“When Sir Simon knew the judgment given against them, his wickedness burst forth, he gathered all his men, displayed his banner, and lifted up his Dragon.”[129] The expression ‘his dragon’ must not be understood to imply any peculiar right to the device, for the arms of De Montfort were widely different, viz. ‘Gules, a lion rampant, double queué, argent.’ From the indiscriminate use of the monster by different, and even by contending parties, I should consider him merely as the emblem of defiance. The Dragon must not be confounded with the usual pennon, or standard of an army, as it was employed in addition to it. Matthew of Westminster, speaking of the early battles of this country, says, “The king’s place was between the Dragon and the standard.”[130] Among the ensigns borne at Cressy was a burning dragon, to show that the French were to receive little mercy.[131] This dragon was of red silk, adorned and beaten with very broad and fair lilies of gold, and bordered about with gold and vermilion. The French frequently carried a red pennon, embroidered with a dragon of gold. Our Henry VI caused a particular coin to be struck, the reverse of which exhibited a banner charged with a demi-dragon, and a black dragon was one of the badges of Edward IV. A red dragon was one of the supporters of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth, whence the title, Rouge-dragon, of one of the existing pursuivants in the College of Arms.
The griffin, or griphon, scarcely less famous than the dragon, was a compound animal, having the head, wings, and feet of an eagle, with the hinder part of a lion. He is thus described by Sir John Maundevile in the 26th chapter of his ‘ryght merveylous’ Travels:
“In that contree [Bacharie] ben many Griffounes, more plentee than in ony other contree. Sum men seyn that thei han the body upward as an egle, and benethe as a lyoun; and treuly thei seyn sothe that thei ben of that schapp. But 0 Griffoun hathe the body more gret and more strong thane 8 lyouns, of such lyouns as ben o’ this half (hemisphere); and more gret and strongere than an 100 egles, suche as we han amonges us. For 0 Griffoun there wil bere fleynge to his nest a gret hors, or 2 oxen yoked to gidere as thei gon at the plowghe. For he hathe his talouns so longe and so large and grete upon his feet, as thowghe thei weren hornes of grete oxen, or of bugles or of kygn, so that men maken cuppes of hem to drynke of, and of hire ribbes and of the pennes of hire wenges men maken bowes fulle stronge to schote with arwes, and quarell.”
Casley says that in the Cottonian Library there was a cup of the description just referred to, four feet in length, and inscribed—
“Griphi unguis divo Cuthberto Dunelmensi sacer,”
a dedication which, I must confess, puzzles me sorely. A griffin’s claw and the ‘saint-bishop’ of Durham seem as absurd a combination of ideas as that presented in the old proverbial phrase of ‘Great A and a Bull’s Foot,’ or by the tavern sign of ‘The Goat and Compasses.’ If wisdom, according to classical authority, lies in a well, so does the wit of this association. Another griffin’s claw, curiously mounted on an eagle’s leg of silver, which came at the Revolution from the Treasury at St. Denis, is preserved in the cabinet of antiquities in the King’s Library at Paris. Three such talons were formerly kept at Bayeux, and were fastened on high days to the altar as precious relics! A ‘corne de griffoun’ is mentioned in the Kalend. of Excheq. iii, 176. Another, about an ell in length, is mentioned by Dr. Grew in his ‘History of the Rarities of the Royal Society,’ p. 26. The Doctor thinks it the horn of a roebuck, or of the Ibex mas. Leigh says that griffyns “are of a great hugenes, for I have a clawe of one of their pawes, which should show them to be as bygge as two lyons.” The egg was likewise preserved as a valuable curiosity, and used as a goblet. “Item, j œf de griffon, garnis d’argent, od pie et covercle.” The griffin was assumed by the family of Le Dispenser, and the upper part appears as the crest on the helm of Hugh le Dispenser, who was buried at Tewkesbury in 1349. Another strikingly designed representation of this curious animal is seen at Warwick, at the feet of Richard Beauchamp, who died in 1439.[132]
The harpy, unusual in English armory, has the head and breasts of a woman, with the body, legs, and wings of a vulture. This was a classical monster. Guillim, imitating Virgil,[133] says:
“Of monsters all, most monstrous this; no greater wrath
God sends ’mongst men; it comes from depths of pitchy hell;
And virgin’s face, but wombe like gulfe insatiate hath;
Her hands are griping clawes, her colour pale and fell.”
The coat ‘Azure, a harpy or,’ was ‘in Huntingdon church’ in Guillim’s time.
The lyon-dragon and the lyon-poisson are compound monsters; the former of a lion and a dragon, and the latter of a lion and a fish. These are of very rare occurrence, as is also the monk-fish, or Sea Friar, which Randle Holme tells us ‘is a fish in form of a frier.’ ‘Such a monstrous and wonderful fish,’ he adds, ‘was taken in Norway.’