Heraldry, Terms, Charges

Archaeologia Volume 29 Section III. In 1375 the Black Prince bequeathed to his son Richard his hangings for a hall, embroidered with mermen, and a border of red and black impaled, embroidered with swans having lady's heads, and ostrich feathers: to his wife, the Princess, he bequeathed a hall of red worsted, embroidered with eagles and griffins, with a border of swans having lady's heads; and to Mons. Aleyne Cheyne a bed of camoca, powdered with blue eagles. In 1385, Joan Princess of Wales bequeathed "To my dear son, the King, my new bed of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths." Edward, [Note. Edward assumed to be a mistake for Edward?] Earl of March, in 1380, bequeathed to his son and heir, "our large bed of black satin, embroidered with white lions and gold roses, with escutcheons of the arms of Mortimer and Ulster;" and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in 1397, bequeathed to the altar of St. Paul's cathedral "his great bed of cloth of gold, the champepiers powdered with golden roses, placed upon pipes of gold, and in each pipe two white ostrich feathers;" and again, to his daughter the Duchess of Exeter, his "white bed of silk, with blue eagles displayed." In 1415, Edward, Duke of York, bequeathed to his wife "my bed of feathers and leopards, with the furniture appertaining to the same; also my white and red tapestry of garters, fetter-locks, and falcons^b".

Note b. Nichols's Royal and Noble Wills. Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta.

Effigy of Edward, the Black Prince. Various reasons have been assigned for Edward's bearing the surname of the Black Prince; the most generally received, and perhaps the best entitled to credit, is that it arose from his wearing black armour. A circumstance which may throw some light on this point, and correct an error in another particular, appears to have been entirely overlooked. The three Ostrich Feathers within the Coronet, as at present borne, is generally understood to have been the Cognizance of the Black Prince, but on strict investigation, although his Will, his Seals, and his Tomb, give the most minute evidence on the subject, there exists no authority whatever for this disposition of the Ostrich Feathers. We are told that after the battle of Cressy, the banner of John, the old and blind King of Bohemia, there slain, was found in the field; upon it was wrought—sable, three ostrich feathers, with the motto Ich Dien; which cognizance, in memory of the day, was adopted by Prince Edward. By what authority this account is supported, is uncertain; but the German words Ich Dien and Houmont on the tomb, seem to give it probability. Although there is no farther proof that the feathers were borne by the King of Bohemia, yet it is not a little remarkable, that his granddaughter Anne, bore an ostrich as her Badge. Instead of the feathers either being worn within the coronet, or as a crest, the evidence on the tomb is contrary, they are borne as a coat, on an escutcheon. From the subjoined extract of the Prince's will, in the passage describing the man and horse, armed and covered with the badges, it is clear that the former bore them on his surcoat, and the latter on the barding^a. We cannot, therefore, be surprised, if the Prince of Wales wore such sable trappings, (which must be interred from the extract alluded to,) that he should have received the surname of the Black Prince. It may be necessary to remark, that the first notice of this surname occurs soon after the battle of Cressy.

Note a. There is a curious coincidence, bearing strong evidence on this point, in a beautiful manuscript, containing in French verse, an account of the iatter part of the life of Richard II written and illuminated by one who was an eyewitness to what he describes. In the second illumination Richard II is represented knighting Henry of Monmouth. The king is on horseback, in armour, his surcoat and the barding of the horse is powdered with ostrich feathers, and above him appears a pennon emblazoned in like manner. BibF. Harl".

Edward the Black Prince leaves to his son Richard in his will, "a blue vestment embroidered with gold roses and ostrich feathers." The feathers, and other devices of the Black Prince are also alluded to in the two following passages of the said Will:—"We give and devise our Hall of Ostrich Feathers of black Tapestry with a red border wrought with Swans with Ladies Heads, that is to say, a back piece, eight pieces for the sides and two for the Benches to the said Church of Canterbury, &c., &c."-" Item, we give and devise to our said son the Hall of Arras of the deeds of Saladyn, and also the Hall of worsted embroidered with Mermaids of the Sea, and the border paly red and black, embroidered with swans with Ladies Heads and Ostrich Feathers."

Archaeologia Volume 29 Section III. In 1375 the Black Prince bequeathed to his son Richard his hangings for a hall, embroidered with mermen, and a border of red and black impaled, embroidered with swans having lady's heads, and ostrich feathers: to his wife, the Princess, he bequeathed a hall of red worsted, embroidered with eagles and griffins, with a border of swans having lady's heads; and to Mons. Aleyne Cheyne a bed of camoca, powdered with blue eagles. In 1385, Joan Princess of Wales bequeathed "To my dear son, the King, my new bed of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths." Edward, [Note. Edward assumed to be a mistake for Edward?] Earl of March, in 1380, bequeathed to his son and heir, "our large bed of black satin, embroidered with white lions and gold roses, with escutcheons of the arms of Mortimer and Ulster;" and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in 1397, bequeathed to the altar of St. Paul's cathedral "his great bed of cloth of gold, the champepiers powdered with golden roses, placed upon pipes of gold, and in each pipe two white ostrich feathers;" and again, to his daughter the Duchess of Exeter, his "white bed of silk, with blue eagles displayed." In 1415, Edward, Duke of York, bequeathed to his wife "my bed of feathers and leopards, with the furniture appertaining to the same; also my white and red tapestry of garters, fetter-locks, and falcons^b".

