|
|
Home
Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
Maps by Family
Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
|
|
In connection
with this impalement there are a series of interesting and important
historical facts, namely: The family of Richard de Avranches
was the only one in this part of England using as their arms
the wolf head erased of the field. The male line of this family ended
with Richard, third earl of Chester,
who died childless, he and his bride having been drowned by the sinking
of the Blanche Nef. Richard was the nephew of
Isabella Lupus and son of her brother Hugh, earl of Chester. The generation of Isabella was
therefore the last in which a female might have endowed her children with
this device with which to impale their father's arms.
In the next
generation after the marriage with Isabella Lupus, our ancestor acquired
the manor of Peshale. As a consequence his son
called himself Robert de Peshale, whereby we
obtained both our name and our coat of arms. This Robert de Peshale married Ormunda de
Lumley de Stafford, a princess of the royal line of kings and earls of
Bernicia, Northumberland, whose arms are a lion rampant Gules crown d'or and double queve,
whereby some bore arms argent, a cross formie
sable and essunt fleur de lis,
on a canton in chief gules, a wolf head erased argent, with an escutcheon
of augmentation bearing the arms of the royal house of Bernicia, as above
described.
There were good
reasons why at this time it was not advisable for the members of our
family to call attention either to their relationship to the family of Avranches, or to that of the Bernician
nobility, so for several generations our family appears to have borne the
arms of Werlac without any impalement or
augmentation whatsoever. There is now no good reason why the American
branch of the family should not adopt the impalement and augmentation
that was permissible when our family name began, hence our arms would be
as shown on chart.
The reader,
however, must be careful to keep in mind that the arms of the family are
the arms of Werlac, to wit the cross with the
fleur de lis as already explained, and that the
only limit of augmentation is the number of generations that have since
intervened until the family came to America. Such a design would
of course represent the height of armorial variety. The families in England
today are represented by descendants who call themselves Pearsall, Parshall, Pexall, Pascall, Peshall and Swinnerton. The latter name needs an explanation.
Robert de Peshale, grandson of Robert de Peshale and his wife Ormunda
de Lumley de Stafford, called himself de Swinnerton,
he having also been given by his parents the manor of Swinnerton.
One of the lines of descent from him, viz: The
De Swinnertons, appear to have quite uniformly
adhered to the arms of Werlac, while as to the
other line of descent, de Peshales, there has
been considerable difference in augmentation and impalement.
In the centuries
following the Conquest men were very jealous of their armorial bearings, specially of the bearings peculiar to their own family
name, but gradually there arose the new rich, who, desiring to follow the
manners of the nobility, assumed to themselves arms to which of course
they had no right whatsoever. In many cases they copied the arms of existing
families, or imitated them so closely as to make the worst sort of
confusion. Gradually therefore the laws, usages and customs grew into a
science known as Heraldry. In the time of Henry V the assumption of arms
by private persons was restrained by royal proclamation.
|
|
