On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 1:29:22 PM UTC-4, Peter Howarth wrote:
> On Sunday, 3 September 2023 at 12:42:01 UTC+1, Andrew Z wrote:
> > <snip>
> > I wonder when these arms were adopted by the Cresswells of Barneshurt since the the funerary monument for the daughter of Catherine Weston and John Dyott, Joan Dyott who married Richard Cresswell, only shows the Dyott and Weston arms. Their descendants, the Cresswells of Pinkney Park, used the arms described in this post, but without the nut (according to Burke's General Armoury that you referenced above and Burke's Landed Gentry).
> > https://books.google.ca/books?id=N__lAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA252&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
> >
> > All the best!
> >
> > Andrew
> The earliest examples of these Creswell arms are to be found in William Jenyns’ Ordinary, dating from somewhere around 1360. The arms are painted, some on banners, most on shields. As an ordinary, it has similar arms arranged together, so the Creswell arms are all in the section covering roundels, although they are not all consecutive. Since the normal way of depicting a squirrel was sitting and holding a nut, those two details were often assumed and therefore omitted. The three entries are:
> WJ 775 Creswell: shield painted Gules, three roundels argent each charged with a squirrel sejant holding a nut gules.
> WJ 776 Alexander Cressewell: shield painted Gules, three roundels each charged with a squirrel etc. gules, an annulet argent at fess point [in the centre of the shield]
> WJ 780 John de Creswell: shield pained Gules, three roundels each charged with a squirrel etc. gules, an annulet argent at fess point
> I have not come across any suggestions as to who these three were. My guess is that the first, with just a surname, represents the head of the family branch involved. For the other two, I have come across two or three families where a younger son in one generation had the same differenced arms and the same small manor as a younger son in the next generation. Younger sons, if they couldn't find themselves an heiress, were expected not to marry, to avoid breaking up the family estate.
>
> General rolls of arms like William Jenyns’ Ordinary have to be dated by those armigers mentioned for whom we have dates. The trouble is that the method does not produce precise dates. Wagner (1950), looking at all the rolls he could find, estimated this one at 1377-80. Clemmensen (2008), in a more detailed look at just this roll, estimated the date at around 1360..
>
> Peter Howarth

Hi Peter,

Thank you so much for posting this information, this is very helpful and interesting. According to the College of Arms Letter I referenced above, the Cresswell arms were entered in 1584 and were then recognized as being the ancient arms of that family. In this case, William Jenyns’ Ordinary seems to confirm that.

Oddly enough (and quite fortunately), the page with the Creswel entries that you referred to can be found in Wikipedia's article on William Jenyns’ Ordinary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinary_of_arms#/media/File:Jenyn's_Ordinary_circa_1360.png

Many thanks again!

Andrew