| PLUME OF FEATHERS. (Badge of the Prince of Wales.) | THE FEATHERS. (Badge of Henry VI.) |
Twenty years since a house at Stanstead bore the sign of the Bell and Feathers, which is a combination not mentioned by Larwood and Hotten. It was probably merely an impaled sign, as it was formerly the Bell simply, and has now returned to its old name, under which it will be hereafter referred to. The sign of the Phœnix now only occurs at Rainham, though there was another example at Billericay forty years since. The sign was formerly often set up by chemists, but other tradesmen also used it. The fact that a phœnix forms the crest of the Blacksmiths’ Company (p. 32) has, perhaps, had something to do with bringing the bird into favour as a sign. This completes our list of ornithological signs.
CHAPTER V.
PISCATORY, INSECT, AND REPTILIAN SIGNS.
... “Ye ale-house painted signs.”
Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus, Act iv., Scene 3.
HIS class of signs—or rather combination of several small groups, taken together for the sake of convenience—is, naturally, very far from a large one. It contains, indeed, only four signs, all told.
The Fish and Eels, which is a very strange device appearing at Roydon, is our only existing sign connected with fish, although Two Fishes appeared on the tokens of the two William Wildmans (father and son) of Saffron Walden, issued in 1656 and 1667 respectively. The former spells the name Saffron Wallding. The sign, perhaps, originated in the arms of the Fishmongers’ Company.[77] Larwood and Hotten do not notice the Fish and Eels, although this house has displayed the sign since 1789 at least. It may be a meaningless impalement.
Only two signs occurring in the county are in any way connected with insects. These are the Fly and Bullock, already described (p. 67), and the Beehive, which occurs five times, namely, at Great Baddow, Witham, Horkesley, Ilford, and Lambourne. The sign is generally represented (as at Witham and Baddow) by an old straw hive, or skep, with a great many bees, volant, counter-volant (as heraldic writers say), around it, probably to indicate that a busy trade is carried on within. It is recorded[78] in the Barking parish register, that in 1653, “Francis, the sonne of an Ethiopian, born at the Beehive,” was baptised. Under this heading must be noticed a sign which, although it does not occur in Essex, is, nevertheless, connected with the county. This sign is the Essex Serpent, which still exists in King Street, Covent Garden; and, when Larwood and Hotten wrote, there was also another example in Charles Street, Westminster. Those gentlemen think that it was, perhaps, originally set up “in allusion to a fabulous monster recorded in a catalogue of wonders and awful prognostications contained in a broadside of 1704,[79] from which we learn that ‘Before Henry the second dyed, ... a Dragon of marvellous bigness was discovered at St. Osyph in Essex.’ Had we any evidence that it is an old sign, we might almost be inclined to consider it as dating from the civil war, and hung up with reference to Essex, the Parliamentary General; for, though we have searched the chroniclers fondest of relating wonders and monstrous apparitions, we have not succeeded in finding any authority for the St. Osyph Dragon, other than the above-mentioned broadside.” Another reference to the same unwelcome visitor is, however, to be found in Dr. Howell’s Ancient and Present State of England (1712), wherein it is recorded (p. 75) that “At St. Osyphs in Essex was seen a dragon of marvellous bigness, which by moving burned houses.” The dragon is also mentioned in Sir Richard Baker’s Chronicles of the Kings of England, published in 1684. It is, nevertheless, fairly certain that the sign has no reference to the St. Osyth dragon; for there is a much more likely origin. In the British Museum Library may be seen a highly remarkable tract of the year 1669, entitled, The Flying Serpent, or Strange News out of Essex: being a true relation of a Monstrous Serpent which hath divers times been seen at a parish called Henham on the Mount, within four miles of Saffron Walden. Showing the length, proportion, and bigness of the