The Family Seal Rings

We make a large range of family seal rings and jewellery and the following is only a small example of what we make. The seal rings are all hand-engraved by our Master engraver Des. We keep a very large selection of Irish Family Seals, however we are able to do any seal. Provided you email the design to us we will give you a quote.

The rings can be used as seals in wax. The prices quoted are for rings up to size x. However larger size rings can be made. Please email the size you require and we will give you a quote.

The Origin of Heraldry - 1892

The origin of Heraldry has puzzled wiser and abler heads than mine but the whole subject may be said to resolve itself into the query, "Where does mere ornamentation end, and where does Heraldry 'as we know it' begin?" The generally received opinion seems to be that the Cursades were coeval with, if, indeed, they were not the cause of, the birth of Heraldry, its laws, and its emblems.

Undoubtedly Arms - i.e., the charges and field depicted upon the escutcheon - were of prior origin to crests. Consequetnly there are many Coats-of-Arms to which no Crest has ever been assigned, and which have no such ornament attached or belonging to them, but I have only come across one solitary Crest which possessed a legitimate existence without a corresponding and complementary Coat-of-Arms pertaining to it. This one (borne by a family of Buckworth) arose through a peculiar combination of circumstances, and has been rectified nearly a century.

The Crest is that part of the complete achievement which is placed upona and surmounts the coronet, wreath, or chapeau, which in its turn is above the mantling or lambrequin which it is supposed to attach to the helmet. Anciently, whilst the coronets and chapeaux were reserved for the rank to which they appertained, none below the rank of the knightly families were permitted to place their Crest upon a wreath. But both these laws - and more is the pity - have long been relegated to oblivion; and at the present day, unless the Crest be specially blazoned, as upon a chapeau, or issuing from a coronet, both of which are required to be mentioned in its Blazon, it must alway be placed upon a wreath or torse. This is supposed to be a skein of coloured silk and a gold or silver cord twisted together, and at the present day is always of the principal - i.e., the first-mentioned in the Blazon - colour and metal of the Arms, of which six alternat "twists" must be visible, the metal occurring first at the dexter end. When a "fur" occurs upon the Arms instead of either metal or colour, the ground tincture of the fur should be taken.

In the next place, I wish to explain the laws governing the usage and adoption of Crests. It is not, as I have often been solemnly assured, "simply a matter of choice" and personal fad or fancy upon the part of the bearer, and the sooner it is fully understood the better it will be that His Majesty's College of Arms in Queen Victoria Street, London; Lyon Office, in the New General Register House in Edinburgh; and Ulster's Office, in the Record Tower of Dublin Castle, are absolutely the only legitimate or authoritative Offices of Arms within His Majesty's Dominions. So recently as 1804 the Law Offices of the Crown reported to H.M. King George III that "the heralds have the original congnizance of Pedigrees and Coat-Armour." Who, then, has the right to display Armorial Bearings? That it is a matter of the Law of the Land, in addition to conformity to Heraldic regulations, may not be generally known, but in the Warrants directing the Visitations of the various counties and districts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuies, to be made in obedience to the Royal Commissions, the rights is clearly laid down, and at the present day exists under as well defined limits as those which govern and regulate the Peerage.

In England - for in the three countries the laws are not the same - direct legitimate male descent is required to be proved from some person to whom Armorial Bearings were recorded and allowed at the Visitations, or to whom Arms hve since been granted or exemplified, and , failing such descent, it is necessary to petition for the favour of the Earl Marshal's Warrant to the Kings of Arms that a Patent of Armorial Bearings shall be issued to you, if it so be desired.

In In Ireland, the same qualifications are necessary to inherit Armorial Bearings; but in addition, and in Ireland only , it is within the power and authority of Ulster King of Arms, in cases where a Coat-ofArms has been borne continuously by a family for four or more generation, buy without lawful authority, according to his discretion, to confirm those Arms and their usage within specified limitations, with the addition of some mark which shall be readiy recognisable as a sign of confirmation.

In Scotland, the right to bear the Arms or Crest of a family is absolutely confined to the heir male only. All younger sons are required to matriculate their Arms and Crests in Lyon Court, when some mark of cadency is added, and their younger sons again in their turn must do likewise, and hagve a further and additional sign of cadency added to the Bearings. Though anot a regulation, it appears to have been a very frequent practice upon each occassion of such matriculation to entirely alter the Crest, which accounts for the very large number of utterly different Crests in existence for the same family amongst the Scottish Ordinaries of Arms.

There is no such thing as the "prescriptive right to Arms," as to which some people talk glibly. Others of their persuasion have other little plausibilities, equally corrupt, which they bring into prominence. And it is a fairly safe plan to pursue to reject as bogus all Arms and Crests which boast no other origin than the Heraldic stationer who, for a trifling fee, professes, on receipt of "name and county," to find armorial bearings for any applicant.

Mottoes in England and Ireland are not necessarily hereditary, and unless attached to, or in any way forming a part of, the Arms or Crest, may be altered, assumed, or discarded at the will of the bearer. In Scotland the Motto forms a part of the grant, and is unchangeable, and is also usually required to be borne upon a ribbon above the crest. A practice has lately very extensively arisen of using with a single surname two or more Crests. With a very few exceptions, it is only allowable so to do in cases where one of these be of honourable augmentation, or where one or both be governed by some special grant; and in cases where, by the assumption of one or more additional surnames, or by a change of surname, such additional Crests - usually one for each surname - have been exemplified in accordance with the terms of the Royal License.

No Lady whatsoever is allowed by the Laws of Heraldry to in any way bear or use, in her own right, either Crest or Motto; and Arms only in a special and distinctive manner.