Life

He was the son of Henry Legh, draper, of Fleet Street

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...

, London, by his first wife Isabel Cailis or Callis. He was educated by Robert Wroth of Durants in Enfield, Middlesex, and probably by Richard Goodrich. Though Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...

 places him in the Athenæ Oxonienses (i. 428), he was not a student at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

.

He served an apprenticeship to his father and became a member of the Drapers' Company. Subsequently he became a member of the Inner Temple

Inner Temple

The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...

. He travelled in France, and in 1562 was preparing for a journey to Venice. He died of the plague

Bubonic plague

Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...

 on 13 October 1563, and was buried on the 15th at St. Dunstan-in-the-West, where a monument was erected to his memory. He left a widow, Alice, and five daughters.

The Accedens of Armory

Legh's only work, entitled The Accedens of Armory, London, 1562 (later editions 1568, 1572, 1576, 1591, 1597, and 1612), is written in form of a colloquy between ‘Gerarde the Herehaught and Legh the Caligat Knight.’ Richard Argall

Richard Argall

Richard Argall , was a poet, of whom little is known.His name is on the title-page of a unique volume of poems in Mr. Christie-Miller's library at Britwell...

 of the Inner Temple supplied a prefatory address and probably part of the latter passages of the book. In endeavouring to explain the art of heraldry, Legh is purposely obscure from fear of trenching on the official privileges of the College of Arms

College of Arms

The College of Arms, or Heralds’ College, is an office regulating heraldry and granting new armorial bearings for England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

. The work supplies what appears to be a portrait of Legh himself in the fictitious character of ‘Panther Herald.’

J. P. Cooper described the book as "perhaps the most popular heraldic work of the later 16th-century." Its theories on gentility are based on those of the Boke of St Albans, with minor modifications; the consequence being that "highly restrictive definitions of gentility and right to bear arms without foundation in common law or long established usage were widely circulated."