Fetterlock

Fetterlock

Fetterlock: this, so far as heraldic drawing is concerned, appears to be the same as what is elsewhere blazoned as shacklebolt, shackbolt, or manacle. It is, in fact, a 'handcuff,' or prisoners' bolt, and generally represented as shewn in the margin, though sometimes represented of a square form. In the arms of SHAKERLY, Worcestershire, they are sometimes represented more like oval rings, while in the crest of WYNDHAM the semicircular part is generally represented as a chain, and in the badge of PERCY it is made to resemble the swivel, as in the arms of the IRONMONGERS. A double bolt also occurs in the arms of ANDERTON.

The device does not seem to occur in the more ancient rolls, but it is found very widely spread among several ancient families.

Argent, a shack-bolt sable--NUTHALL, Nuthall, Lancashire.

Gules, five shackles in fesse argent--SHAKERLEY.

Argent, a heart gules, within a fetterlock sable--LOCKHART, Scotland.

A lion's head erased or, within a fetterlock of the last--Crest of WYNDHAM, Earl of Egremont.

Azure, a fetterlock and key argent--MABEN.

Sable, on a bend between two pair of manacles argent three pheons bendwise in bend gules; a chief or charged with a demi-lion rampant issuant enclosed by a pair of lozenges azure--Thomas JOHNSON, co. York.

Argent, a fesse between three fetterlocks[? padlocks] gules--GRIERSON, Dumfries.

Sable, two single shack-bolts and one double one argent--ANDERTON, Chesh. and Lanc. [also blazoned three double shack-bolts].

Argent, an anchor in pale azure, the ring or; the anchor surmounted with a fetterlock of the second, within the fetterlock on the dexter side of the anchor a sword erect of the last, hilt and pomel or; on the sinister side of the anchor a rose gules--Insignia of the town of BEWDLEY, Worcestershire.

A falcon displayed within a closed fetterlock was a badge of King Edward IV. for the dukedom of York. The example is taken from the brazen gates of King Henry the Seventh's chapel at Westminster.