Part 29 (2/2)
HENRY V.: _A Fire-beacon: a White Swan gorged and chained: a chained Antelope._
HENRY VI.: _Two Ostrich Feathers in Saltire: a chained Antelope: a Panther._
EDWARD IV.: _A White Rose en Soleil: a White Wolf and White Lion: a White Hart: a Black Dragon and Black Bull: a Falcon and Fetter-lock: the Sun in splendour._
HENRY VII.: _A Rose of York and Lancaster, a Portcullis and a Fleur de lys, all of them crowned: a Red Dragon: a White Greyhound: a Hawthorn Bush and Crown, with the cypher_ H.R.
HENRY VIII.: The same, without the Hawthorn Bush, and with a _White c.o.c.k_. His QUEENS: CATHERINE OF ARAGON--_A Rose, Pomegranate, and Sheaf of Arrows._ ANNE BOLEYN--_A Crowned Falcon, holding a Sceptre._ JANE SEYMOUR--_A Phnix rising from a Castle, between Two Tudor Roses._ CATHERINE PARR--_A Maiden's Head crowned, rising from a large Tudor Rose._
EDWARD VI.: _A Tudor Rose: the Sun in splendour._
MARY: _A Tudor Rose impaling a Pomegranate_--also _impaling a Sheaf of Arrows, ensigned with a Crown, and surrounded with rays: a Pomegranate._
ELIZABETH: _A Tudor Rose_ with the motto, ”_Rosa sine Spina_” (a Rose without a Thorn): _a Crowned Falcon and Sceptre._ She used as her own motto--”_Semper Eadem_” (Always the same).
JAMES I.: _A Thistle: a Thistle and Rose dimidiated and crowned_, No.
308, with the motto--”_Beati Pacifici_” (Blessed are the peacemakers).
CHARLES I., CHARLES II., JAMES II.: The same Badge as JAMES I., without his motto.
ANNE: _A Rose-Branch and a Thistle growing from one branch._
From this time distinctive personal Badges ceased to be borne by English Sovereigns. But various badges have become stereotyped and now form a const.i.tuent part of the Royal Arms, and will be found recited later in Chapter XVIII.
The _Ostrich Feather Badge_. The popular tradition, that the famous Badge of the Ostrich Feathers was won from the blind KING OF BOHEMIA at Cressi by the BLACK PRINCE, and by him afterwards borne as an heraldic trophy, is not supported by any contemporary authority. The earliest writer by whom the tradition itself is recorded is CAMDEN (A.D. 1614), and his statement is confirmed by no known historical evidence of a date earlier than his own work. As Sir N. HARRIS NICHOLAS has shown in a most able paper in the _Archaeologia_ (vol. x.x.xi. pp. 350-384), the first time the Feathers are mentioned in any record is in a doc.u.ment, the date of which must have been after 1369, and which contains lists of plate belonging to the King himself, and also to Queen PHILLIPA. It is particularly to be observed, that all the pieces of plate specified in this roll as the personal property of the Queen, if marked with any device at all, are marked with her _own initial_, or with some heraldic insignia that have a direct reference to _herself_. One of these pieces of plate is described as ”a large dish for the alms of the Queen, of silver gilt, and enamelled at the bottom with _a black escutcheon with Ostrich Feathers_--_eym in fund vno scuch nigro c.u.m pennis de ostrich_.”
And these ”Ostrich Feathers,” thus blazoned on a sable field upon the silver alms-dish of Queen PHILIPPA, Sir N. H. Nicholas believed to have been borne by the Queen as a daughter of the House of HAINAULT; and he suggested that these same ”Ostrich Feathers” might possibly have been a.s.sumed by the Counts of the Province of Hainault from the Comte of Ostrevant, which formed the appanage of their eldest sons.
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 394.--At Worcester Cathedral.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 395.--At Peterborough Cathedral.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 396.--At Peterborough Cathedral.]
