Talbots were medieval hunting dogs, apparently something like a beagle – short legs, long ears and a curling tail. Oh, and they were white. They may have been quite heavy and slow but no one is quite sure how they worked within a hunting situation because the breed no longer exists. Given the number of monarchs who seemed to have spent their time crashing around in the undergrowth for one reason or another it is not unreasonable to blog about them at this time. There is even a theory that William the Conqueror arrived with the breed of dog.
The Talbot Earls of Shrewsbury took over the title from the Montgomery family. Henry I removed the earldom from his rebellious subjects. The title was given by Henry VI to John Talbot who fought during the Hundred Years War in 1442. Talbots feature on the Shrewsbury Coat of arms as charges and as supporters.
Thank you for this interesting post about the talbot, and for your other posts, which I find consistently well done. There are two talbots in the coat of arms of Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford, because the college was originally proposed by the Warden of Keble College, Dr. Edward Talbot, in 1878. Apparently his bravery in making such a suggestion was worthy of his having his name memorialized in the LMH arms. Such was Dr. Talbot’s influence, that it was implemented within a year, the Bishop of Oxford opening the hall in 1879 with the first nine female Oxonians in residence. Dr. Talbot went on to become a bishop himself. LMH, like St. Edmund’s Hall, is a full Oxford college despite having the name of a hall. The other two objects in the LMH coat of arms are a portcullis (for Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch), and a bell (for the first Principal of LMH, Elizabeth Wordsworth, who suggested naming the hall after Lady Margaret). LMH is now, like all the other Oxford colleges and permanent private halls, co-educational. More about all this in “Oxford College Arms” (Boissevain Books, 2019).
Henry V gave title to Talbot his best captain and friend after Trameco we call Agincourt . He is buried next to my ancestor Sir William Parr Baron Kendal Marguis of Northhampton in Warwick Saint Mary church opposite the castle.