No. 190 Summer 2000

King Charles II and Augmentations of Honour

Introduction

Early on the morning of 15 October 1651, six weeks after his defeat at the hands of Commonwealth Forces at the Battle of Worcester, Charles and his faithful companion, Baron Wilmot, boarded the brig Surprise near Shoreham, and sailed to France. It was to be almost nine years before he saw England again.

The king had acquitted himself well in the battle on 3 September 1651, but in the evening, his cause was lost, he was forced to flee the city by the northern gate. His adventures during the next month and a half have been recounted by many writers over the centuries. Sufficient to say he found unwavering support among his English subjects, many of whom put their lives in danger to aid their sovereign, and in better times - he returned to England in May 1660 and was later crowned - he rewarded many of the people who had saved his life. Some were granted pensions, others augmentations to their armorial bearings, some received both.

The Augmentations

Charles was assisted in his flight from the city of Worcester by Colonel Richard Newman, who had also played a distinguished part in the battle. This officer, a member of an old West of England family, holders of land in Dorset, Somerset and Gloucester, was granted an escutcheon gules charged with a portcullis imperially crowned or as an augmentation to his ancestral arms of quarterly sable and argent in the first and fourth quarters three mullets silver.

Travelling north of the city for some miles via the Boxcobel estate, the king and his small party found refuge just before dawn on 4 September with a peasant family named Penderel at their house Whiteladies. The family included five brothers of which the names of Humphrey, John, Richard and William are known.

Over the next few days the Penderels succoured their king, journeying with him to Madely, and the home of Francis Wolfe, in the hope that a boat could be found to secure a passage across the Severn and hence to Wales. This proving impossible they returned to Madely; Lord Wilmot in the meantime having found refuge with Thomas Whitegreave of Moseley Old Hall not too far away.

Francis Wolfe, whose arms were gules a chevron between three wolves' heads erased or was granted the addition of an inescutcheon gules bearing a lion of England in its time-honoured gold.

The Whitegreaves did not receive an augmentation to their arms in the lifetime of King Charles, but such was granted to Thomas Whitegreave's great-great grandson, also named Thomas, High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1837, to be bourne by him and his descendants "to commemorate the services of his ancestor in the civil wars, and the preservation of King Charles". The blazon of the augmentation was a chief argent, thereon a rose gules irradiated or within a wreath of oak proper. [ continues here ]