Fig. 131.—Fourteenth Century.
Fig. 132.—Fifteenth Century.
Fig. 133.—Eighteenth Century.
About this time also instances occur of fleur-de-lis of the simpler form but with decorated surfaces, as in that from a fifteenth century book of the hours that is one of the illustrations to the Comte de Laborde’s treatise on “Les Fleurs-de-lis Heraldiques et les Fleurs-de-lis Naturelles,” Revue Archaelogique, in which the conventional fleur-de-lis (Fig. 132) is decorated with natural lilies.
Like other decorative details the fleur-de-lis rapidly deteriorated in the general artistic decadence that followed the Tudor period, and during and after the latter half of the sixteenth century the beautiful and characteristic grace of line was lost, and the form became blobby and heavy, as in the eighteenth century French example (Fig. 133), while the coarse and ugly shapes that are commonly seen in ordinary modern work make it difficult to believe that they could have been derived, even remotely, from so beautiful a source.
Roses.—As a Royal badge a golden rose was used by Edward I, and was depicted with a stalk and leaves similar to the badge of the Malatesta in Italy in later times. In such cases it must be blazoned “leaved and slipped,” otherwise it would be rendered as the conventionalized flower alone, the only leaves shown in the latter being those of the calyx, which appear between the petals and are heraldically called barbs. These are frequently mentioned on the blazon, e.g. a rose gules barbed and seeded ppr., the seeds being the centre. Of the conflicting roses that brought such ruin on the gentry of England the red rose of Lancaster had been the badge of Henry IV, as the white rose irradiated was that of Edward IV, the latter badge resulting from a combination of the rose with the sun, which was another Yorkist emblem. Henry VII united the red and white rose badges, as he had united the great rival houses that they symbolized. Sometimes a single rose was made per pale gu. and ar., or else quarterly of those tinctures (in the former case the white half retained the rays that usually surrounded the white rose of York), but the method which has come down in general use is that of a double rose, the white within the red, or vice versa. In this form Henry VII made it part of the collar of the Order of the Garter, and thus it appears sculptured on the walls of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. In many instances the York rose retained its rays and the rose of Lancaster was placed within it, as in Fig. 134, which is sculptured on the exterior walls of the choir. In many of these the ends of the petals do not turn over as is most usual, but the modelling indicates a somewhat similar form. An interesting example of the Tudor rose as used by Queen Elizabeth is that which was found deeply incised in the wood of her coffin in Westminster Abbey (Fig. 135). This Queen signified the union of the Roses in yet another way in the badge that had been her mother’s, in which the tree-stock which supports the white falcon sprouts with red and white roses on the same stem.
