George Nayler Garter Principal King of Arms to Sir Henry Bedingfeld Bart 1830

 

Arms of Paston

(Wikimedia Commons)

Societies, like mine, which have never broken with a feudal past require publicly-funded bureaucracies (ideally quaint and in practice somewhat incompetent) to keep track of entitlements to names, titles, forms of address, coats of arms, and order of precedence. Much information on these subjects has been and still is published in large volumes - Burke’s and Debrett’s the best known - which could once be found in all aristocratic households and which were also indispensable to collectors of autographs, coats of arms, and letter seals. Wikipedia is heavily indebted to these traditional sources.

This 1830 letter is signed off by an interesting and energetic character, Sir George Nayler (1764 – 1831), who started life as the fifth son of a provincial surgeon, became a painter of miniatures, married the illegitimate daughter of a baronet, and  bought his way into the genealogical bureaucracies (among other titles he purchased those of Blanc Coursier Herald  and Bluemantle Poursuivant), rising to become Garter Principal King of Arms in 1822. He was knighted in 1813.

A year on from the date of this letter, the recipient Sir Henry Bedingfeld Bart was indeed licensed to use the name and arms of Paston-Bedingfeld.  His life was undistinguished except for the fact that the passage of the Catholic Relief Act in 1829 no doubt made it easier for him to become a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk in 1831. His eldest son Henry, born in 1830, succeeded to the title; he was sent to the Jesuit boarding school which still has the appropriate name of Stonyhurst – on this site you can find an 1843 letter written by the young Henry to his mother recording his misery:

https://www.otherpeoplesletters.com/2026/07/henry-bedingfeld-very-unhappy-pupil-of.html

 

Transcription

Addressed to: Sir Henry Richard Bedingfeld Bart &c &c &c Oxburgh Hall Stoke Ferry Norfolk

Datelined: 17 Hanover Square London 24 Feby 1830

Faded London postmarks, one indicating pre-payment of the letter

Sir

A Petition signed by Lady Bedingfeld and yourself praying the Royal Licence to be allowed to take the name and Arms of Paston having been in the usual course referred by the Right Honble Mr Secretary Peel for my Report thereon, I trust that after the Correspondence I had the honour to have with you, and Lady Bedingfeld, your Mother, on the same subject during your Residence at Ghent, and your subsequently calling upon me with your Brother-in-law Mr Molyneux-Seel relative to the same, you will excuse my expressing my surprize at now finding the business placed n the hands of another Member of the Heralds College. It occurred to me that there must have been some mistake, and that the application was intended to have been made to me, and this idea is confirmed by a Letter from my Friend Mr Molyneux-Seel in which he says “If measures have been taken respecting the Licence I feel satisfied that there must have been some mistake in that application not having been made through you”

Under these circumstances I have presumed to trouble you with this Letter, in the hope that you will do me the favour to inform me, whether application was intended to have been made to me, upon this occasion, or whether any Circumstances have arisen to induce you to place this business in other hands, after I had so long since been consulted on the subject, and had prepared and transmitted to you a Petition to His Majesty praying for the same object.

I feel assured that Your Goodness will pardon the trouble I am thus giving you, and I have the Honour to remain, Sir,

Your most Obedient and most faithful Servant

Geo. Nayler, Garter

[The letter has been written by or dictated to a clerk and Nayler has appended his signature using a different pen]

References

Wikipedia: Sir Henry Paston-Bedingfeld, 6^th Baronet

Wikipedia: George Nayler

Wikipedia: Garter Principal King of Arms