"The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales", by Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, reported the grant of a Coat of Arms to a RIGGS (forename not quoted), who was Steward of the Household to Charles, Lord Mountjoy, Lord Deputy of Ireland.

It was reported as having been recorded in the office of the Ulster King of Arms as a Funeral Entry in the year 1600, so that is presumably the year in which the Steward of the Household died.

The blazon (description) of the Coat of Arms as quoted by Burke is "Ermine a cross patonce purpure a mullet for difference".

When a person is entitled to bear arms, each son of that person is entitled to bear the same arms but with a mark of cadency on the shield to distinguish them. The type of mark identifies which son that is, and a mullet, or star, denotes the arms are borne by the person's third-born son.

There is apparently no record of the same coat of arms without the mark of difference, so we cannot deduce who the father of the Steward was.

However, Burke ascribes a similar Coat of Arms to "RIGG or RIGGES", without giving further details or what his source was. He describes them as "Ermine a cross flory purpure"

Both Coats of Arms therefore are "Ermine a cross purpure". Although Burke describes the cross for "RIGGS OF IRELAND" as a cross patonce and that for "RIGG or RIGGES" as a cross flory, the images in this section demonstrate that the shapes of both these forms of crosses are almost alike.

Burke's works are known to contain errors and, by including a Coat of Arms similar to that for "RIGGS OF IRELAND" but without the mullet as a mark of cadency, Burke may have argued that this would have been the arms of the senior branch of the same family.

THE OFFICE OF STEWARD OF THE HOUSEHOLD

The post of Steward of the Household to the Lord Deputy of Ireland (the King's Viceroy) would have been one of comparatively high status. The Institute of Historical Research website provides a job description for such a post within the English Royal Household:

"The office of Steward of the Household, customarily designated that of Lord Steward, was in the gift of the crown. The Lord Steward was the principal officer of the household below stairs in whom was vested the bulk of the patronage in that department... In 1539 he was accorded special precedence by statute. About 1540 the office was redesignated Lord Great Master but the title Lord Steward was revived in 1554... There were certain functions which the Lord Steward was obliged to undertake whenever Parliament was in being. There were the customary duties of keeping a table for the members of both Houses and recording the appearance of the Commons at the opening of Parliament to which was added in 1563 the statutory duty of presiding over the administration of the oath to members of that House."

1. 

EDWARD RIGGS [EDWARD#1]
THE FIRST EDWARD RIGGS OF RIGGSDALE

Major EDWARD RIGGS, MP (EDWARD#2), is referred to by ffolliott as the second Edward Riggs of Riggsdale, county Cork. It is therefore reasonable to assume that there had been a first Edward Riggs (EDWARD#1), and EDWARD#2 could have been his son.

THOMAS DELAUNE

THOMAS DELAUNE (1635-1685) was born at Brinny (which, as can be seen from the map of Townlands above, is the next but one parish to the west of the northern half of Dunderrow parish, and only four miles or so from Riggsdale). "His parents were catholics and rented a farm under a landlord named RIGGS, who, struck by the quickness and capacity of Delaune, placed him at a priory at Kilchrash, about seven miles from Cork."[S65] He was educated there for 9 years until upwards of 16.[S65][S66]
This establishes that there was a RIGGS owning land near Riggsdale around 1642.

Delaune was later employed in Kinsale to a protestant who persuaded him to renounce catholicism, and that made him so persecuted that he emigrated to England. He became a schoolmaster in London, married the daughter of a Baptist preacher and became a Protestant Dissenter. He wrote a number of works including in 1683 "A Plea for the Non-Conformist". This was in the reign of Charles II and he was immediately tried and found guilty of writing "seditious and dangerous matters against the Government". Unable to pay the fine levied, he was kept in Newgate Prison with his wife and children, where all of them died in 1685. He was subsequently honoured as a Baptist Martyr.[S65]

This patronage of someone later persuaded to renounce catholicism and become an ardent protestant is consistent with Johnston-Liik's quote describing Major Riggs (EDWARD#2) as someone who 'did not fail to encourage proselytes or such who being under conviction [of the] abominations of Popery were discouraged by the threats of their relations or friends from coming over to the Protestant religion'. However, Johnston-Liik also states that "Major Riggs 'settled at Rigsdale about the year 1651'" and that he had been born about 1620, which if correct means he would only have been about 22 in 1642. It is therefore possible that the 'landlord named RIGGS' may have been EDWARD#1, or a close relative of his.

GRANT OF ARMS

Nothing has yet been discovered about EDWARD#1, and no link has yet been confirmed with the Steward who received the Grant of Arms. However, I believe that the Steward, who apparently died in 1600, might have been an ancestor of EDWARD#1, and the timescale for the birth of EDWARD#2 (before 1620) suggests the Steward may have been EDWARD#1's father. This belief is based on the rarity of the surname, especially in Ireland, the above facts about Riggsdale and the Battle of Kinsale, and the following additional facts.

When RICHMOND RIGGS was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1725, his father THOMAS RIGGS was described as an "armiger", i.e. a 'person entitled to heraldic arms'. Those Arms may have been passed down from the Steward of the Household, in which case Thomas would have displayed the arms of the Steward but with an annulet as a mark of cadency to denote he had been the fifth-born son of EDWARD#2. According to the strict rules of heraldry, because the arms of the Steward already included a mullet as a mark of cadency to denote a third-born son, then (assuming EDWARD#2 inherited the arms through a chain of first-born sons from the Steward, i.e. no other marks of cadency applied) Thomas should have displayed the arms with an annulet on a mullet. However, adhering to that rule through successive generations would soon become impracticable, and so such a system has rarely survived a second generation.

INTERMARRIAGES

Edward#2 and his descendants intermarried with some of the highest-status families in Ireland:

• EDWARD#2 married as his third wife Anne ALLEN, daughter of Captain Stephen ALLEN of Killoning, co.Tipperary and Elizabeth WEBB alias RICHMOND.
• EDWARD#2's son ALLEN married Mary COX, daughter of "the great" Sir Richard COX, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland.[S35].
• ALLEN's daughter CATHERINE married Harding Parker, Esq., first cousin twice removed of Colonel ST.JOHN WEBB.
• EDWARD#2's son STEPHEN married Margaret WEBB alias RICHMOND, the daughter of James WEBB alias RICHMOND. James was the brother of Elizabeth, STEPHEN's mother, and therefore Margaret WEBB alias RICHMOND was STEPHEN's first cousin.
• EDWARD#2's son THOMAS is said to have married Judith ALLEN.
• EDWARD#2's daughter ELIZABETH married John NEVILL, the great-grandson of LORD BERGAVENNY.

But some may have resulted from his possible descent from the Lord Steward to Charles, Lord Mountjoy. Charles's surname was BLOUNT and his grandfather was a third cousin of Elizabeth BLOUNT the wife of Nicholas ST. JOHN. This is documented on the separate page showing Extracts from The Family Trees of Charles Blount and Oliver St John. Oliver, who was the son of Elizabeth and Nicholas, became Lord Deputy of Ireland after Lord Mountjoy's successor (Sir Arthur Chichester). Their daughter Catherine ST JOHN married Edmund RICHMOND alias WEBB of Rodbourne Cheney, Wiltshire, although his relationship (if any) with the family of WEBB alias RICHMOND, into which EDWARD#2 and his son STEPHEN married, is still being investigated.