Heraldic visitation

Heraldic visitations were tours of inspection undertaken by Kings of Arms throughout England, Wales and Ireland. Their purpose was to register and regulate the coats of arms of nobility, gentry and boroughs, and to record pedigrees. They took place from 1530 to 1688, and their records provide important source material for historians and genealogists.

Visitations in England

Process of visitations

By the fifteenth century, the use and abuse of coats of arms was becoming widespread in England. One of the duties conferred on William Bruges, the first Garter Principal King of Arms, was to survey and record the armorial bearings and pedigrees of those using coats of arms and correct irregularities. Officers of arms had made occasional tours of various parts of the kingdom to enquire about armorial matters during the fifteenth century. However, it was not until the sixteenth century that the process began in earnest.
The first provincial visitations were carried out under warrant granted by Henry VIII to Thomas Benolt, Clarenceux King of Arms, dated 6 April 1530. He was commissioned to travel throughout his province with authority to enter all homes and churches. Upon entering these premises, he was authorized to "put down or otherwise deface at his discretion ... those arms unlawfully used". He was also required to enquire into all those using the titles of knight, esquire, or gentleman and decided if they were being lawfully used.
By this writ, Henry VIII also compelled the sheriffs and mayors of each county or city visited by the officers of arms to give aid and assistance in gathering the needed information. When a King of Arms, or Herald, visited a county, his presence was proclaimed by presenting the King's royal commission to the local gentry and nobility, which required them to provide evidence of their right to use a coat of arms. The Sheriff would collect from the bailiff of each hundred within his county a list of all people using titles or arms.
In the early days, the visiting herald would tour the homes of the gentry and nobility, but from the late 1560s these persons were summoned to attend a central "place of sitting" – usually an inn – at a particular time. They were to bring their arms, and proof of their right to use them, most often by way of detailing their ancestral right to them, which would also be recorded. Where an official grant of arms had been made, this was also recorded. Other ancient arms, many of which predated the establishment of the College of Arms, were confirmed. The officer would record the information clearly and make detailed notes that could be entered into the records of the College of Arms when the party returned to London.
An example of the text of a herald's visitation writ is the following, issued by Edward Bysshe, then Clarenceux King of Arms, dated 1 July 1664 and addressed to the Constables of the Hundred of Clackclose in Norfolk, giving them notice of two and a half months to muster the local gentry in the Black Swan Inn at Downham Market at 8 am:
If the officers of arms were not presented with sufficient proof of the right to use a coat of arms, they were also empowered to deface monuments which bore these arms and to force persons bearing such arms to sign a disclaimer that they would cease using them. The visitations were not always popular with members of the landed gentry, who were required to present proof of their gentility.
Following the accession of William III in 1689, no further commissions to carry out visitations were commanded. The reasons behind this cessation of the programme have been a matter of debate among historians. Philip Styles, for example, related it to a declining willingness of members of the gentry to attend visitations, which he traced to a growing proportion of "newly risen" families, who lacked long pedigrees and were therefore apathetic about registering them. However, Janet Verasanso has challenged this interpretation, finding that gentry enthusiasm for coats of arms as an enhancement to social standing persisted to the end of the 17th century. The end of the visitations did not have much effect on those counties far removed from London, some of which had only been rarely visited over the entire period of the visitations.
There was never a systematic visitation of Wales. There were four visitations in the principality, and on 9 June 1551, Fulk ap Hywel, Lancaster Herald of Arms in Ordinary, was given a commission to visit all of Wales. This was not carried out, however, as he was degraded and executed for counterfeiting the seal of Clarenceux King of Arms. This is regrettable, since no visitation of all Wales was ever made by the officers of arms.

Records

The principal records to emerge from the visitations were pedigrees, initially recorded on loose sheets of paper, and afterwards bound together as notebooks. In some cases, the sheets would include blank shields which had been drawn in advance, to simplify the process of recording coats of arms. The persons whose pedigrees were recorded were required to certify them by signature, and where these original draft pedigrees have survived they are known as "originals with signatures". The signed copies were taken back to the College of Arms, where fair copies were made to a higher standard and preserved as the "office copies". Sometimes the signed copies were also retained at the College, but in other cases, no longer considered of official interest, they might pass into private hands: once in general circulation, further copies were often made, which might in turn be revised or augmented. As a result of these processes of transmission, a number of variant manuscript copies of any one visitation record may now survive, possessing varying degrees of accuracy and authority. The Harleian Collection of the British Library is particularly rich in such records. Many visitation records have been published over the years, by the Harleian Society, by county record societies, and a few privately. However, because until relatively recently the College of Arms restricted access to its records, many of the older published editions were necessarily based on the unofficial second- or third-generation copies in other collections, and may therefore not always be reliable.
From as early as the 1530s, officers of arms on visitation frequently also compiled what were known as "church notes". These were fieldnotes of coats of arms observed on church monuments, in stained glass windows, or on display in private houses. Sometimes, drawings were also made of non-heraldic antiquities, such as medieval architectural features, views of towns, Roman inscriptions and even Stonehenge.
The 17th-century visitations generated a growing number of supplementary papers, including warrants, lists of persons who disclaimed any pretence to arms, lists of persons summoned to appear before the heralds, records of fees paid, and miscellaneous correspondence.