Note b. Nichols's Royal and Noble Wills. Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta.

Archaeologia Volume 29 Section III. It is painted on two tablets, and Hollar engraved it in two plates in the year 1639; but the two when viewed together form but one design. The King is kneeling in prayer to the Virgin and her Son; behind him stand the three saints, John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor, and Edmund the King. Behind and around the Virgin are eleven angels. King Richard is here attired in a gown powdered with White Harts, which are interlaced with Broom-cods running in the same manner as the interlacing foliage on the mantle of his Effigy. He wears round his neck a collar of Broom-cods; and on his left shoulder is his badge of the White Hart. But what is more extraordinary is, that each of the eleven angels wears a similar collar and a similar badge. It must be remarked that the pendant to the collar in front, in every case, is formed of two of the Broom-cods only; and that the King, as well as the angels, wears the White Hart, as a badge, on his shoulder, not as a pendant to the collar, as was misapprehended by Anstis^g. It was this picture which furnished a subject of discussion to Walpole in connexion with the alleged discovery of oil-painting by Van Eyck^h; but it was proved to be painted in water-colours, on an examination by T. Phillips, Esq. R.A. as is noticed in Britton's Beauties of Wiltshire. It formerly belonged to the Royal Collection, but is said to have been given away by King James the Second to Lord Castlemaine, about the time he went Ambassador to Rome, after whose death it was purchased by the Earl of Pembroke, and added to the Collection at Wilton.

Note g. Register of the Order of the Garter, vol. i. p. 112; and also in p. 110. Anstis was here writing of collars, and he did not sufficiently bear in mind that the badge, stigma, mark, sign, or cognizance was another thing. He followed the verses under Hollar's print, in which it is erroneously said, "Pendulus est albus cervus," &c. Anstis, in turn, is followed by Mr. Beltz, who states that the White Hart was "pendent from a collar," in his Notices of Collars of the King's Livery, Retrospective Review, new series, vol. ii. p. 501.

Note h. In reference to this subject, see a paper by the present writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for Nov. 1840, vol. xiv. p. 489, relative to a picture in the Duke of Devonshire's villa at Chiswick, which was assigned by Walpole to Van Eyck, and supposed to represent the family of Lord de Clifford, but regarding which, Mr. Waagen has pronounced that "Jan Van Eyck is quite out of the question," and which is shown (ubi supra) to be the portraits of Sir John Donne and his wife Elizabeth, sister to Lord Hastings, temp. Edw. IV. They wear the collar of that King's livery, formed of alternate roses and suns, with a white lion sejant as a pendant.

Archaeologia Volume 29 Section III. But it is less probable that the White Hart was first given^l on that occasion, than that it was then brought into conspicuous notice by being displayed upon all the housings and accoutrements of the English knights who took part in the tournament, as the accounts given by Walsingham and in the Polychronicon state that it was. Indeed, as Anstis has pointed out (though with a wrong date, as it belongs to Richard's sixth^m and not his ninth year), there is a document in Rymer some years earlier in date, which enumerates various crown jewels pawned to the Corporation of London, among which occur three brooches in the form of White Harts, set with rubies. It should, however, be added that in this document the White Hart does not come prominently forward, for there were more brooches of other patterns; as, of twenty-three in the whole, four were worked with a Griffon in the middle, five were in the form of White Dogs, one great one with four Blue Boars, four in the form of Eagles, three in the form of White Harts, and six in the form of Keys. Still there is ample evidence that the White Hart was made very conspicuous on occasion of the Tournament already mentioned, and it is remarkable that a passage has been foundⁿ in the household-book of Richard's great adversary the Earl of Derby (afterwards Henry the Fourth) for that very year, recording the expenditure of 40s. for the embroidering of two sleeves of red velvet and a pair of plates of the same suit, with the Harts

Note l. The devise of "le Cerf volant, couronné d'or au col," had been adopted ten years before, viz. in 1380, by Charles VI. of France, according to his historian, Juvenal des Ursins; who connects it with a legendary story of the collar having been placed upon the Hart in its youth by Julius Cesar; which legend is also related by Upton and by him located in Windsor Forest, at the stone called Besaunteston near Bagshot. (Nic. Upton de Studio Militari, 1654, p. 159.) The same legendary beast was adopted as a supporter by the family of Pompei in Italy in token of their allegiance to the Emperor, with the initials N. M. T. alluding to the inscription on the collar of the original Hart, Nemo Mg Tanear, Casaris svm. (Anstis, Register of the Garter, i. 113, from Menestrier, Ornem. des Armes, p. 118.) Froissart ascribes the origin of the fying hart of Charles VI. toa dream of the king, the story of which occupies his CIVth chapter. It was represented winged, as it appears in the engraved title of the Compendium Roberti Gaguini super Francorum Gestis. Paris, fol. 1504.

Note m. See Rymer's Foedera, edit. 1740, vol. IIT. part iii. p. 140.

Note n. Anstis, i. 14.