[64] The dimidiated coat represented on p. [36], is not the arms of a family, but those of the corporation of Hastings. Here three demi-lions are conjoined with three sterns of antient ships—a composition compared with which the griffin, cockatrice, and every other hybrid of a herald’s imagination sinks into insignificance. That this singular shield is a dimidiation of two antient coats cannot be doubted. Three ships, in all probability, formed the original arms of the town—the dexter-half of the royal arms of England having been superimposed in commemoration of some great immunity granted to this antiently important corporation.
[65] Query—Might not some of our English maidens, who are verging somewhat on the antique, resort to this mode of advertising for a husband with advantage? The odious appellation of “old maids” would then give place to the more courteous one of “Ladies of the half-blank shield.”
[66] Nisbet’s Essay on Armories, p. 70.
[67] A lineal ancestor of Sir John Shelley, Bart. The date of the lady’s death is 1513.
[68] In the great hall at Fawsley, co. Northampton, the seat of Sir Charles Knightly, Bart., is a shield containing the unprecedented number of 334 quarterings. Vide Baker’s Northampton, vol. i, p. 386.
[69] Vide Appendix.
[70] In the Temple Church, London. Tomb of Sir Geoffrey de Magnaville. Vide woodcut at the head of the Preface.
[71] Boke of St. A. and Dall.
[72] The arms of the See of Hereford at this day are identical with those of Thomas Cantilupe, who held the episcopate in the thirteenth century, and was canonized as St. Thomas of Hereford, 34o Edward I.
[73] It is almost unnecessary to observe that the expression ‘a merchant’s mark’ is by no means appropriate; for such devices were employed in a great variety of ways. They appear, primarily, to have been used as signatures by illiterate though wealthy merchants, who could not write their names. At a later date they were employed for marking bales of goods. Within the last century, many flockmasters in the South of England used them for marking sheep. Although the illiterate of our own times substitute a + for their proper names, it was far otherwise two centuries ago, when they generally made a rude monogram, or peculiar mark, analogous to the merchant’s mark of earlier date.