Lists of visitations

Visitations were conducted by or in the name of the two provincial Kings of Arms, Clarenceux and Norroy, within their respective provinces. In the following lists, the Deputies are the officers of arms who actually carried out the visitations. Where no Deputy is named, the visitation can be assumed to have been conducted by the King of Arms in person.

Southern Province

The Southern Province, the jurisdiction of Clarenceux King of Arms, comprised that part of England south of the River Trent, i.e. the counties of Bedford, Berks, Buckingham, Cambridge, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Gloucester, Hereford, Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex, Monmouth, Norfolk, Northampton, Oxford, Rutland, Salop, Somerset, Southampton, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick, Wilton, Worcester, and the City of London; and South Wales.

Year	County or area visited	Clarenceux King of Arms	Deputy or Deputies	Notes
1530	Kent, Sussex	Thomas Benolt
1530–33	London churches	Thomas Benolt	Thomas Hawley, Carlisle Herald
1531	Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall	Thomas Benolt
1531	Wales and Herefordshire	Thomas Benolt	William Fellow, Lancaster Herald
1532	Surrey, Hampshire, Isle of Wight	Thomas Benolt
1532	London Companies	Thomas Benolt		The record is not necessarily that of a visitation.
1532–33	Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire	Thomas Benolt
1552	Essex, Surrey, Hampshire	Thomas Hawley		A purported visitation or visitations of which there is no College record.
1558	Essex	William Harvey		A possible visitation of which there is no formal College record.
1561	Suffolk	William Harvey
1562–64	Lincolnshire	William Harvey	Robert Cooke, Chester Herald
1563	Norfolk	William Harvey
1563	Leicestershire, Warwickshire	William Harvey	Robert Cooke, Chester Herald
1564	Devon	William Harvey
1565	Wiltshire	William Harvey
1565	Dorset	William Harvey
1566	Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire	William Harvey	Richmond Herald: either Nicholas Narboone or Hugh Cotgrave
1566	Bedfordshire	William Harvey
1566	Buckinghamshire	William Harvey
1566	Oxfordshire	William Harvey
1566	Berkshire	William Harvey
1568 & later	London	Robert Cooke
1569	Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire	Robert Cooke
1570	Essex	Robert Cooke
1570	Sussex	Robert Cooke
1571–72	Hertfordshire, Middlesex	Robert Cooke
1572	Surrey	Robert Cooke
1573	Cornwall	Robert Cooke
1573	Somerset	Robert Cooke
1574	Kent	Robert Cooke
1574	Oxford University	Robert Cooke	Richard Lee, Portcullis Pursuivant
1574–75	Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire	Robert Cooke	Richard Lee, Portcullis Pursuivant
1575	Cambridgeshire	Robert Cooke
1575–76	Hampshire	Robert Cooke
1576	Norfolk	Robert Cooke		Perhaps in progress October 1576; one entry dated 1589.
1577	Suffolk	Robert Cooke
1584–86	Shropshire	Robert Cooke	Richard Lee, Portcullis Pursuivant
1589–92	Kent	Robert Cooke	Thomas Drury
1590	London Companies	Robert Cooke
1591	Somerset	Robert Cooke	Ralph Brooke, Rouge Croix Pursuivant
1592	Lincolnshire	Robert Cooke	Richard Lee, Richmond Herald
1592	Northamptonshire	Robert Cooke		Visitation intended but never carried out.
1612	Suffolk	William Camden	John Raven, Richmond Herald
1613	Norfolk	William Camden	John Raven, Richmond Herald
1613	Huntingdonshire	William Camden	Nicholas Charles, Lancaster Herald
1614	Essex	William Camden	John Raven, Richmond Herald
1618–19	Northamptonshire and Rutland	William Camden	Augustine Vincent, Rouge Rose Pursuivant Extraordinary
1619	Warwickshire	William Camden	Sampson Lennard, Bluemantle Pursuivant, and Augustine Vincent, Rouge Rose Pursuivant Extraordinary
1619	Leicestershire	William Camden	Sampson Lennard, Bluemantle Pursuivant, and Augustine Vincent, Rouge Rose Pursuivant Extraordinary
1619	Cambridgeshire	William Camden	Henry St George, Richmond Herald
1619	Kent	William Camden	John Philipot, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1620	Devon	William Camden	Henry St George, Richmond Herald, and Sampson Lennard, Bluemantle Pursuivant
1620	Cornwall	William Camden	Henry St George, Richmond Herald, and Sampson Lennard, Bluemantle Pursuivant
