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bravery" and "by the special command of King Henry" he and his posterity were commanded to 'assume the surname of Moubray" (Dugdale's "Bar.," vol. i., p. 122), which they accordingly did, and retained the same as long as the issue male continued, which determined in John de Moubray, Duke of Norfolk, in the time of King Edward IV. Nigel de Albini was a Moubray maternally.

The second case of assumption by command occurred in the reign of King Edward I., who, disliking, the iteration of Fitz in the name of a famous noble, Lord John Fitz-Robert (whose ancestors had continued their sires' Christian names as surnames), commanded him to abandon that practice, and to bear the local name of the capital seat of his Barony (Clavering), which command Lord John Fitz-Robert complied with, and became John de Clavering.

The third case is that of the great-great-grandfather of the Protector, Richard Williams, a gentleman of good family in Wales, who changed his name to Cromwell in compliance with a wish (which there can be little doubt was equal to a command) of Henry VIII., taking that particular name in honour of his uncle, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, then a favourite minister of that King (Dugdale's "Bar.," vol. ii., p. 374). The following facts will prove the legality of this assumption by request. This Richard Cromwell, on May Day, 1540, at a great jousting at Westminster, which had been proclaimed in France, Spain, Scotland and Flanders, was appointed one of the six challengers against all comers. On May 2 he was knighted by the King. On the 3rd he did tourney with the other challengers against forty-nine. Stowe only notes the "overthrow of Master Palmer and his horse in the field" by Sir Richard; and on May 5 the challengers fought on foot against fifty single handed, and again Sir Richard only is named by Stowe as having done a feat of arms in overthrowing Culpeper, Esq. It is a well-known fact that the stringent laws enforced by the Court of Chivalry, or the Earl Marshal's Court, on the occasion of jousts and tournaments, debarred any person from entering the lists who had dared to take upon himself the surname of another illegally. Not only this, but no Knight of France, Scotland, or Spain, would demean himself by raising a lance with a man who bore not his lawful name and arms. From these instances of fact, one may conclude it to be proved that the usage then regarding a change was that it was established and recognised as a matter needing the sanction of the Crown.

VOL. III.NO. XXV.

3

Here is another case in point, which was brought before King Henry II. and his Peers in Parliament, when the application for the assumption of a surname (and that surname a local name) was granted and confirmed to the applicant and his heirs, and he was summoned thereto by that name. This statement may be verified on referring to the worthy Roger Dodsworth's MSS. in the Bodleian. Library, Oxford (Ex præfato Regist. de Cockersand, fol. 72, B.). A copy of this charter may also be found in Dodsworth's "Monasticon," Dugdale's edition, vol. vi., p. 909, entitled "Gilbertus Will. qui quidem Willielmus fecit se vocaru coram rege in parliamento Willielmum de Lancaster, baronem de Kendale:" that is, "Gilbert William, who caused himself to be called William de Lancaster, and caused himself to be called in presence of the King in Parliament, William de Lancaster, Baron de Kendale."

Now, from the known jealousy of King Henry for his prerogative, De Lancaster must first have had permission granted him to bring his request before the Chamber. King Henry II. was not the sovereign who would sit and hearken to so much assumption from a subject, and that subject an officer of his Court (Sheriff of Lancaster), and the son of a justice of the King's Bench, without having sanctioned the preliminary steps.

Amongst those who have paid little or no real attention to the matter, it is a common enough occurrence for the prerogative and authority of the Crown to be denied for the stated reason that the Crown has no power to confer a name, or make a gift of a patronymic, and has never done so and that names having been originally assumed of mere motion, they can equally easily be changed. Such an assertion is a piece of ignorance. We have quoted the examples in which the Crown gave the name of De Mowbray, and in which Henry VIII. gave the name of Cromwell to Sir Richard Williams, who was the male ancestor of Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, after whose name Vincent wrote the words "of ever damned memory." But we are not dealing only with ancient times, for even so late as the reign of George III., the Crown, by its Letters Patent, specifically gave and granted the name “of Bladensburg" (to be added to the name of Ross) to the descendants of General Ross, who captured Washington from the Yankees. Now there can be no question of this being a case of the mere sanction by the Crown of the assumption of another name. It was a definite and specific gift and grant of a name, and no one has so far questioned the right of the Crown to make this gift.

The illegal assumption of surnames was not tolerated during the

days of Shakespeare; he most emphatically condemns it in his play "The Taming of the Shrew":

"PETRUCHIO. Why, how no gentleman! why, this is flat knavery, to take upon him another man's name."-Act V., Scene 1.

Camden quotes a common saying of his time ridiculing such covetousness; he writes that a gentlewoman, Doctor Andreas the great civilian's wife, said: “If fair names were saleable, they would be well bought " ("Rem.,” p. 153).

Lord Hoo, in the reign of Edward IV., required a change of name to be made in connection with the settlement of his lands, but this being done without the license of the Crown, was specifically declared by the Crown to be void. There are not many instances. which can be quoted in early times, but it should be borne in mind that names in those days were not considered to be necessarily hereditary or stationary, and a man's surname was no more than an additional description, for the purposes of identification, added to his Christian name; and Sir Edward Coke, in his treatise upon law, distinctly says that a man may have many surnames, but only one Christian name.

