relationship between gentility, and the heraldic practice of "gate-keeping" the grant of coats of arms (blazons). The book took the line that the law of arms was part of the law of nature. James Dallaway reprinted this Book of Arms in his 1793 Inquiries into the Origin and Progress of Heraldry in England.

The book proposed that there could be several kinds of gentlemen: those "of blood" differed from those granted coat armour.