The Routledge Coat of Arms

The Routledge Coat of Arms

If you were to look on any website on the internet that offers family coat of arms you may be shown, after paying, some of the above options, although highly unlikely the middle one. But how do you know which if any is the correct one? Well sadly the argument can be made as to any of them or none of them. If you cast your mind back pages ago to Simon de Routluge of Hawick, (which I realise must seem ages ago for you) then with him lies what could be classed as the closest to a true Routledge coat of Arms, superseding all of the above ones. For on a document signed 1447 he pressed his seal into hot wax at the bottom of the parchment.

So is Simons seal the true coat of arms your should hang on your wall then? Well yes and no. I can't find, although the search continues, any more of this seal on any early Routledge documents no matter how hard I look. I've even looked through books showing drawings of seals recorded and have yet to match any that look even similar to Simon's. Hopefully though in the not to distant future I will make a better copy of this seal with far more detail and show it on here. Basically though it is two crossed swords or staffs in a shield with a crown above it. So in truth to choose your correct coat of arms you need to look at the history of each one above and see which one you are connected to and your family comes form if any.

Ruttledge-Fair coat of arms

This one is the easiest for me to discount as I have no Irish connection and as you will read on the next section regarding American and Irish Routledges there is a good chance they are not even Routledges. The Coat off arms was first registered in 1809 and then again in 1812 and is with out a doubt the youngest of the five I've come across. Even when you look at the five I've presented as candidates its easy to see it is the odd one out. A stag with three stars and an oak tree for the crest.

Internet coat of arms

This one is in Blue simply because its the only copy I have of it so don't take it as any meaning. This is the shield you will be told by various web sites as being our coat of arms and is described as, three trefoil slipped verts with a crest of wheat. It curiously puts us down as Scottish in origin so at least they managed to get that part correct. But ignore anything they tell you about our first arrival in America being in the late 1700's, as you will see on the next page.

Register Coat of Arms

This one is a good candidate for being a true one as it is officially registered with the Royal College of arms in the 1780's. And as you can see is very similar to the one above but it only has one trefoil in the centre of the shield. And I suppose you could put this down to a poor interpretation of the description. But they say that the simpler the shield the older it is. So perhaps this is the correct one. It can be found in a book dated 1814 called 'The General Armoury'. And curiously it a latter book from 'burke' in 1884 the description has changed to just three green trefoil slipped verts. both are similar to the one that is offered on the internet and it seems that the main constituents to our arms are a wheat sheaf and trefoil vert, whether it be one or three.

Bewcastle coat of arms

And finally I've saved the best till last. Even though this is not recorded in any official register or found in any book, it can be found in a place that has a far stronger link with the Routledges origins. It can be found on the back of the graves in the Bewcastle church yard. Eight in total bare a coat of arms but all with slight variations. This was probably down to the ability of the mason and what his understanding of a garb, trefoil and the symbol below the chevron were. The wheat sheaf on the Bewcastle graves has been described as a hand and a paw; but having seen them for myself I think it is just poor stonework. The sword switches from pointing to left and then to the right but is always a cutlass style sword, or perhaps a basket hilt sword side on, either way it is not a recognised armorial symbol. I suppose its up to your own personal interpretation. The graves they are on, range from 1724 to 1804 and therefore predate and other coat of arms above. So by now you probably thinking this must be the original coat, and we've just lost the sword, chevron and symbol below it. That was my thinking too until I found an extract from a report from the Royal college of Arms dating from some time in the late 16th early 17th century.

The "statesmen" or small landed proprietors in the north of Cumberland, now alas few and dwindling in number, yielded to none in pride of pedigree; they boasted their family arms as proudly as ever did Dacre or Howard. Herald, there was none to say them nay: bold man must have been any official of the College of Arms to venture into Bewcastle and to meddle with the tombstones of the Armstrong's and the Routledges, and the strange armorial achievements sculptured thereon. His probable fate would have been to be “spatchcocked” with his head in a rabbit hole, and his legs pinned down with a stake. [The writer can recollect this being done to a troublesome gamekeeper: he died.]

