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The James Blount Coat of Arms
A coat of arms, purporting to have been those of Captain James Blount, known to have settled in North Carolina by 1655, taken from John H.Wheeler’s “Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians (Columbus, OH, 1884) has been kindly published on William LaMartin’s website: lamartin.com
Miss Helen Malvina Blount Prescott in her unpublished manuscript genealogy of the descendants of Capt.James Blount said the following: “The Coat of Arms (said to have been taken from his tomb) engraved as a copper plate was in the possession of his descendant James B.Sheppard of Raleigh and destroyed by him about 1840.”
In the early years of the twentieth century, Miss Prescott investigated the Blounts of Astley, Worcestershire, from which family James Blount is presumed to have descended. She believed that the three chevronnels on the sinister (female) side of the arms were derived from Clare. The female side of coats of arms are always on the right, as seen facing the shield, but as seen on the left from the point of view of the knight wielding this shield – hence “sinister”. The colours of the coat of arms are not known.
Also on lamartin.com is an article by Virginia W.Westergard and Kyle S. Van Landingham: “Parker and Blount in Florida”, in which has been traced the descent of the Blounts of Astley from Siegfred the Dane, 1st Count of Guisnes, A.D. 935.
Way back in 2001, Kyle, knowing that I would shortly be visiting Worcestershire, introduced me, through the internet, to Bromfield Nichol of Pensacola. Brom, like Kyle, a descendant of James Blount, had checked these coats of arms in Burke’s General Armoury, against Fairburn’s crests. The only combination of a shield showing three chevronnels with a unicorn crest appeared to be LEWKENOR. Would I check this out?
Originally, I thought that Lewkenor was unlikely. Clare was a local name, a Kidderminster family; I had never heard of the name Lewkenor before. I visited the parish church of St.Mary, Kidderminster, and photographed the slab tomb of Sir Ralph Clare, which can be seen on lamartin.com Blount Heraldry Image 5. The Clare crest is a stag’s head; it is not the head of a unicorn.
In Worcester County Record Office, County Hall site, the site where original documents are housed, all I could find was the 1580 will of Nicholas Lewkenor of Alvechurch and a bill for entertainment of the Prince of Parma and the ambassador of Venice, presented by Sir Lewes Lewkenor. Nicholas Lewkenor’s will mentioned his cousin, Richard Lewkenor, while Victoria County History for Worcestershire revealed that this Richard Lewkenor was a Sussex gentleman.
I visited the West Sussex County Record Office at Chichester where I found that the Lewkenors were an important and ancient family sharing the same catholic leanings as the Blounts of Astley during the late sixteenth and early seventeeth centuries.
But it was Family Search that caught my interest: Bridget Brome/BLOUNT/Stanley, the second wife of Thomas Blount of Astley, Captain James’s grandfather, was the sister of Eleanor Brome/LEWKENOR/Oglander of the Lewkenor of West Dean family.
There was, however, still a problem with the crest. Various sources give the crests of the Lewkenors as:
1. A greyhound
2. A unicorn’s head erased, azure bezantee, horned and maned, Or.
3. A hawk’s lure.
To which branch of the Lewkenors did the unicorn crest belong? A great many letters have been written and a great many generous answers received. The crest of the senior line appears on the “Lewkenor carpet”, as shown on the websites of Nat Taylor: nltaylor.com, and Richard Symonds: wasfu-man-dedishamhistory.blogspot.com. The Lewkenor carpet is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
It was a greyhound.
