetime of John of Gaunt as that is a matter well beyond my knowledge. However, whether they had been granted or assumed before the foundation of the College, it should have been a fairly simple matter for the Brend(e)/ Brind(e) family to regularise the position once the Visistations had begun (in 1530). That they do not appear to have done so implies either that the proofs required were wanting or that the family were not considered eligible for a grant. I think that before the institution of parish registers in the 16th century, most people might have had difficulty in proving a legitimate descent of any kind.
In your most recent letter, you ask what should be done by your family to claim the arms. In the case of the Wanborough family, it does not seem that they had valid arms to claim so that even were you able to prove a close kinship with them, you would be no better off because they were not consiered armigerous.
We should of course be very happy to help you prove and record your pedigree here but I fear that it is unlikely to lead to your being able to claim arms by descent. If you and your cousin would like a Grant (and as both you and your cousin have been serving officers in HM Army, you would of course be considered eligible to apply).
Yours sincerely,
pp Mrs John Comyn
Assistant to Clarenceux King of Arms
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