#dering roll

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Arms of Robert Malet (? - 1295) from the Dering Roll (c. 1270-1300)

Blazon: Sable three buckles argent

It is very tempting for me to connect this Robert Malet with Robert Malet, Lord of Eye and advisor to Henry I, but it seems very unlikely. The lord of Eye’s son, William Malet, was banished from England and moved back to Normandy. I suppose it’s possible some of those Malets made their way back to England over the next two centuries, but I can’t prove it. The Robert Malet featured here held a couple of small lordships in Quainton and Langley, as well as the position of Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in 1285.

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Arms of Otto Arcedekne from the Dering Roll (c. 1270-1300)

Blazon: Argent three chevronels sable

The surname is also spelled Archdeacon, because of course it is. It seems as though Otto’s descendents may have ended up in Devonshire and/or Hertfordshire, although their family seat seems to have been at Lanihorne in Cornwall. Some part of their property followed a coheiress into her marriage into the Lucys, and then into Corbett and Vaux. It looks like the other parts were granted and purchased between various knights and esquires, none of whom seem to have had heirs.

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Arms of John de Tregoze

Blazon: Or two bars gemelle in chief a lion passant guardant gules

John was born before 1268, although how long before 1268 is unclear. His father, Sir Robert Tregoze, had been involved in the Second Barons’ War and died at Evesham. John seems to have reinstated the good name of his family, and served under Edward I in Wales. He was summoned to Parliament in 1296, but died shortly afterward in 1300. He died without male issue, which caused something of a kerfluffle over his considerable estate. It seems like most, if not all of the land went to his younger daughter’s husband, but the title and arms went to Sir Henry Tregoze, a half-cousin.

An interesting tidbit is how the arms of the Tregozes morphed over their lifetimes. Robert bore gules three bars gemelle, in chief a lion passant guardant or; John swapped the tinctures and went down to two bars, and Henry swapped the field to blue. It’s possible this was an effort at differencing, but I can’t be sure (although it is probably why my usual Dering Roll source had the field color incorrect).

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Arms of Philip Daubeney from the Dering Roll (c. 1270-1300)

Blazon: Gules five fusils conjoined in fess argent, in chief three molets of five points or

The Daubeney/d’Aubigny/de Aubeney/etc. family strikes again! It’s fairly clear to me that this is a differenced version of the family arms - but given that Ralph had both a younger brother and a son named Philip, it’s not obvious which of them bore these arms, as both would be entitled to bear Ralph’s arms with a difference. The timelines make me think it’s slightly more likely to have been his brother; it’s less likely, though not at all impossible, that his son would have been old enough for military service at the time the Dering Roll was being drawn up. Another (though less definite) point in favor of the brother is the English system of cadency; first sons would use a label as their marker of cadency, while the molet allegedly belongs to a third son. However, this wasn’t really systematized until the mid-fourteenth century, at the earliest, so I don’t want to put too much weight on this point.

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Arms of Alan de la Zouche (1267 - 1314) from the Dering Roll (c. 1270-1300)

Blazon: Gules bezanté

The de la Zouche arms are also sometimes described and depicted as gules ten bezants in pile or 4, 3, 2, 1, including on the Baron’s Letter. This is likely just a fairly typical variation before the practice and language of heraldry became more standardized.

De la Zouche himself inherited his father’s lands in 1289, close to the beginning of his military career. He served for quite some time in France and Scotland (including a moderately disgraceful episode in 1296, when his standard bearer was captured near Bordeaux). He shows up in several early rolls of arms, including the Caerlaverock Poem, which I really should cover someday. He was made a baron in 1299, but as he died fifteen years later with no male heirs, the barony quickly went into abeyance.

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Arms of William de Audley (1253? - 1282?) from the Dering Roll (c. 1270-1300)

Blazon: Gules fretty or

I have found one potential William (de) Audley where the birth and death dates line up nicely with the period of the Dering Roll, but I can’t quite connect him to Nicholas, 1st Baron Audley. He could’ve been a brother, or maybe an uncle, but it doesn’t seem like William had any children. I think it’s likely that the fretty pattern in the arms of his family is the ultimate source of the fret in the arms of the Tuchet family, who held the Baron Audley title from the beginning of the 14th century through 1997.

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Arms of Maurice FitzGerald from the Dering Roll (c. 1270-1300)

Blazon: Argent a saltire gules

Maurice FitzGerald was born in 1194, inheriting the title Lord of Offaly only ten years later. He was knighted in 1217, and spent most of the rest of his life fighting the Irish. His harsh judgements as Justiciar of Ireland (1232 - 1245) earned him the disapproval of Henry III, which  - wow, how bad do you have to be for an English king to say you’re being too mean to the Irish? Yikes. He eventually died in 1257 of wounds inflicted in single combat with Gofraidh Ó Domhnaill at the Battle of Creadran Cille.

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Arms of Geoffrey de Geneville (1225/33 - 1314) from the Dering Roll (c. 1270-1300)

Blazon: Azure three horse-barnacles expanded or, on a chief ermine a demi-lion rampant issuant from the partition line gules

There is an actual crustacean known as the horse barnacle (Semibalanus cariosus), but 1. the depiction here doesn’t look anything like an actual barnacle and 2. they are native to the northwestern Pacific, so absolutely nowhere near England or France, where they were mostly featured in heraldry. What this charge actually depicts is a slightly more complicated question. It was possibly originally a farrier’s tool to hold horses’ muzzles closed, but it does seem to have been used as a torture method in a few instances. In one of those cases, that of Sir Henry Wyatt, the family allegedly incorporated a horse-barnacle into their arms as a symbol of their loyalty to the Tudors.

The Genevilles, or Joinvilles as they were known in France, don’t seem to have a dramatic origin story for their arms, but there are plenty of other notables in the family to make up for any shortfall. Geoffrey’s older brother Jean de Joinville wrote a very well-known chronicle of the life of Louis IX and the Seventh Crusade, commissioned by Jeanne of Navarre. Geoffrey arrived in England along with Eleanor of Provence when she came to marry Henry III, and was later involved in a number of important negotiations, including with Llewelyn ap Gruffudd. He also traveled widely, going on diplomatic missions to Paris and participating in the Eighth Crusade. (No word on whether Jean warned him that was a terrible idea.) He had an exceptionally long life for the period, so it’s perhaps not surprising that his eldest son predeceased him. Upon his death, most of the Geneville titles and lands (plus the de Lacy properties Geoffrey inherited from his wife Maud) passed to Roger Mortimer via his wife Joan de Geneville, Geoffrey’s eldest granddaughter. She did eventually get her inheritance back after Roger’s execution for treason.