At the first, either a single Feather was borne, the quill generally transfixing an escroll, as in No. 394, from the monument of Prince ARTHUR TUDOR, in Worcester Cathedral; or, two Feathers were placed side by side, as they also appear upon the same monument. In Seals, or when marshalled with a s.h.i.+eld of Arms, two Feathers are seen to have been placed after the manner of Supporters, one on each side of the composition: in such examples the tips of the Feathers droop severally to the dexter and sinister: in all the early examples also the Feathers droop in the same manner, or they incline slightly towards the spectator. Three Feathers were first grouped together by ARTHUR TUDOR, PRINCE OF WALES, eldest son of HENRY VII., as in Nos. 395 and 396, from Peterborough Cathedral; or with an escroll, as in No. 397, from a miserere in the fine and interesting church at Ludlow. The plume of three Feathers appears to have been encircled with a coronet, for the first time, by Prince EDWARD, afterwards EDWARD VI., but who never was PRINCE OF WALES: No. 398, carved very boldly over the entrance gateway to the Deanery at Peterborough, is a good early example. In No. 399 I give a representation of another early plume of three Ostrich Feathers, as they are carved, with an escroll in place of a coronet, upon the Chantry of Abbot RAMRYGE in the Abbey Church at St. Albans: and again, in No. 400, from the head of a window near the east end of the choir, on the south side, in Exeter Cathedral, the three Feathers are charged upon a s.h.i.+eld _per pale azure and gules_, and this s.h.i.+eld is on a roundle.
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 397.--In Ludlow Church.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 398.--The Deanery, Peterborough.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 399.--In the Abbey Church of St. Alban.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 400.--In Exeter Cathedral.]
The Ostrich Feathers were borne, as a Badge with his s.h.i.+eld of Arms, upon one Seal of EDWARD III. himself: they were used, as an heraldic device, about the year 1370, by PHILIPPA, his Queen: they appear on some, but not on all, the Seals of the BLACK PRINCE, and they are omitted from some of his Seals after the battle of Cressi (A.D. 1346): and they were also borne, generally with some slight difference, marking Cadency, in all probability by all the other sons of EDWARD III.--certainly by JOHN OF GHENT, Duke of LANCASTER, and by THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK, Duke of GLOUCESTER. They were adopted by RICHARD II., and placed on either side of his crested Helm in the heraldic sculpture of Westminster Hall, as appears in two of these beautiful examples, Nos. 199 and 384: by this Prince the Ostrich Feathers were placed on his first Royal Seal, and they were habitually used for decoration and heraldic display; and they also were formally granted by him, as a mark of especial favour, to be borne as an Augmentation of the highest honour, to his cousin THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of NORFOLK. The Ostrich Feathers were borne, in like manner, by the succeeding Princes, both LANCASTRIAN and YORKIST: by at least two of the BEAUFORTS: by the Princes of the House of TUDOR: and by their successors the STUARTS. Thus, it is certain that the Ostrich Feathers were held to be a _Royal Badge_, from the time of their first appearance in the Heraldry of England about the middle of the fourteenth century; and that in that character they were adopted and borne by the successive Sovereigns, and by the Princes, sometimes also by the Princesses (as in the instance of a Seal of MARGARET BEAUFORT, the mother of HENRY VII.), of the Royal Houses, without any other distinction than some slight mark of Cadency, and without the slightest trace of any peculiar a.s.sociation with any one member of the Royal Family. From the time of the accession of the House of Stuart to the Crown of the United Kingdom, however, the coroneted plume of three Ostrich Feathers appears to have been regarded, as it is at this present day, as the special Badge of the Heir to the Throne.
In accordance with the express provision of his will, two armorial s.h.i.+elds are displayed upon the monument of the BLACK PRINCE in Canterbury Cathedral, which s.h.i.+elds the Prince himself distinguishes as his s.h.i.+elds ”for War” and ”for Peace”; the former charged with his quartered arms of France and England differenced with his silver Label, No. 337; and the latter, _sable_, charged with _three Ostrich Feathers argent_, their quills pa.s.sing through scrolls bearing the Motto, ”_Ich Diene_” No. 401. The same motto is placed over each of the s.h.i.+elds that are charged with the Feathers, as in No. 401: and over each s.h.i.+eld charged with the quartered arms (there are on each side of the tomb six s.h.i.+elds, three of the Arms, and three of the Feathers, alternately) is the other motto of the Prince, ”_Houmout_.” In his will, the BLACK PRINCE also desired that a ”_black Pennon with Ostrich Feathers_” should be displayed at his Funeral; and he further appointed that his Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral should be adorned in various places with his Arms, and ”_likewise with our Badge of Ostrich Feathers--noz bages dez plumes d'ostruce_.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 401.--s.h.i.+eld ”for Peace” of the Black Prince.]
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