Kitley Heritage - Dester, quarterly of nine pieces

25/ Dester, quarterly of nine pieces – 1 Bastard 2 Crispin 3 Killiowe 4 Bolleigh 5 Stone? Meredith? (Party per pale or and argent over all a lion rampant sable and of the first) 6 Bodrigan 7 Pollexfen 8 Specott 9 Pownoll. Sinister, quarterly of four – Rodney 2 Wendon? (Argent a cross flory sable with florets or) 3 Cariges? (Argent on a bend sable three wading birds of the first) 4 Hinton (Party per fess indented sable and argent between six fleur de lys counterchanged).

The dexter side of this multiple coat seems a rather curious mixture at first glance, for there are the arms of a number of important families missing from it. However, upon further consideration what was intended seems reasonably clear, for the arms selected were intended to depict the very early ancestry of the Bastard lineage, shown in quartering 2 to 6 (q.v. shields 26, 28, 30 & 31), along with the principal ancestral families of the most recent generations, shown in quarterings 7 to 9 (q.v. shields 10 & 21). However, the reason for the inclusion of the coat depicted in quarter 5 is something of a mystery, and even the identity of the family to whom the arms belonged is open to debate – as is revealed anon, identifying the marriages in the very early Devonian line of the Bastards has so far proved impossible.

The inclusion of the Specott coat (in favour of others which one might expect to see displayed) also seems odd. However, it is likely that this was incorporated into the design not only because the Pollexfen/Specott marriage is the earliest Pollexfen impalement shown (q.v. shield 10), but also because of the antiquity of the family, descended ultimately from the Fitz Bernards who held Holcombe Burnell in the time of Doomsday. A later branch of this family took its name from Specott in the parish of Merton near Great Torrington, where they had become established at least by the time of Henry III, and it is this group from which the main family lineage descends.

The sinister side of the shield also poses problems, but for different reasons. For amateur local historians, it is very difficult to research out of county families for, of course, the pedigrees of their ancestral lines cannot be unravelled from purely local sources, either published or archive. So it is with the Rodneys, who ancestral lines lie in Somerset, Hertfordshire, and elsewhere (q.v. shield 27). However, their pedigree is recorded in Burke’s peerage, but none of the arms displayed in quarters 2 to 4 of the sinister of the shield at Kitley appear to belong to any of the families with whom the principals married. Therein lies the problem for researchers, for the coats must thus belong to the ancestors of the wives of various generations, marriages which have proved impossible to identify – similar difficulties have been encountered by the present writer researching other multiple shields which display maternal ancestries in their quarterings. The only other possibility is that the coats relate to the very early Rodney lineage, which has likewise proved impossible to research – Burke’s only takes the line back to Sir John Rodney, who died in 1612. The inability to have been able to identify these coats is a regrettable circumstance, for the Rodneys were arguably the most prestigious family with whom the Bastards married (q.v. shield 27).