Although the family had been using seals and insignia from the beginning of the 14th century, the first known record of arms are from Sir William de Grenlay, William Greneleye or Guillaume Greenlee (c.1372) of Edgebaston, Warwickshire, a "Knight of the Royal Guards" (see Yeoman of the Guard), who was commended for martial valour at the first Siege of Harfleur in 1415, in Normandy, France, during the Hundred Years' War. William was killed storming the breach in the bastion walls alongside his soldiers, as he fought to secure the fortress gates during the final stages of the siege. Buried on the glacis where he was slain, William was posthumously honoured by King Henry V, and as a reward, the family were entitled to have their armorial bearings topped with an additional crest (a green mound with sprig of oak) and motto (Fortes et fidelis). The existing family coat of arms at that time was recorded as:"Armorial Quartering...angular bars on the shield; the ermine, above Bar; and a square thereon..."The "Armorial Quartering" refers to the division of the field into 4 square quarters, the "angular bars on the shield" to early pheons, and the "ermine, above Bar" to the tincture adjoining the central ordinaries, all of which are exhibited in the arms to this day. This 14th century emblazoned escutcheon is regarded as an early form of the arms now bourn by the Grindlay family, with the current coat of arms adopted at some point during the 16th or 17th centuries, to differentiate their immediate familial line from their wider ancestral lineage.