Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [456]
It was the Forest coat of arms.
He remembered it well from his youth: a proud lion in a field. Or so it had been.
But now, resplendent in the place of honour, painted on a wooden board, rested a far more impressive and complex affair for every visitor to see. He stared at it in wonder.
For though the proud lion, which had now for decades proclaimed the Forest’s gentility, was still to be seen, it had been shifted into the second of the four quarters into which the shield had now been divided. In the first quarter now resided another and older emblem: a white swan on a red ground: the ancient arms of Godefroi. To this had been added a little badge, a difference, to show that the family came from one of several branches of the Godefroi line.
It was young Giles Forest who explained the change to him.
“Those are the Godefroi arms,” he said, “for the family of Forest descends from them, a famous ancient line from whom we had these lands by marriage. And those,” he pointed to another quarter, “are the arms of the lords de Whiteheath, another Norman family from whom we derive and there,” he concluded proudly, pointing at the fourth quarter, “are the ancient arms of Longspée, the ancient earls of Salisbury.”
Shockley was impressed. He had an idea that the Forests had come out of Salisbury a few generations before but he could not remember the details.
“I had not known the family was no noble,” he remarked respectfully; and the pleasant young man beside him bowed.
“I will show you our pedigree,” he promised.
For, like many other rising families at the time, the Forests had been to the College of Arms where, just then, resided some of the greatest rascals in the history of genealogy. There, one of the Kings of Arms had performed one of the favourite miracles of his trade. Putting the new arms the family had recently obtained into second place, he in no time discovered a far more ancient and noble origin for them in the ancient family of Godefroi, and since there seemed to be no claimants to their arms about, he kindly gave them, ‘differenced’ to make it seem more plausible, to the Forests. There was no question of a possible connection. It was a fabrication, pure and simple.
But once the Godefroi ancestry was admitted, why then, to be sure, all manner of splendid connections could be found in the perfectly genuine pedigree of the ancient knights of Avonsford. As he went back in time however, as an added bonus to the family who were paying him so well, the herald allowed his imagination to run riot, and added to the pedigree he drew up not only knights, but even magnates, like Longspée, to whom the Godefrois had never been more than tenants. It was a magnificent affair, and by this means, yet another rising Tudor family rooted itself in a fictitious Norman past.
That Nellie might have some connection with the ancient swan on its red ground never occurred to anyone; she was not even fully aware of it herself. But stout Nellie Wilson of Christchurch, even if she guessed what had been done, had no intention of digging up the memory of Nellie Godfrey of Culver Street. And as for the children of her brother Piers, they knew her only as the rich aunt who sent them presents and their father as a carpenter. The Forests were secure.
There were other new treasures in the house: a fine portrait of Forest, a delicate miniature, the size of a man’s hand, of his son; a fine arras. The party admired them all.
They dined well. Forest provided a succulent swan. And as a special course he added a curious vegetable Shockley had never seen before. It was pale in colour and had a pasty texture, and it tasted sweet.
“What is it?” he asked.
“’Tis from across the ocean, from the Spanish New World,” Wilson explained. “A rare taste.”
It was. Forest had obtained the first of the sweet potatoes from South America, that were soon to be followed by their cousins, the ordinary potato, back to the old world.
It was after dinner that Forest took the men aside