heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

122 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
" with knops of Venice gold cordian raised, each sleeve having six small
" buttons of gold, and in every button a pearl, and the branches of the
" flowers set with pearles."
An Act, passed in the fourth of Richard II., forbade any man, not
being a banneret or person of high estate, to wear long hanging sleeves,
open or closed, except only " Gens d'armes quand sont armez." This
alludes to the fact of nobles and knights wearing sleeves even on their
military surcoats ;
and such we find in the effigy of Brian Fitzalan, A.D.
1302, in Bedale Church, in which case, however, the sleeves were often
" dagged," as it was called, i.e. slashed. So that the sleeve was at once
highly ornamented, a badge of distinction, and an independent portion of
the military and civil dress which would render it likely to be adopted as
an heraldic charge, with reference possibly in its colour to the individual
in whose honour it was borne.
The military surcoats were first used by the Crusaders, in order to
mitigate the discomfort of the metal hauberk, so apt to get heated under
a Syrian sun or injured by the rain. In the " Avowynge" of King Arthur,
stanza 39, the following
lines occur :
"With scharpe weppun and schene,
Gay gownas of grene,
To hold thayre armur clene,
And were [protect] hitte from the wette."
The surcoats were both sleeveless and sleeved, though the latter is
not found till the second half of the thirteenth century. King John
is the
first monarch who appears in his great seal in the sleeveless surcoat.*
In the pedigree of the Hotham family at Dalton Holme, these arms
are given as the bearings of Peter de Trehous, the great-grandson of
Sir John Trehous, who served under William the Conqueror at the battle
of Hastings, and had a grant of the manor of Hotham, county York.
is also therein described as the husband of Isabella de Turnham ;
and so
it is said that he was rewarded with the hand of the heiress of the barony
of Mulgrave by King John for murdering his nephew, Arthur, Duke of
Brittany. The
" rapacious Lackland," however, did not give up the heiress
and her broad acres without charge upon the latter ;
and he bound Trehous,
" De Malolacu," or De Mauley, to pay 7,000 marks as a consideration for
her and her lands
He
an enormous sum of money, equivalent to ,150,000 of
present money.
There are, however, various accounts as to the death of this
unfortunate Prince. Historians are united so far that, as Matthew Paris
relates on the authority of Roger of Wendover, King Philip and King
John having quarrelled, the former delivered a body of two hundred
* Hewitt's Ancient Armour, p. 274.