Question: Does the Hitchman Family have the right to a coat of arms?
Answer: The College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4BT, will be able to tell you whether or not you are entitled to bear ams and what those arms are.
The Henchman coat of arms, to paraphrase Burke, are: silver, a chevron between three bugle horns black stringed red. On a chief (ie: the top of the shield) black, three lions rampant guardant silver. This means that the background of the lower part of the shield is silver, with a black chevron between three bugle horns with red strings. The background to the top part is black and the lions are silver.
The following notes and queries explain the Hitchman/Henchman connection.
"Fifty years ago W. Hitchman, M.D., of Liverpool, asked:--
"---Are there any persons now living of the name of Crosborough? Or was the original patronymic quite merged, ab initio, in that of Henchman, Hinchman, or Hitchman?"
A careful search of the indexes and of numerous volumes of 'N. & Q.' to the columns of which the worthy doctor was a voluminous contributor in the third quarter of the nineteenth centruy, has failed to show that an answer was ever provoked by this question
For the reason that the Hitchmans of Liverpool were until recently extant, and that the "Henchman" controversy, both in its personal and etymological aspects, covered a period of many years in 'N. & Q.,' the following data may be of interest as providing a quasi, if belated, reply to the foregoing query:---
The "Henchman" nomenclature is not merely three but six-fold, as the Hionxmans, Henxmans, Hensmans, Henchmans, Hinchmans, and Hitchmans could all, if so disposed, trace their ancestry to the same source.
The Hinxmans appear to be confined to a family long resident in the vicinity of Salisbury. Edward Henxman was the original grantee of the arms (April 24, 1549), but either as a proper or a common man the word seems to have fallen into (word hard to read..) desuetude (?) The Henchmansare presumably extinct in the male line in England, although persons bearing this variant of the substantive have for a long time been resident in the colonies. The Hinchmans are probably to be accounted for by the fact that Clarendon, in hi 'History of the Rebellion,' refers to the ecclesiastical rescuer of the harassed monarch as Dr. Hinchman, the present writer having been unable to discover the whereabouts of any latter-day owners of the name. The Hitchmans enjoy the distinction of being the only branch of the family whose arms bear a motto, viz., "Pro Amore Dei": but inasmuch as no such motto was recorded with the original coat, it may be regretted that Dr. Hitchman to whom the information is to be ascribed, was not a little more explanatory on the point. The Hensmans are still largely to be found in Northamptonshire and the neighbouring counties.
Indeed, there is an impression in some quarters that the family have but a dual identity, The Northampton Independent having contributed its quota to the persistence of the fiction. Under a reproduction of Lely's portrait of Bishop Henchman, who formed the subject of a sketch in the midland journal's issue for Aug 6, 1910, were printed the words: "Dr. Humphrey Hensman, Bishop of London from 1663 to 1675"; and in the text there appeared: "Humphrey Henchman, D.D. (or Hensman as it is now spelt)." The average reader would naturally conclude from the above that Hensman was derived from Henchman, and that the present descendants of the bishop subscribed themselves as Hensman.
While the surname of Hensman is said to have figured in the first testament of John Crosborough (the henxman, hensman, or henchman of Henry VII., and progenitor of the multifariously named family in question), 'N. & Q.' affords evidence not only that "henxman" is etymologically an older term than "henchman," but that the latter is the derivative of "hensman." Thus the late Prof. Skeat (7 S. ii. 246) explained the ch in "henchman" as having arisen "from truning a sharp s into sh, after n, so that hensman became henshman, also written henchman....The process is precisely the same as in linchpin for linspin." Confirmation of the professor's theory was furnished by Sir J. A. Picton, who wrote (7 S. ii. 298):--
A small link seems wanting to render Prof. Skeat's etymological chain complete, which I think I can supply. The surname of Hensman is not uncommon in these parts. We have, then, in regular order, hengst-man, hengs-man, hensman, henchman. Q.E.D.."
If the Hensmans and Hichmans are in truth non est, and the Hinxmans, Henchmans, and Hitchmans are today represented in Britain solely in the female line, everything points to the postulation that a few years hence the original patronymic of Crosborough will have become merged, not in that of the triad enumerated in the opening quotation, but in that of Hensman alone."
Augustine Simcoe
From NOTES AND QUERIES (12 S. II. Sept. 30, 1916)
