Beckford of Fonthill

Arms.—Per pale gules and azure, on a chevron argent, between three martlets or, an eagle displayed sable ; within a bordure of the fourth, charged with a double tressure, flory and counter flory of the first. The grant of the double tressure, under the authority of the Earl Marshal of England, registered in the college of arms, and bearing date the 20th March 1810, was intended to commemorate, not only the extraordinary accumulation of descents of the grantee, through various noble families, from the blood royal of Scotland which are verified in the line of Hamilton, but also the remarkable facts, that his grandmother, on the paternal side, Bathshua, daughter and coheir of Julines Hering esq., was through the lines above stated, of Oxenbridge, Throckmorton, Nevil, Beauchamp, Le Despencer and Plantagenet, descended from the said blood royal ; and that his grandmother, on the maternal side, Bridget Hamilton, was by her grandfather, William Coward, esq. serjeant-at-law, and recorder and member of Parliament for the city of Wells, descended through the ancient families of Dodington, of Dodington, and Wyndham, and the illustrious houses of Howard, Mowbray, Fitzalan, Bohun, and Plantagenet, and also through those of Scrope, Nevil, Stafford, Audley, and Clare, from the said blood royal ; and, by her mother, Mary, daughter of William Hastings, esq.; by her grandmother, Bridget, daughter and at length sole heir of Sir Thomas Hall; by her great-grandmother, Catherine, daughter of Sir Edward Seymour; and by her great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Brune, esq. of Athelhampton, Dorset, through several distinct lines not participated by any of the other branches of the house 01 Hamilton, also descended from the said blood royal: and further, that the grantee having intermarried with the Lady Margaret Gordon, only daughter of Charles, late earl of Aboyne, his daughters by such marriage are likewise maternally descended, by numerous and direct lines, from the kings of Scotland, through many of the greatest families of that kingdom, as well as through the principal sovereign houses of Europe.

Quartering— 1st and 4th, Hamilton, gules, three cinquefoils ermine, pierced of the field ; 2nd and 3rd, Arran, argent, a lymphad sable.

Crests— First, a heron's head erased or, gorged with a collar flory counterflory gules, in the beak a fish argent. Second, issuant out of a ducal coronet or, an oak tree fructed ppr. the stem penetrated transversely by a frame-saw, also ppr. inscribed with the word "through," differenced with a shield, pendant from a branch of the tree, charged with the arms of Latimer, being gules, a cross flory or.

*** The second was a crest of Augmentation, assigned under the Earl Marshal's authority, to Mr. Beckford, in memory of his representation of a co-heir of the Abercorn branch of the house of Hamilton ; with a distinction in allusion to his descent, through the ancient family of Mervyn, lords of the manor of Fonthill-Gifford, from William, the first Lord Latimer.

Motto— De Dieu tout.

A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland Enjoying Territorial Possessions Or High Official Rank: But Uninvested with Heritable Honours,

John Burke
Colburn, 1836

pp. 678-681