Whitney, 1586.
How long this had been the cognizance of the Earls of Warwick, and whether it was borne by all the various families of the Saxon and Norman races who held the title,—by the Beauchamps, the Nevilles, and the Dudleys, admits of doubt; but it is certain that such was the cognizance in the reign of Henry VI. and in that of Elizabeth.
According to Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire, edition 1730, p. 398, the monument of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in Edward III.’s time, has a lion, not a bear; and a lamb for his Countess, the Lady Katherine Mortimer. Also on the monument of another Earl (p. 404), who died in 1401, the bear does not appear; but on the monument of Richard Beauchamp, who died “the last day of Aprill, the year of our lord god 1434,” the inscriptions are crowded with bears, instead of commas and colons; and the recumbent figure of the Earl has a muzzled bear at his feet (p. 410). The Nevilles now succeeded to the title, and a limner’s or designer’s very curious bill, of the fifteenth year of Henry VI., 1438, shows that the bear and ragged staff were then both in use and in honour,—
“First CCCC Pencels bete with the Raggidde staffe of silver
pris the pece v d. 08l. 06s. 00
Item for a grete Stremour for the Ship of XI yerdis length and
IIII yerdis in brede, with a grete Bere and Gryfon holding
a Raggid staffe, poudrid full of raggid staves; and for a
grate Crosse of S. George for the lymmynge and portraying 01 . 06 . 08