I am Larry Botts and have been researching my line since 1974, and have just this week ran across a man that has done some work on the name "Botts". He states; While in England, he showed a rough drawing of a coat of arms that had been in his family for as long as he knows, to a lady that researches coats of arms. There was a discription on the back of the drawing. The discription went something like this, Erman(sp?), a chevron, a falcon wings retracted not spread clutching a gauntlet.

Her explaination went like this, remember this is 2nd hand;
from this coat of arms, she said Erman(?) denotes Royalty, the chevrons denotes rank, the falcon denotes guardsman or bodyguard, the gauntlet denotes something like messanger, ie throwing down the gauntlet. The lady said the Botts name would be a widely spread name, but not very populas because these people were possibly indentured servants, unable to marry without permission, but as bodyguards were required to travel anywhere service lead, this explains the widespread name. If a royal felt wronged that required a challange,naturally he could not appear himself, so the bodyguard was sent to throw down the gauntlet or state the challange. The lady also said from the many coats of arms she has researched this one is from Wales and owner was probably a bodyguard for the Prince of Wales.

Please let me know what you think. I know nothing of this subject.

Larry Botts
bocoon@redshift.com