Consequently, it is very evident that surnames in earlier times were nothing more than mere identificational advertisements. It is not therefore much good arguing very fully upon the practices at that date, and the foregoing are simply mentioned to show that from the earliest times the Crown asserted its prerogative, and occasionally interfered for this purpose in cases which it deemed of sufficient importance. That the everyday man was not interfered with, and pretty well pleased himself in such matters, is simply due to the manner in which the Crown and the upper classes looked upon the lower classes as people who had neither right nor concern in matters of honour. Whatever a plebeian did in those days in matters of honour was not considered worth interference with, or likely to jeopardize the rights of his superiors. The feeling was practically the same as that by which the liberated slaves in the United States took, and were allowed to take, just whatever names suited their euphonic fancy.

But when we come to Stuart times, matters had vastly altered. With the abolition of feudal tenure in the reign of Charles II., the great barrier which acted as a division between the upper and the lower classes was removed. The Crown no longer drew a distinction between those who owed service directly to itself and the rest of its subjects, and from that date the broad distinction between the

gentry and others no longer existed. To all intents and purposes, however, it had been ignored for some time previously.

The Civil Wars which had raged throughout the kingdom had upset many things, and both the prerogatives of the Crown and many matters of law were in a state of chaos when King Charles came back to his own again. The result was a most careful inquiry into all matters relating to the prerogatives of the Crown, and from that date those prerogatives which remained were cherished and asserted, and we take it that no one yet has presumed to controvert the principle, which is accepted throughout the whole of Europe, that matters of honour are prerogatives of sovereignty; so that we must look to the Stuart period for definite pronouncements upon the subject of the change of name.

That names and changes of names are matters within the prerogative of the Crown is neither the assertion of a modern assumption of authority nor the reassertion of an authority which has lapsed. So long ago as the reign of Edward II. a Royal License is said to have been issued to Edmund Deincourt, that, in accordance with the settlement of his land, which was specifically authorized, a consequent change of name and arms should be effected. With regard to this particular license, the following remarks occur in "A Discourse of the Duty and Office of an Herald of Arms, written by Francis Thynne, Lancaster Herald, third Day of March, Anno 1605. In a Letter to a Peer":

"According to which it seems the Law of Arms was in England in Times past; for that he which had but only Daughters, or one Daughter to succeed him, might have licence of the King to alien his Name or Arms to any other for the Preservation of the Memory of them both; as appear'd in the Case of the Lord Deincourt, in the Time of Edw. 2d whereof the Record is thus in the Patent Rolls 10 E. 2. part 2 Mem. 13. Rex, &c. Salutem : Scialis quod quum pro eo quod dilectus, &c. fidelis noster Edmundus Deincourt, advertebat & conjecturabat, quod Cognomen suum et ejus Arma post Mortem suam in Persona Isabella filia Edmundi Deincourt hæredis ejus apparentis, a Memoria delerentur, ac corditer affectavit quod Cognomen & Arma sua post Mortem ejus in Memoria in posterum haberentur; ad Requisitionem prædicti Edmundi & ob grata & laudabilia Servitia quæ bonæ Memoriæ Domino Edwardo quondam Regi Angliæ Patri Nostro & Nobis impendit, per Literas nostras Patentes concessionus & Licentiam dedimus pro Nobis & Heredibus nostris Eidem Edmundo, quod ipse de omnibus Maneriis, &c. quæ de Nobis tenet in Capite feoffore possit quemcuiq; velit &c. Out

of the Preamble of which Deed we gather (as before is said) that because he had a Daughter which could not preserve his Memory he might alien his Name and Arms according to the Law, Because none de Stirpe Agnationis was living to forbid the same. But withal it is gathered, that he could not alien the same without Licence of the Prince (who might dispence with the Law). But because the Law and Custom had permitted that Women should inherit with us both Lands, Honours, Name and Arms; and Quod consuetudo dat homo tollere non potest."

Now, the only license upon the Patent Rolls which we have been able to find to Edmund Deincourt is the license of which Lancaster Herald gives the reference, as above quoted, and if this is to be taken as a precedent and authority, the permission for the change of name and arms must be presumed inferentially from the preamble. But it will be seen that this license refers itself to a previous license, and this previous license we have been quite unable to find.

It seems more likely that Lancaster had simply gone by the preamble without carefully examining the remainder of the record, for the name and arms are not thereinafter specifically dealt with, and the Royal License itself only dealt with the alienation of his lands and estates from his daughter Isabella to " William, son of John Deyncourt, whom failing to " John, brother of the said William. Other property is alienated to Master Oliver Deyncourt and John Deyncourt of Parkhall. These Letters Patent do not state the relationship of any of the beneficiaries to Edmund Deincourt, upon which the whole matter hangs. There is much uncertainty regarding the Deyncourt descent at this point, but most of the accepted pedigrees show the earlier mentioned beneficiaries to be male collateral relatives who consequently needed no license to assume the name of Deincourt, which was already theirs. It seems strange that the simpler plan of marrying Isabella to one of her cousins was not adopted, for the lady was then both young and marriageable, and dispensations for marriage within the prohibited degrees (if the cousins were so) were common enough and readily obtainable. But until the pedigree can be positively set out and the prior license found, it is difficult to accept the foregoing as a precedent either way.

But whether Francis Thynne be right or wrong in his interpretation of this Deyncourt incident, the extract we have quoted from his "Discourse" is clear evidence that, in 1605 at any rate, it was the accepted opinion that a change of name needed the license of the Sovereign. A. C. F. D. & A. M. R.

(To be continued.)