Sir William Pole gives the arms of Bucket of Bucket as “Or, 3 piles in point Gules, within a bordure Azure.”
Pole (and Joseph Holland) also give the arms of Bucket as “Checky Argent and Azure, a fess vairy Argent and Gules (or Gules and Sable).”
Holland gives the further information that the latter arms of Bucket were quartered by Huckmore. This is justified by the pedigree given by Pole, showing the marriage of Richard Huckmore to Agnes Bokeit.
This pedigree is set out more clearly, perhaps, in the Visitation of Devon 1620. It can be seen that Agnes was the heiress and that through her the Hockmore family inherited the estate of Bucket or Buckyate.
As Agnes was the heiress of her father’s coat of arms, as well as his estates, her heirs would have been entitled to quarter those arms, (and Holland, above, says that they did so.) The arms below, from a monument (c1613) in the church in CombeinTeignhead to Alice, wife of Gregory Hockmore, suggest that they did so.
But …
“Checky Argent and Sable, a fess vairy Argent and Gules” is also the coat of arms that Pole and other C16th sources ascribe to Fulcoroy.
From the pedigrees, it can be seen that Roger Hockmore married Johanna, heiress of the Fulcoroys. Without other evidence therefore, that quartering could be equally for Buckyate or Fulkray. In an early C17th manuscript (3532 in the library of Exeter Cathedral) there is an entry that highlights the ambiguity.
The discriminating evidence may be provided by this shield on the monument on CombeinTeignhead to Gregory Hockmore, a descendant of Gregory & Alice.
The Huckmore side of the shield shows the arms of Huckmore in the first quarter. Last-but-one is Cruce (Cruwys) for Alice, as seen above.
The fourth quarter is Champernon. The arms of Champernon were quartered by Fulcoroy (as the Visitation pedigree shows,) so they would have been quartered by Hockmore as part of their inheritance from Fulcoroy. This strongly suggests that the adjacent quarter is for Fulcoroy itself. That leaves the second quarter which, again from its position, ought to be Buckyates, the family from whom the Hockmores inherited their main estate.
The coat of arms is not very clear, but the second quarter appears (to me) to show “Azure, a buck’s head cabossed Argent.” I have not found this coat anywhere ascribed to Buckyate, Bucket etc., (and it is a coat worn by other families also,) but here it is clearly intended to represent that family.
I think that the designation by Pole and Holland of the Fulkeroy arms as Bucket arms is probably a mistake, perhaps engendered by Huckmore’s use of it as their preferred second quarter.
I think it is an open question as to whether Pole is correct to give the arms of Bucket of Bucket as “Or, 3 piles in point Gules, within a bordure Azure,” or whether the coat shown on Gregory Huckmore’s monument is in fact correct.
**** **** **** **** ****
All the answers are around somewhere, in this case in the 1564 Visitation of Devon, edited by Colby in 1881. Amongst the quarters used by Huckamore, the second quarter given is “(Azure) a stag’s head (cabossed argent) and three broad arrows argent.” This coat is ascribed to Buckyate. The third quarter is “Checky argent and sable etc.” and named for Folkeroy. The Gregory Huckmore monument, therefore, at least has the blessing of the heralds.
Pole’s ascription of “Or, 3 piles in point Gules, within a bordure Azure” to Bucket is supported in Papworth with a reference back to the C16th ordinary of arms by Glover, Somerset Herald. Whether the Bucket with piles was connected in any way to the Buckyates whose heiress married Hockmore I do not know.
I doubt that “Checky Argent and Sable, a fess vairy Argent and Gules” ever belonged to any Bucket.
Heraldry of the West of England 