About 1550 helmets with mantlings, open and rather sparse, and kept high up on the top of the shield, appear. These mantlings are rather flat, so that a good space is left for the crest, which thus stands out distinctly. As a specimen, see Wm. Lambarde's seal, 1552 (_Archæologia Cantiana_, vol. v, p. 256).
Although a good many seals continue still with the mantlings kept up about the top of the shield (while sometimes a motto, &c., is introduced below), it is observed that a little after this date mantlings gradually creep downwards, perhaps to two-thirds of the depth of the shield. See a seal of the Throckmorton family, 1576 (_Visitation of Warwick, 1619_, Harl. Soc.); also those of Lord Chancellor Bromley, 1581 (_Herald and Genealogist_, vol. v, p. 5); John Ogle, 1597 (Mascy Charters, plate C, Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire for 1887); and Edward Osborne, 1618 (_Herald and Genealogist_, vol. iv, p. 241; also _Archæologia Cantiana_, vol. v, p. 234).
This is the character of many examples occurring down to about the year 1650, when a greater profusion of mantling began to be shown: of this the seal of Sir Edward Nicholas, engraved on p. 45, is a good example; and it is the first instance I have noticed in which the folds of the mantling come out _from behind_ the shield, thus marring its distinctness. Usually, although the volume of foldings increases, they are kept away from it, so as to leave the impression of the shield standing out and quite clear. In this, too, the folds extend higher up on either side of the crest than is usual in earlier examples.
It may be interesting here to note that of the fifty-nine seals attached to the death warrant of Charles I., in 1648-9--following the very accurate engraving in _Monumenta Vetusta_, vol. ii,--twenty-one show mantlings, eleven are distinctly without, ten are doubtful, and the remaining seventeen seals are quite illegible.
From about 1650 many beautifully cut signets are found--the arms, with helmets, crests, and mantlings, the points of which rise up on either side of the crest, thus filling up that empty space. The seal of the Cordwainers of Oxford, made in 1680, is a favourable example of the date (_Arch. Journal_, vol. vi, pp. 159 and 279).