In a message dated 98-06-25 12:17:47 EDT, you write: << Re: a CHASE device; Chase/Chamberlain note that it is recorded in Philpot's >The Visitation of the County of Buckingham, 1634, that Matthew Chase b. 6 Jan >1576/7 (this is a Chesham Chase: son of John; grandson of Thomas) had granted >to him "Gules, three crosses patonce argent, on a canton or, a lion passant >azure." This is similar to--but not quite the same as--the arms that are >currently displayed on our CHASE page. >Dick C. >> This is probably translated as Gules (red background), three crosses patonce argent (argent is white or silver with patonce being a particular type of cross where there seems to be a slight flaring at the last one fourth of the arms of the cross), on a canton Or (Or is gold and a canton is a small square division of the shield in the upper left corner), a lion passant azure (azure is sky blue while passant is a walking lion with one foot raised). Keith or Dick, you might want to reread your source since it is usually a gold lion on a blue background meaning a canton Azure, a lion passaant Or rather than a blue lion on a gold background. There has been a lot of controversy in the past about whether the crosses were "patonce" or "flory" with flory being a different kind of arm but I cannot find the description of "flory". On top of the arms in most cases there is a crest with a lion rampant Or (gold), holding between his feet a cross patonce - Gules (a red colored patonce cross - I think the Chesham Chase used a gold cross). There seems to have been rather heated discussions re the arms and crests in the Chase Chronicles; Boutell's "Heraldry" reviewed by J.P. Brooke-Little: Peerage & Baronetage; long essays by H. G. Somerby, Esq. and the papers of the late Theodore Chase, Esq.; Genealogical memoirs of the Chase family of Chesham, Bucks by George Chase reprinted from the Heraldic Journal in 1869; & various descriptions in the Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica (p. 100). There is also a long article about the Bodleian Library which apparently has a Chase pedigree & arms; a Visitation of Kent 1663/8 published in the Harleian Society, Vol. 54 about Chesham which is taken from Stowe MS 621; Ms 5507 (British Museum) has a collection of pedigrees in the handwriting of Edward Hasted with the pedigree and arms included; a letter in State Papers Domestic 1634/5 from a Robert Calvert to his cousin Owen about his search for a coat of arms for Chase in Suffolk; and apparently a letter that indicates there was an armigerous family in Suffolk from which the Bucks family was an offshot but the Record Office of Suffolk said they had no records of an armigerous family of the 16th century. Miss Corder in 1965 in her Dictionary of Suffolk Arms does not mention the Chase family. However, Mr. Calvert's letter of 1634 seems definite evidence of the use of a coat before that granted to the Bucks family; more on the arms of the Bucks family and Samuel Chase, the Baptist minister of Luton & the arms on his tomb & subsequent use by Richard Chase of London, a descendant of a Hampshire family who ws buried in 1708; & the arms used by the Hertfordshire family which included the arms of the Buckinghamshire family; & an arms on the tomb of Thomas Curtis Chase, 1818, in St. Mary Abbots Church, Kensington. Whew, talk about a great deal of details, details, details, If anyone wants more, I probably can get around to doing the article from the Chase Chronicles. It tends to be the more definitive one. Rex