I allowed myself to be completely thrown by this and, also, the information that Sir Richard Lewkenor (the same cousin Richard who was mentioned in Nicholas of Alvechurch’s will), father-in-law of Eleanor Brome/Lewkenor/Oglander used the greyhound crest, as shown in a portrait painted in 1614, depicting Sir Richard, his coat of arms and his crest. I do not know of the present whereabouts of this portrait. If Sir Richard used the greyhound crest, then, I thought, it would have been the greyhound crest that his descendants would have used, and as I had expected that it was from among his descendants that I would find the lady associated with the sinister side of the James Blount coat of arms, then I reasoned that I was looking at the wrong branch of the family. Not so. The senior line of the Lewkenors died out and right to the arms and crest of the greyhound would have passed to Edmund Lewkenor of Fyning, whose eldest son was Thomas Lewkenor of Selsey, father of Sir Lewes (of the bill), James I’s Master of Ceremonies for Life and husband of Mary, daughter of Richard Blount of Dedisham. Sir Richard was the second son of Edmund of Fyning, and, as such, was entitled to use his father’s crest, albeit, correctly, with a cadency mark.
What is known is that Sir Richard’s great-grandson, Sir John Lewkenor of West Dean, armiger, 1623-1669, did use the UNICORN crest. Our missing lady would be related, somehow, to Sir John. Research into the heraldic aspects of this investigation is continuing.
The Lewkenors of West Dean have been very well documented.
Sir Richard 1542-1616, was Chief Justice of Chester, with responsibility for justice in Wales and the four English counties bordering Wales, a very powerful man.
His two sons, Thomas and Richard (the husband of Eleanor Brome/Lewkenor/Oglander) predeceased him.
Richard and Eleanor’s children, Sir Richard’s only grandchildren, were:
1. Richard 1589-1635 m Mary Bennett, the parents of Sir John Lewkenor known to have used the unicorn crest, whose only surviving child was another John.
2. Thomas bap 1590, probably dead before 1625.
3. Margaret, bap 1592 m John Austen, marriage settlement 1613.
4. George, bap 1594, probably dead before 1625.
5. Elizabeth, still unmarried at 1635. Dsp.
6. Sir Christopher bap 1597 m Mary May, daughters: Elizabeth bap 1630 and Frances bap 1634. Sir Christopher was the royalist defender of Chichester. The lives of the daughters are very well documented. I quote from “Sussex Genealogies” (Lewes Centre), by John Comber, 1933, p.155:
“Frances, dau and cohr. Md Michael Martyn and had issue:
a. Richard Martyn, Devisee of Sir Richard Knight dsp
b. Christopher Martyn, assumed name of Knight, dsp.
c. Elizabeth dau and hr. married 1. Her 1st cousin William Woodward Knight of Chawton, Hants. Dsp. 2. Bulstrode Peachey, assumed name of Knight on his marriage in 1725.
“Elizabeth m Edward Woodward Knight of Chawton, co. Hants. Had issue William Woodward Knight of Chawton. Dsp. Md his 1st cousin, Elizabeth Martyn (as above).
And yes! All you Jane Austen buffs out there – this really is the beginning of the novelist’s brother’s (and therefore Jane’s) financial good fortune, when he was, in turn, adopted by his Knight cousins and – in turn – assumed the name Knight.”
7. John, bap 1599. Does not appear in the Visitation of Sussex pedigree of 1634.
8. Anthony, 1601-1650. Sir Richard, his grandfather, as Chief Justice of Chester, lived at Ludlow. It is in Shropshire that Anthony remained. He married Thomazine (sometimes called “Susan”) Bullock, daughter of Edmund Bullock, his grandfather’s “servant” and Thomazine,aged 14, is called “daughter” in Eleanor Brome/Lewkenor/Oglander’s will. Issue:
a. Jeremie, eldest son, whose baptism has not yet been found m Margaret Davies in Bromfield 1653.
b. Lawrence, bap 1623, Wenlock, still alive at time of his father’s will in 1649.
c. Elizabeth, bap 1626, Wenlock, still alive and unmarried at time of his father’s will in 1649.
REASONS for suspecting that ELIZABETH LEWKENR of CLUN was the first wife of Capt.James Blount:
1. Elizabeth Lewkenor, daughter of Anthony Lewkenor of Clun, Shropshire, would have been 29 years old in 1655, the date when Captain James and his unknown wife were living in N.Carolina. They were of a similar age.
