In our last post about heraldry and the coats of arms found around Salisbury House, we did some looking into the hatchment hanging in the Great Hall where there is an “escutcheon”. Today, we will be looking at the escutcheon a bit further.
escutcheon: in heraldry, a shield, typically referring to a smaller shield or crest placed over a larger one
As mentioned previously, this is the crest of someone from the Dumaresq family – which we know by looking at the top left quarter. Today we will be walking through how to trace genealogy through a crest, using this as an example. Reading left to right, top to bottom, we see the order that families married in.
In this case:
Dumaresq marries Dumaresq, whose son marries Bagot, whose son marries Payn, whose son marries Larbelestier.
What is interesting (and could be debated) is the last quarter. What could have happened is either
1: another Dumaresq married in
or
2: Larbelestier was the last notable family to marry in, leaving an odd number of quarters and an empty space.
When the second situation happens the first quarter (in this case, Dumaresq) is repeated in the last quarter. Currently, we are unsure which is the case here. Where these marriages occur in this order in the Dumaresq family tree is quite a few generations before Frances Dumaresq, who we believe this belonged to. However, our research is ongoing and we are excited to bring more information.
Stay tuned for the next update on the coats of arms around Salisbury House.
Salisbury House Blog 