The variations between the arms carried by different families of the same name are curious - take the Routledges for instance. The essential parts of the Routledge coat of arms are a chevron, a garb, a sprig of willow and a sword, which last may be indifferently within or without the shield, either in chief, or over the shield. These seven examples at Bewcastle, which display all the charges just mentioned; they are differenced by having in base a mullet, a holly leaf, an escallop, a heart voided, a rose, a fleur-de-lis, etc. The garb, by the way, is a sore trial to the masons, who make very queer work of it - a bear’s paw, a human hand: in one case it appears as a hand with proper allowance of fingers and thumb. The sword of Routledge seems copied from that of a modern officer of infancy, or rather from the tin sword of childhood.

So with this it seemed that we had created our coat of arms out of thin air, or we had copied it from somewhere, perhaps a grave long since lost or destroyed. Either way we were not just inventing a coat of arms but we seemed to be getting it wrong. So to try and get a bit more info I decided to see if the other side of the grave yielded any clues. And to my surprise I found out that out of eight of them, four were relations. The earliest being born in 1686. In fact to my surprise it turned out to be the previously inbred Routledges and two of them were the uncles of a 'Laird William' who himself had a grave but was backed up with another. Below are the Eight graves so you can see the difference in design and also who's grave it is.

The 8 Graves at Bewcastle

Perhaps when we served for Richard the III we were awarded a Coat of Arms and the title Laird was a passed down title. There has been Routledges at the Flatt at Bewcastle for centuries and this could very well be the land we gained after loosing the castle. That and the Bailey from which was later named Routledge Burn. These could very well be the two original lines of the the Routledges in the area. The Landowners and farmers ant the Flatt and the Reivers at the Bailey. Here are the inscriptions on eight of the graves baring coat of arms

Here lies the body of Thomas Routledge of Flatt who departed this life June the 5th 1754 aged 61

Here lies the body of Robert Routledge of Grahams Onset, who died Dec the 18th 1751 aged 66 years. Also the Body of Ann his wife who died Feb the 14th 1763 aged 62 years.

(this is the brother of the above Thomas)

Here lies the body of Archibald Routledge of the Park, who died March the 7th 1761 aged 73. Also the body of Jane his wife who died Dec 20th 1762 aged 82 years.

(Archibald's Grand-daughter married the above Roberts son)

Erected to the memory of Robert Routledge of Green Holme who died, March 11 1809, aged 84 years. Also of Adam his brother who died who died Aug 14th 1814 aged 85

(These two appear nowhere in the parish records of any near by parish)

Here lies the body of Magadalene, wife to Thomas Routledge of Kirkbeckstown who departed this life in the 68 year of her age, June the 14 day AD 1729

(Top of the gravestone is inscribed: Mors mea est invta michi)

Here lies the body of Elizabeth wife of Adam Routledge of Hillend who died May the 2nd 1757 aged 48 years

Here lies the body of Ann, wife to Thomas Routledge Kirkbeckstown, mason who died May 8th 1747 aged 27 years.

(I cant find this Thomas anywhere in the parish records. No father or children)

To the memory of William of Oakshaw who died February 1792 aged 34 years. Also Sarah his wife, who died September 7th 1787 aged 23. Also John son of William and Ann Routledge who died January 14th 1825 aged 10 months. Also Mary daughter of the above William and Ann Routledge who died at Oakshaw February 25th 1832 aged 3 months.

As you can see from above at first glance there is eight very different graves. However if you look again you will see there is only really three sets. The set are all distinguished by the symbol under the chevron either a fluer-de-lee(1,2 and 6), star or rose(3,4,7 and 8), and finally one has a hollow heart(5). Perhaps originally three branches of the Routledge family caused this, I doubt I will ever find out. The Routledges from the Flatt are said to go back hundreds off years and their family makes up 16 out of the 62 Routledge gravestones at Bewcastle and they have a star under their chevron.

So which one?

Well personally I have traced my family back to the Bewcastle area so I would have to choose one similar to one found there. However which one I don't know. I've mapped out the family tree of all the above families and sadly don't fit into any of them for certain, but the closest I came was to number 3. But I would never prove it for certain as there is so many holes in the records back then.

As for the others its up to you. I personally like the one in blue, with out sounding like I'm buying a car, its simple and an officially registered one. But before you go choosing the Irish one because your name is Rutledge or Ruttledge I suggest you read the next section regarding the Irish Routledges very carefully. Having said this though there will always be part of me that thinks all Routledges anywhere should know their Family crest or coat of arms as that that Simon de Routluge of Hawick pressed into that hot wax over 560 years ago.