The Doubtful arms of Staffordshire - Weston and an elaborate fabrication

The final one of our five notes on the "Doubtful arms of Staffordshire" is that of  *Sir Symond Weston, of Lichfield.

Ermine, on a chief Azure five bezants, a martlet Gules for difference.

* An evident interpolation, for Sir Simon was not a knight in 1583, and his father, James Weston, was then living. The latter made his will in 1589, and therein names his son James, then under twenty-four years of age, and his son and heir Simon. It may be here mentioned that the elaborate pedigree of Weston printed in Harwood’s “Erdeswick” was fabricated in 1632 for Richard, Lord Weston, then Lord Treasurer of England. (Vide Mr. Chester-Waters’s “Memoirs of the Chesters of Chicheley.”) It should be added that Sir Simon does not appear in the lists of doubtful coats given in Lord Hatherton’s MS. and in the Harl, MSS. 1077, 1173.

There is no crest recorded alongside that specific blazon in the primary visitation entry for Sir Symond (Simon) Weston of Lichfield. In The "Visitacion of Staffordschire" made by Robert Glover, 1583, the entry records only the shield (arms): Ermine, on a chief Azure five bezants, a martlet Gules for difference. Genealogical notes on the 1583 Visitation point out that this entry is a later interpolation. Sir Simon Weston (c. 1565–1637) was not knighted until August 1599, and his father James Weston was still alive at the time of the 1583 visitation.

While no crest is attached to Sir Simon's interpolated Visitation entry, broader heraldic armories (such as Burke's General Armory and later 17th-century grants) record crests for the closely related Weston of Lichfield and Weston of Rugeley branches, which used either the bezant coat or the older Staffordshire eagle coat. For the Weston family of Lichfield bearing Ermine, on a chief Azure five bezants (the arms confirmed/granted in 1632 to Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, who claimed descent from the Staffordshire Westons), the recorded crest is typically an eagle rising reguardant Sable (sometimes blazoned as an eagle's head erased Or, beaked Gules). For Sir Simon's direct cousin Sir James Weston (1573–1634), Baron of the Exchequer and also of Lichfield, the family bore Or, an eagle displayed reguardant Sable with the crest: An eagle's head Or, beaked Gules, a crescent for difference.

The Controvercy:

The 1632 pedigree controversy centres on a lavish vellum genealogy commissioned by Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, which claimed his Essex family descended from the ancient Staffordshire Westons of Lichfield and Rugeley, and through them, from the noble Neville Earls of Westmorland.

Compiled by herald Henry Lilly (Rouge Croix) and certified by Sir William Segar (Garter King of Arms) around 1632/1633, the manuscript (now British Library Add. MS 18667) became famous in Victorian genealogy as a textbook example of an "elaborate fabrication". Later archival evidence, however, has largely vindicated the Staffordshire connection.

The Claims of the 1632 Pedigree

As Lord High Treasurer to King Charles I and newly created Earl of Portland, Richard Weston sought an illustrious ancestry to match his political rise. The certified pedigree asserted that his grandfather, Justice Richard Weston of Skreens in Essex (d. 1572), was the second son of John Weston of Lichfield, making Justice Weston the brother of James Weston (Sir Simon Weston's father) and Robert Weston, Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

John Weston of Lichfield had married Lady Cecily Neville, sister of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland, giving Portland direct noble blood. Through the Lichfield line, Portland descended from the medieval lords of Weston-under-Lizard in Staffordshire, tracing back to the Norman Conquest.

"An Elaborate Fabrication"

In 1878, genealogist Robert E. C. Waters published Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley, launching a scathing critique that shaped standard reference works like the Dictionary of National Biography for over a century. Waters argued that Portland's grandfather had no connection to Staffordshire at all. Instead, he claimed the Judge descended from a minor Essex family, William Weston of Prested Hall in Feering, and that Henry Lilly had simply grafted the Essex upstart onto the prominent Lichfield family because they shared a surname.

Critics pointed to the suspicious entry for Sir Simon Weston in the 1583 Visitation of Staffordshire as retroactive tampering designed to harmonize Lichfield records with Portland's new pedigree. Waters dismissed the marriage of John Weston of Lichfield to Lady Cecily Neville as a complete invention to manufacture a Plantagenet/Neville connection.

Modern Reassessment & Evidence

Subsequent research into Tudor and Stuart records has overturned much of Waters's dismissal. Long before the 1632 pedigree was drafted, John Weston of Lichfield, Justice Richard Weston of Essex (on his 1572 tomb), Lord Chancellor Robert Weston, and Sir Simon Weston all bore the exact same distinctive arms (Ermine, on a chief azure five bezants). In 1625, seven years before the pedigree was commissioned, Richard Weston explicitly referred to Sir Simon Weston of Lichfield in correspondence as his "uncle" (a common 17th-century term for an older cousin or kinsman), proving the two branches actively recognized their blood relationship.

While the direct Staffordshire kinship between the Essex Westons and Sir Simon Weston of Lichfield is now accepted by historians, the exact parentage of Cecily Neville remains debated, as primary Neville family records do not independently confirm a daughter marrying into Lichfield.

Sir Simon Weston (d. 20 February 1637) was buried in St. Mary's Church in Lichfield Market Square, where a large mural monument commemorating him and his immediate family was erected on the north side of the chancel.

Because St. Mary's underwent major demolitions and rebuildings in the 18th and 19th centuries, the surviving antiquarian records, most notably Sir William Dugdale’s 17th-century Church Notes and Stebbing Shaw’s History and Antiquities of Staffordshire, provide the primary evidence for the monument's original text and heraldry.