1622–23	Hampshire	William Camden	John Philipot, Somerset Herald
1623	Surrey	William Camden	Samuel Thompson, Windsor Herald, and Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix Pursuivant
1623	Gloucestershire	William Camden	Henry Chitting, Chester Herald, and John Philipot, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1623	Berkshire	William Camden	Henry Chitting, Chester Herald, and John Philipot, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1623	Shropshire	William Camden	Robert Treswell, Somerset Herald, and Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix Pursuivant
1623	Wiltshire	William Camden	Henry St George, Richmond Herald, and Sampson Lennard, Bluemantle Pursuivant
1623	Dorset	William Camden	Henry St George, Richmond Herald, and Sampson Lennard, Bluemantle Pursuivant
1623	Somerset	William Camden	Henry St George, Richmond Herald, and Sampson Lennard, Bluemantle Pursuivant
1634	Hampshire	Sir Richard St George	John Philipot, Somerset Herald
1634	Essex	Sir Richard St George	George Owen, York Herald, and Henry Lilly, Rouge Rose Pursuivant Extraordinary
1634	Lincolnshire	Sir Richard St George	Henry Chitting, Chester Herald, and Thomas Thompson, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1633–35	London	Sir Richard St George	Sir Henry St George, Richmond Herald
1634	London Companies	Sir Richard St George
1634	Herefordshire	Sir Richard St George
1634	Buckinghamshire	Sir Richard St George	John Philipot, Somerset Herald, and William Ryley, Bluemantle Pursuivant
1633–34	Sussex	Sir Richard St George	John Philipot, Somerset Herald, and George Owen, York Herald
1634	Hertfordshire	Sir Richard St George
1634	Middlesex	Sir Richard St George
1634	Oxfordshire	Sir Richard St George	John Philipot, Somerset Herald, and William Ryley, Bluemantle Pursuivant
1634	Worcestershire	Sir Richard St George	George Owen, York Herald, and Henry Lilly, Rouge Rose Pursuivant Extraordinary
1634	Bedfordshire	Sir Richard St George	George Owen, York Herald, and Henry Lilly, Rouge Rose Pursuivant Extraordinary
1662–64	Shropshire	Sir Edward Bysshe	William Dugdale, Norroy King of Arms
1662–68	Surrey	Sir Edward Bysshe
1662–68	Sussex	Sir Edward Bysshe
1663	Middlesex	Sir Edward Bysshe	William Ryley, Lancaster Herald, and Henry Dethick, Rouge Croix Pursuivant
1663	Kent	Sir Edward Bysshe
1664	London	Sir Edward Bysshe	Francis Sandford, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, and Thomas Holford, Portcullis Pursuivant
1664–66	Berkshire	Sir Edward Bysshe	Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald
1664–68	Norfolk	Sir Edward Bysshe
1664–68	Essex	Sir Edward Bysshe
1664–68	Suffolk	Sir Edward Bysshe
1666	Lincolnshire	Sir Edward Bysshe
1669	Bedfordshire	Sir Edward Bysshe
1669	Hertfordshire	Sir Edward Bysshe
1669–75	Buckinghamshire	Sir Edward Bysshe
1668–75	Oxfordshire	Sir Edward Bysshe
1672	Somerset	Sir Edward Bysshe
1677	Wiltshire	Sir Edward Bysshe
1677	Dorset	Sir Edward Bysshe
1681–82	Northamptonshire	Sir Henry St George	Francis Burghill, Somerset Herald, Thomas May, Chester Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1681–82	Rutland	Sir Henry St George	Francis Burghill, Somerset Herald, Thomas May, Chester Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1681–83	Leicestershire	Sir Henry St George	Thomas May, Chester Herald, Henry Dethick, Richmond Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1683	Warwickshire	Sir Henry St George	Thomas May, Chester Herald, Henry Dethick, Richmond Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1682–83	Worcestershire	Sir Henry St George	Thomas May, Chester Herald, Henry Dethick, Richmond Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1682–83	Gloucestershire	Sir Henry St George	Thomas May, Chester Herald, Henry Dethick, Richmond Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1683	Herefordshire	Sir Henry St George	Henry Dethick, Richmond Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1683	Monmouthshire	Sir Henry St George	Henry Dethick, Richmond Herald, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
1684	Cambridgeshire	Sir Henry St George
1684	Huntingdonshire	Sir Henry St George
1686	Hampshire	Sir Henry St George
1687–1700	London	Sir Henry St George