2. She was first cousin of Sir John Lewkenor of West Dean, known to have used the unicorn crest.
3. She is the only unaccounted-for daughter in this small family group.
4. She was second (step) cousin to James Blount of Astley.
5. James’s step-grandmother, Bridget of Astley, and Elizabeth’s grandmother, Eleanor, (Bridget’s sister) were cousins of the strongly catholic Windsor family of Hewell Grange, near Bromsgrove; even if James and Elizabeth did not share their grandmothers’ beliefs they would have experienced the same strong influences.
6. Elizabeth was the great-niece of Dorothy Blount, the financially disinherited daughter of Sir George Blount of Kinlet, who was, nevertheless, still his genealogical heiress. Dorothy married, as her second husband, John Bullock, uncle of Thomazine. Neither of Dorothy’s husband’s had a right to arms.
7. In 1655 the following persons were bound to James Blunt, planter:
Thomas Taylor of Lugwardine, just outside the City of Hereford boundary and
Rebecca Davies of Grosmont and Anne Morgan of Rowstone, both twelve miles or so SW of Hereford, towards Abergavenny, home of the Gunters, cousins of the Lewkenors. Might these servants have been already known to James’s wife?
8. Anthony was the only member of the West Dean family to have continued living in Shropshire; Elizabeth would have lived at his family’s home in Clun. Her maternal grandfather, Edmund Bullock had been bailiff of Wenlock, and presumably lived there. Wenlock is close to Stoddesdon, the home of Dorothy Blount and her sons by her first marriage to John Purslowe of Sidnall, and, as such, Elizabeth, most probably, would have been familiar with the Blount coat of arms which used to be seen in one of the windows of Stoddesdon church but was removed at about 1840. She would also have been familiar with the extraordinary memorial to Sir George Blount in Kinlet church, with the sabaton (“slipper”) which can be seen on lamartin.com/genealogy/BlountHeraldry/Image 2. It is this slipper which most closely resembles the crest on the Blount side of James Blount’s coat of arms, rather than the more delicate slipper at Astley, shown on lamartin.com/genealogy/BlountHeraldry/Image 1
I suspect that James Blount never knew the slipper crest at Astley. I have found nothing about the younger James in England, other than the mention in the will of his uncle Charles Blount, as being “overseas”. The unicorn on the sinister side of the James Blount coat of arms has been drawn correctly; the barry nebully and the crest on the dexter side is so almost-right; could it have been drawn from memory?
However, for completion, there is recorded the baptism of a Susan Lewkenor, daughter of Walter and Elizabeth, 1630 at Morville and that of her sister, Elizabeth, in 1624 at Kinver. Thomazine’s maternal grand-father was George Smith of Morville, Esq. I wish I knew where Walter Lewkenor fits in. There is no-one of that name mentioned in Anthony’s will.
The last information that I have on Elizabeth is her mention in her father’s will of 1649. Her elder brother, Jeremie, was still alive after the 1651 Battle of Worcester; perhaps he never took part in it. Lawrence was bequeathed his father’s sword – usually a legacy to the eldest son. And of Lawrence and Elizabeth I know nothing more.
I have found NO PROOF that Elizabeth Lewkenor was the wife of Captain James Blount; but, neither is there any evidence that his wife was a Clare – and, besides the crest is wrong.
And *if* his wife was a Lewkenor, this also proves that James Blount of North Carolina surely must have been James Blount of Astley, because the ties between both young people go both ways and it would be impossible for anyone else to show both Blount and Lewkenor on these fabricated arms. They are the memory of her and her husband’s families’ illustrious past that Elizabeth took with her to her new life in America.
It may not be correct heraldry, but it is a gift of a clue.
As always, I will be pleased to receive comments or requests for further information.
May I wish you all a Happy New Year!
Gillian Palmer.
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