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family renowned from the Conquest, several of that house having been mentioned in history. In the reign of Henry VIII, the Priory of Newstead was granted by that monarch to Sir John Byron, Constable of Nottingham Castle and Warden of Sherwood Forest. Another Sir John Byron took part in the battles of Edgehill and Marston Moor; in the latter his three brothers also bore a part.

On Marston, with Rupert, 'gainst traitors contending,

Four brothers enrich'd with their blood the bleak field;
For the rights of a monarch, their country defending,

Till death their attachment to royalty seal'd.

George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron, the celebrated poet, was descended from Admiral Byron, who, in the ship Dolphin, circumnavigated the globe.⁕

A mermaid is the crest of the family of Marbury of Walton, near Runcorn, in Cheshire, which became possessed of that manor in the reign of Edward III. by marriage with the heiress of the Waltons, its former lords. It is also the crest of the ancient family of Skeffington, of Skeffington in Leicestershire; and is borne by its present representatives, Viscount Massareene, Viscount Ferrard, and Sir Lumley Skeffington, Baronet.

The Earl of Portsmouth bears a mermaid for a crest; Sir John Wallop, K. G. in the reign of Henry VIII, a distinguished admiral of this family, bore a black mermaid with golden hair.

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Lord Herbert relates that " Sir John Wallop burnt divers ships and one-and-twenty villages, landing many times in despite of the French, which seemed the more strange, that his soldiers exceeded not eight hundred men."†

* Lord Byron, who sacrificed his life in the cause of the Greeks, assumed the arms and crest of the house of Noel with the motto of Byron, after his marriage.

Life of Henry VIII.

It may be remarked that, however singular a black mermaid may appear, a black virgin is not uncommon in the churches of the Continent, and the richest shrine in Bavaria is that of the Black Virgin of Altöting.

The mermaid, as a crest, is found in heraldry to be almost as abundant as salmon in the Tay; it is borne by

- a hundred knights,

Approved in fights, and men of mighty name.

A few instances of note will show the prevalence of this remarkable combination in heraldry: the form of the mermaid, that of a most beautiful woman, has the same poetical origin as the classical story of Venus Anadyomene, the goddess rising from the sea, near Cyprus, wafted on shore by Zephyrs, and received by the Seasons. In this form, but with a fish tail, the mermaid is borne as a crest by the families of Bonham, Broadhurst, Garnyss, Hastings, Johnson, Lauzun, Mason, Rutherford, Moore of Wickford in Hampshire, and Newman of Cheltenham: to the last-named the mermaid crest was granted in 1611.

Or, a mermaid with comb and glass, is the armorial distinction of the family of Lapp of Wiltshire; gules, three mermaids argent, are the arms of that of Basford; and argent, a mermaid gules, crined or, holding a mirror and comb of the last, are the arms of the family of Ellis of Preston, in Lancashire. Gules, a mermaid argent, comb and glass or, are the arms of Prestwich of Holme, in Lancashire, the heiress of which family married the first Lord Ducie of Morton, in Staffordshire.

Du Bee of Vardes, a French family mentioned by Palliot, have for supporters to their arms two mermaids each holding a guidon, that on the dexter side being charged with the ancient arms of Burgundy, the sinister with the arms of ancient Champagne. Two mermaids are the supporters of the arms of the

kingdom of Naples. In Great Britain mermaids are assumed as supporters by the Viscounts Boyne and Hood, the Earls of Howth and Caledon, and by the heads of the families of Sinclair of Rosslyn and Scott of Harden. Two mermaids crowned are used as supporters to the arms of the borough of Boston, in Lincolnshire, the key of the associated counties; these were allowed and confirmed to the corporation in 1568.

The mermaid of heraldry is sometimes found without her usual attributes; the crest of the Kentish family of Sepham is a mermaid proper, ducally crowned, crined, finned, and comb or, bearing in her left-hand sea-weeds vert; another, on a coronet, holding in her hands a bottle and glass, is the crest of Van Voorst of Utrecht. The crest of the family of Thorne, of Melverley in Shropshire, is a mermaid rising out of a coronet, crined or, with a dolphin hauriant of the same, devouring her left-hand. An example is also found in the crest of Die Erstenberger: the arms of this Austrian family are, bendy fusilly, argent and gules, three barbel embowed of the last; crest, a mermaid without arms, and having wings charged with barbel, as in the shield.

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*

Favine gives an example of a crest borne by the House of Lusignan, called La Mellusine, a very beautiful syren in a bath or tub, who with one hand combs her thick hair over her shoulders, and with the other holds a mirror. Two mellusines, their

*Theatre of Honour, 1619.

lower half representing an eel, are also described as the supporters of the arms of this illustrious house. These were assumed in memory of Isabel, the betrothed wife of Hugh de Lusignan, Count of La March, the Mellusine of the romances, one of the most celebrated beauties of her time, who was carried off by King John, and married to him by the Archbishop of Bourdeaux. The King afterwards brought her to England as his Queen, and she was crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster, in the year 1200; after the King's death she married Hugh de Lusignan.

As a sign the mermaid is very common in England; the earliest literary club on record, including a cluster of distinguished poets, was formed by Sir Walter Raleigh at the Mermaid in Friday-street, about the year 1600, a tavern long celebrated as the resort of Shakspeare, Jonson, Camden, Selden, and the benevolent Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College.

The tritons of the classical mythology possessed the power of calming the ocean and abating the most violent storms at pleasure. Glaucus, one of these sea deities, is celebrated as the assistant of the Argonauts. The triton, or merman, is very rarely seen at sea, differing in that respect from the mermaid, for an obvious reason, all those who believe they see the latter being men, fishermen or sailors; were those who live on the sea women, it is most probable that less would have been related of mermaids, and more of the mermen. Heraldry presents an illustration of the triton in the arms assumed by Sir Isaac Heard, many years Garter King of Arms, with an intended allusion to his preservation at sea.

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Argent, a triton proper, crowned or, his trident sable, issuing from waves, his left hand grasping the head of a ship's mast; on a chief azure, the arctic polar star of the first, between two water-bougets of the second. Motto, "Naufragus in portum."

Sir Isaac Heard was originally in the royal navy, and when in the Blandford, off the coast of Guinea, in the year 1750, he was carried overboard by a tornado, and saved from drowning by his shipmates.

As a crest, a triton issuant from sedges, and wreathed about the temples with the same, is borne by Sir Tatton Sykes, Baronet, of Sledmere in Yorkshire. A merman, holding in his hand a hawk's bell, is the crest of the family of Lany, of Newick in Leicestershire, and of Cratfield in Suffolk. Two tritons with tridents are the supporters of the arms of Lord Lyttelton, of Frankley in Worcestershire; and a triton is used as the dexter supporter of the arms of the Earl of Sandwich, the first peer of whose family was a distinguished naval commander in the reign of Charles II. A triton and mermaid are both assumed as the supporters of the arms of the family of Campbell of Ardkinlas, from which is descended the Campbells of Dunoon, Carrick, and Blytheswood, all in Scotland.

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