Leicester King of Arms was a title similar to that of Lancaster, and likewise a creation to the same Sovereign, Henry IV., who was also Earl of Leicester before he assumed the crown, and was given to a person who was before that time a herald. It appears that Henry Grene was Leicester Herald, 9th King Richard II., and in the 13th of the same reign is called a Herald of the Duke of Guyen and Lancaster, but prior to the coronation of Henry IV. he was certainly a King of Heralds, and so styled in a privy seal dated antecedent to that ceremony. A similar instrument of the tenth year of that monarch's reign also mentions Henry Grene, otherwise Leicester King of Arms.
As it is evident that, during the reign of Henry IV., Lancaster King of Arms has under that title the province of the north, Mr. Edmondson, with good reason, supposes that the southern province, or part of that which is now under Clarenceux, might at that time be under this Leicester, especially as the title of Clarenceux was not in being till after the 3rd of Henry V., when, or soon after, the title of Leicester might have become extinct by the death of that officer; for although Leicester King of Arms went over into France with Henry V. in the third year of his reign, yet he is not mentioned in the constitutions made by the heralds at Roan in the year 1419-20.
Clarenceux, the next King of Arms in point of creation, is a title generally supposed to have been taken from Clare, in Suffolk, the castle at that place being the principal residence of the ancient Earls of Hereford, who were, from thence, though very improperly, called Earls of Clare, in the same manner as the Earls of Pembroke were often named Earls of Strigoil and Chepstow; the Earl of Hampshire, Earl of Winchester; the Earl of Derby, Earl of Tuttebury; the Earl of Sussex, Earl of Chichester, &c. King Edward III. created his third son Lionel Duke of Clarence, instead of the monosyllable Clare (from his marriage with the granddaughter of the late Earl), but Lionel dying without issue male, Henry IV. created his younger son Thomas Duke of Clarence, who being slain without issue 9th of Henry V., the honour remained in the Crown, until King Edward IV. conferred it upon his own brother. Mr. Sandford tells us that Clarence is the country about the town, castle, and honour of Clare, from which duchy the name of Clarenceux King of Arms is derived. Spelman, however, contends that it is a mistake in attributing the institution of Clarenceux to King Edward IV. after the honour of Clarence devolved as an escheat to the Crown upon the untimely death of his brother George, as he found William Horsely called by this title in the reign of Henry V. and also Roger Lygh, under King Henry VI.; and it is conjectured that the office of Clarenceux King of Arms is not more ancient than the reign of Edward III.
Gloucester Herald, frequently mentioned by historians, was originally
