The Heraldry Society - coat of arms

No. 190 Summer 2000

King Charles II and Augmentations of Honour [ continued from here ]

It was during his adventures with the Penderels that the most famous incident in Charles's flight occurred. There being an increasing amount of Roundhead activity in the area it was felt that the king should not remain in any house likely to be searched, and an alternative had to be found. Charles "learnt that a particularly gallant Royalist soldier, Major Carlis, who had stayed till the end at Worcester…was at that very moment concealed in the thick Boscobel Wood.

The major knew that his own home nearby would undoubtedly be searched. It was thus that Carlis - or Carlos, as he has gone down in history…- found himself in the legendary royal oak, sharing it with King Charles II" 6. The two men remained in the tree for the whole day of 6 September, watching, as Charles later told Samuel Pepys, "the soldiers going up and down, in the thickest of the wood, searching for persons escaped…" That evening, and back indoors at Boscobel the king learned of the £1000 price on his head.

Major William Carlos (some insist on "Colonel") escaped to France on 21 May 1658 and after the Restoration was granted a pension and a bounty, dying in 1689. He was also granted new arms as augmentation: or on a mount an oak tree fructed proper on a fess gules three imperial crowns also proper, similar, except for tinctures, to those granted to the Penderels. For a crest he received: a sword erect hilt and pommel or a sceptre of the last in saltire enfiled with a civic crown vert.

After saying farewell to the Penderels and reaching Moseley, the king passed into the protection of Colonel John Lane and his daughter Jane. It was arranged that from the Lane's house at Bentley, Charles would ride pillion with Jane, and be disguised as her servant "William Jackson". The story of their journey to Abbot's Leigh near Bristol on the back of the young lady's strawberry roan has been told many times and there is an extremely inaccurate painting commemorating the event. Suffice it is to say that the ride appears to have been uneventful, and for a week, to quote Sir Arthur Bryant again, Jane "carried the Crown of England in her hands and never was trust more bravely or delicately performed."

At Abbots Leigh it had been hoped to learn of a ship which would take the king from Bristol to France, but to no avail, so the couple moved to Trent Manor, close to Sherborne in Dorset, where Colonel Francis Wyndham, a staunch Royalist, lived. Charles being safely lodged there, Jane returned home. In due time she was to be granted a very handsome pension, become Lady Fisher, and died in 1689. It was to be many years, 1677, before the Lane arms received an augmentation, but it was worth waiting for and it is fitting to quote the Royal Warrant at some length: "Ye great and Signal Service performed to Us by John Lane of Bentley in com [county] Stafford Esqr. deceased, in his ready concurring to ye Preservation of Our Royal Person after the Battle of Worcester at which time contemning the threatenings published by the Murtherers of our Royal Father, against any who should be instrumental in the discovery and destruction of Our Person, and not valuing any hazard his Family might run with the duty of an unspotted Allegiance, did by his great prudence and Fidelity conduct Us, as that we were able at length to retire to places of safety beyond the Seas". The augmentation comprised canton of England: gules three leopards passant guardant or, the original arms being per fess or and azure a chevron gules between three mullets counterchanged. There was no mention of Jane's difficult and dangerous part in "ye Preservation of [the] Royal Person", but in 1678 Sir William Dugdale, the fairly newly appointed Garter, was enabled to grant as a crest of augmentation: out of a wreath or and azure, a demi-horse strawberry colour bridled sable bitted and garnished or supporting an imperial crown gold. No doubt Lady Fisher was well pleased. [ continues here ]