The Weston Mural Monument (St. Mary's, Lichfield), originally positioned on the north wall of the chancel, memorialised three generations of the Lichfield branch: Sir Simon's father James Weston, Esq. (Registrar of the Diocese and MP for Lichfield), Sir Simon Weston himself, and Sir Simon's daughter Elizabeth (Weston) Ridgeway, wife of Robert Ridgeway, 2nd Earl of Londonderry.

Antiquarian accounts of the monument note that its sculpted shields prominently displayed the Weston bezant coat (Ermine, on a chief Azure five bezants) quartering Neville (Gules, a saltire Argent). This public display in Lichfield served as a visible assertion of the family's descent from John Weston of Lichfield and his wife Cecilia Neville, the exact lineage later contested in the 1632 Earl of Portland pedigree controversy.

The medieval fabric of St. Mary's in the Market Square was pulled down and rebuilt in 1717 - 1721, and altered again during Victorian restorations in 1842 -1843 and 1868 -1870. Many early modern chancel monuments were displaced, lost, or heavily restored during these rebuildings, meaning the antiquarian transcripts remain vital for verifying the exact 17th-century blazons.

The Doubtful arms of Staffordshire - Bowes

 Sir John Bowes, of Elford.

Arms: Ermine, three bows strung in pale Gules, in the dexter chief a fleur-de-lis (for difference).

In the 1583 Visitation of Staffordshire (conducted by Robert Glover as deputy to Norroy King of Arms), the entry specifically records the family line and arms of Sir John Bowes, of Elford: Ermine, three bows strung in pale Gules, in the dexter chief a fleur-de-lis(for cadency). These arms are recorded amongst the "Doubtful arms of Staffordshire".

The three bows are "punning" or canting arms (a visual play on the surname Bowes). The fleur-de-lis in the upper-left (dexter chief) corner is a heraldic mark of cadency. Because the Staffordshire branch descended from a younger son of the northern Bowes family (specifically a sixth son, according to heraldic tradition), the fleur-de-lis was used as a cadency mark to distinguish the Elford line from the senior branch at Streatlam Castle in County Durham.

Although recorded in the earlier Visitations under the "Doubtful arms of Staffordshire, the later Visitations of Staffordshire (1614 & 1663–64), compiled by Sir Richard St. George and William Dugdale, document Sir John's descendants (his son Richard and grandson John) and verify the family's quartered arms, showing the Bowes coat quartered with the arms of Huddleston (Argent, on a chevron Sable three escallops Or), acquired through Sir John's first marriage to the Elford heiress Anne Huddleston.

The Bowes family originally migrated from Northern England (Durham/Northumberland). Local Staffordshire histories record that the manor of Elford passed via the female lines of the Stanley, Staunton, Huddlestone, and Smythe families until it finally came into the possession of Sir John Bowes. Sir John married Anne Hodleston, daughter of Sir Richard Huddlestone, bringing the Elford property firmly into the Bowes family line, where it remained for generations.

Sir John Bowes of Elford was the father (or closely related elder brother, depending on the generation recorded in the pedigree charts) of the prominent Elizabethan diplomat Sir Jerome Bowes (d. 1616), who served as Queen Elizabeth I's ambassador to Tsar Ivan the Terrible of Russia. The Elford branch eventually connected back to the main aristocratic tree of the Bowes family. By the 18th century, the manor passed through marriage to Henry Bowes, who became the Earl of Berkshire and Suffolk, and rebuilt Elford Hall.

Elford Parish Registers, held by the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service, record the burial of Sir John Bowes on 1 February 1607/8 (following his death on 29 January). They also contain the baptismal records of his children and the burial of his daughter Elizabeth (buried 18 December 1580).

St. Peter’s Church in Elford houses significant tombs and effigies of the Stanley, Smythe, Huddleston, and Bowes families who successively held the Manor of Elford.

According to historical surveys (including The History of Parliament biography of his younger brother, the courtier and ambassador Sir Jerome Bowes), numerous records of the family's property transactions were preserved at Elford Hall. These deeds detail how Sir John acquired the manor through his marriage to Anne Huddleston and consolidated lands across Staffordshire, Leicestershire, and County Durham.

Records of Sir John's will, Inquisitions Post Mortem (IPMs), and land disputes are catalogued at The National Archives (Kew) and the Staffordshire Record Office (within the Paget/Howard of Elford estate collections, as the estate passed via marriage from the Bowes family to the Howards, Earls of Suffolk and Berkshire, in 1683).

The Manor of Elford is a historic pre-conquest estate in the Lichfield district of Staffordshire, situated on the banks of the River Tame about 5 miles north of Tamworth. The manor originally belonged to Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia, before the Norman Conquest. In the 1086 Domesday Book, it was recorded as Elleford (or Eleford), consisting of villagers, smallholders, and working watermills.

Over the centuries, the manor passed through several prominent families, including the Ardernes (12th–15th centuries), the Stanleys, Stauntons, Huddlestones, Smythes, and later the Bowes and Bowes-Howard families through to 1877.

The main manorial seat, Elford Hall, dated largely from the late 18th century and stood adjacent to the historic St. Peter’s Church. In 1936, the estate was handed over to Birmingham Corporation by Francis Paget. After falling into disrepair, the hall was demolished in 1964. An earlier medieval iteration of the manor is recorded at a wet moated site in Elford Park (referenced in the Staffordshire Historic Environment Record). A major surviving remnant of the estate is the 12-foot-high walled garden. It was restored by local volunteers starting in 2009 and now features a rose garden, orchards, a riverside walk, and community spaces managed via the Elford Hall Garden Project.

The Church of St. Peter’s remains a focal point of the village, housing notable medieval and Tudor tombs of the Arderne and Stanley families.

Historical layouts of the estate can be explored via archived records such as the Map of the Manor of Elford in 1719 on Staffordshire Past Track.