Shropshire's Punning Heraldry - Bostock

 I have touched on Bostock before in the series on Cheshire's Punning Heraldry and they are obviously well travelled because they pop up in Shropshire too with quite a few entries. For this project, I have chosen the arms of Hugh Bostock of Morton Say, Wixhall &C. There are a number of Bostock's in the Shropshire MS. 

Arms: Sable, a fesse hummette in chief a martlet Argent.

Crest: A martlet Or.

Although it is quite possible that the martlet on the shield is a mark of cadency, indicating a fourth son, I have here treated it as though it is a charge in its own right as the crest is also a martlet.

The write up for the Bostock arms in my previous entry stated that these arms are in the group where part of the bearer's name is shown by the charges, it is possible that Bostock makes similar play with his silver fesse having its ends cut off, for this is no true fesse, but may be designed to suggest a conventionalised stock of a tree. A very tenuous pun but worthy of consideration.

Since I first wrote about the Bostock pun I have recently realised that  it gets better and in fact, the pun may even be worthy of the first division. Once one accepts that the broken fess represents a stock, we can add into the mix that the south Cheshire dialectal word for broken, which the stock must surely be as it doesn't reach the sides, is "bost", we arrive at a Bost Stock.

The arms of Hugh Bostock of Morton Say, Wixhall &C.