Part 34 (1/2)

FOOTNOTES:

[95:1] ”_Juniper._ Go get white of egg and a little Flax, and close the breach of the head; it is the most conducible thing that can be.”--BEN JONSON, _The Case Altered_, act ii, sc. 4.

[96:1] ”From the abundant harvests of this elegant weed on the upland pastures, prepared and manufactured by supernatural skill, 'the good people' were wont, in the olden time, to procure the necessary supplies of linen!”--JOHNSTON.

FLOWER-DE-LUCE.

(1) _Perdita._

Lilies of all kinds, The Flower-de-luce being one.

_Winters Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (126).

(2) _K. Henry._

What sayest thou, my fair Flower-de-luce?

_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (323).

(3) _Messenger._

Cropped are the Flower-de-luces in your arms; Of England's coat one half is cut away.

_1st Henry VI_, act i, sc. 1 (80).

(4) _Pucelle._

I am prepared; here is my keen-edged sword Deck'd with five Flower-de-luces on each side.

_Ibid._, act i, sc. 2 (98).

(5) _York._

A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul, On which I'll toss the Flower-de-luce of France.

_2nd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 1 (10).

Out of these five pa.s.sages four relate to the Fleur-de-luce as the cognizance of France, and much learned ink has been spilled in the endeavour to find out what flower, if any, was intended to be represented, so that Mr. Planche says that ”next to the origin of heraldry itself, perhaps nothing connected with it has given rise to so much controversy as the origin of this celebrated charge.” It has been at various times a.s.serted to be an Iris, a Lily, a sword-hilt, a spearhead, and a toad, or to be simply the Fleur de St. Louis. _Adhuc sub judice lis est_--and it is never likely to be satisfactorily settled. I need not therefore dwell on it, especially as my present business is to settle not what the Fleur-de-luce meant in the arms of France, but what it meant in Shakespeare's writings. But here the same difficulty at once meets us, some writers affirming stoutly that it is a Lily, others as stoutly that it is an Iris. For the Lily theory there are the facts that Shakespeare calls it one of the Lilies, and that the other way of spelling it is Fleur-de-lys. I find also a strong confirmation of this in the writings of St. Francis de Sales (contemporary with Shakespeare). ”Charity,” he says, ”comprehends the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and resembles a beautiful Flower-de-luce, which has six leaves whiter than snow, and in the middle the pretty little golden hammers” (”Philo,” book xi., Mulholland's translation).

This description will in no way fit the Iris, but it may very well be applied to the White Lily. Chaucer, too, seems to connect the Fleur-de-luce with the Lily--

”Her nekke was white as the Flour de Lis.”

These are certainly strong authorities for saying that the Flower-de-luce is the Lily. But there are as strong or stronger on the other side. Spenser separates the Lilies from the Flower-de-luces in his pretty lines--