The coat of arms of Clarenceux King of Arms.

Clarenceux King of Arms is an officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. Clarenceux is the senior of the two provincial kings of arms and his jurisdiction is that part of England south of the River Trent. The office almost certainly existed in 1420, and there is a fair degree of probability that there was a Claroncell rex heraldus armorum in 1334. There are also some early references to the southern part of England being termed Surroy, but there is not firm evidence that there was ever a king of arms so called. The title of Clarenceux is supposedly derived from either the Honor (or estates of dominion) of the Clare earls of Gloucester, or from the Dukedom of Clarence (1362). With minor variations, the arms of Clarenceux have, from the late fifteenth century, been blazoned as Argent a Cross on a Chief Gules a Lion passant guardant crowned with an open Crown Or.

The current Clarenceux King of Arms is David Hubert Boothby Chesshyre, Esq., CVO, MA (Cantab), DipEd (Oxon), FSA, FHS.

[edit] Holders of the office

Brackets indicate a date for which there is evidence the named person held this office

Clarenceux King of Arms Thomas Hawley in a 1556 grant of arms

• (1334) Andrew (surname unknown)
• (1383) Richard Spenser
• (1419) William Horsley
• (1425) John Cosoun
• (1435) Roger Legh or Lygh
• (1461) William Hawkeslowe
• 1476-1483 Sir Thomas Holme
• 1483-1516 Roger Machado
• 1516-1534 Thomas Benolte
• 1534-1536 Thomas Tonge
• 1536-1557 Thomas Hawley
• 1557-1567 William Harvey
• 1567-1594 Robert Cooke
• 1594-1597 Richard Lee
• 1597-1623 William Camden
• 1623-1635 Sir Richard St George
• 1635-1646 Sir William Le Neve
• 1646-1650 Arthur Squibb
• 1650-1658 Sir Edward Bysshe
• 1658-1661 William Ryley
• 1661-1680 Sir Edward Bysshe
• 1680-1704 Sir Henry St George
• 1704-1726 Sir John Vanbrugh

The current Clarenceux King of Arms, Hubert Chesshyre, in the procession to the annual service of the Order of the Garter

• 1726-1741 Knox Ward
• 1741-1755 Stephen Martin Leake
• 1755-1773 Charles Townley
• 1773-1780 Ralph Bigland
• 1780-1803 Isaac Heard
• 1803-1820 George Harrison
• 1820-1822 Sir George Nayler
• 1822-1831 Sir Ralph Bigland
• 1831-1838 Sir William Woods
• 1838-1839 Sir Edmund Lodge
• 1839-1846 Joseph Hawker
• 1846-1848 Francis Martin
• 1848-1859 James Pulman
• 1859-1882 Robert Laurie
• 1882-1894 Walter Aston Blount
• 1894-1911 George Edward Cokayne
• 1911-1919 Sir William Henry Weldon
• 1919-1922 Charles Harold Athill
• 1922-1926 William Alexander Lindsay
• 1926-1927 Gordon Ambrose de Lisle Lee
• 1928-1954 Sir Arthur William Stuart Cochrane
• 1954-1955 Archibald George Blomefield Russell
• 1956-1967 Sir John Dunamace Heaton-Armstrong
• 1968-1978 John Riddell Bromhead Walker
• 1978-1995 Sir Anthony Richard Wagner
• 1995-1997 John Philip Brooke Brooke-Little
• 1997-Present David Hubert Boothby Chesshyre

[edit] See also

• Heraldry
• Officer of Arms

[edit] References

• The College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street : being the sixteenth and final monograph of the London Survey Committee, Walter H. Godfrey, assisted by Sir Anthony Wagner, with a complete list of the officers of arms, prepared by H. Stanford London, (London, 1963)
• A History of the College of Arms &c, Rev. Mark Noble, (London, 1804)

[edit] External links

• The College of Arms
• CUHGS Officer of Arms Index

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