File:Arms of Hugh Denys.jpg

English: Armourials of Hugh Denys of Osterley(c.1440-1511), Groom of the King's Close Stool to King Henry VII, a younger son of Morys Denys(d.1466) of Olveston Court (son of Sir Gilbert Denys(d.1422) of Siston Court) and Alice Poyntz, da. of Nicholas Poyntz of Iron Acton, both in Gloucestershire. Gules, 3 leopards' faces or jessant-de-lis azure, over all a bend engrailled of the last, charged with a crescent argent. As seen with tinctures in a 1509 depiction in British Library Add.MS 45131,f.54; Burkes Armorials, 1884, p.279: Denys of Gloucestershire. The crescent was borne as the mark of a second son over the paternal arms. (Gibbon(p.153) op.cit.:At nota semper erit accrescens luna secundi,(Moreover the growing moon will always be the mark of the second). The 1623 Heralds' Visitation of Gloucester however gives him as the 3rd. son. The arms are those of Cantilupe of Glamorgan, differenced by a bend engrailled, likely to have been granted by the latter family seated at Candleston Castle, Glamorgan, to their feudal officers or tenants the Denys's during the 13th.c. The arms are an unusual ancient exception to the rule promulgated retrospectivly by John Gibbon in 1682 in his Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniampp.150-1, of "No colour on colour, no metal on metal". He quotes the Denys blason saying "Now for my reader's diversion & delight I will insert what hath fallen under my observation". (Colours: gules=red, azure=blue. Metals: or=gold, argent=silver.) Jessant-de-lis signifies fleurs-de-lis issuing out. The early Cantilupe arms, pre 1220, were the lillies without leopards faces. (See early Cantilupe deeds relating to the enfeoffment of the Woodford family at Brentingby manor) Planche, an authority in heraldry, believes the change to have been a cadence, not an evolution. The arms quartered with Denys are the Raven of Corbet ("Corbeau"), the family of Gilbert Denys's first wife, who brought him his Gloucestershire estates by marriage. The above image is from a modern water-colour re-creation, based on the above sources.