We are told that early in the fourth century their bodies were discovered, and moved to Constantinople by the pious Empress Helena. Thence they found their way to Milan, being enshrined in the church of San Eustorgio. A few years later their fame was increased by the institution of the Feast of the Three Kings, which has been ascribed to Pope Julius, the first of that name. After the taking of Milan[18] by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, in the year 1162, the precious relics were granted to Reinaldus, Archbishop of Cologne, who brought them to that city, which proved to be their final resting-place. Cologne, proud of the honour, adopted as her arms, argent, on a chief gules, three royal crowns or; and so we have an interesting heraldic record of this event.
In course of time, however, each of these Three Kings[19] has had a shield of arms assigned to him. Perhaps the earliest examples yet known are on the roof of Norwich Cathedral. Here we find three bosses which date from the time of Bishop Lehart, who ruled that see from 1446 to 1472; on one is a blazing star, the next has seven stars, the third a star and crescent moon. The first and last of these appear on bosses at Winchester, placed there in the days of Richard Foxe, successively Bishop of Exeter, Durham and Winchester, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He also gave relics of the three Epiphany Kings to Portchester Old Church.[20] Lord Ashburnham’s picture of the Adoration, exhibited at Burlington House in 1891, may be considered one of the most noteworthy examples illustrating this branch of the subject. It is attributed to Mabuse, and in Mr. Weale’s opinion was evidently painted about the year 1509, under strong Franciscan influence. In it are three processions in the background, of the Three Kings meeting at the Jordan. Each procession has an azure banner; on one is a blazing star, on another seven stars, and on the third a star and crescent moon. These same charges are embroidered on their robes in the foreground of the picture, and as on two of the Kings the names of Jasper[21] and Balthazar appear, we see that the star and crescent are assigned to Jasper, the blazing star to Balthazar, and the seven stars to Melchior. Different versions of the arms exist; for instance, those in a manuscript book of heraldry, which Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, Lyon King of Arms in Scotland, caused to be executed in the year 1522, and of which Mr. David Laing published a facsimile in 1878. Here Balthazar is called King of Saba, whose assigned shield of arms is, or, on a mount vert an Ethiopian proper, habited in a tunic per pale, azure and gules, holding in the dexter hand a spear with a pennon per pale, gules and azure, and wreathed round the temples, argent and azure. Jasper is called King of Tarshish; his shield is azure, with an estoile on the dexter, and a large crescent moon on the sinister, both proper. Melchior is called King of Araby, and on his azure shield are six estoiles proper. In the British Museum, on a superb jug of stoneware, made at Raaren near Achen, about 1590, are the three shields of arms of the Three Kings of Cologne. On this jug, Balthazar has the star and crescent moon; Casper, as he is here called, the seven stars; and the Ethiopian is assigned to Melchior. A work of art truly delightful, but conveying no heraldic lesson, is the long fresco of the journey of the Three Kings by Bennozzo Gozzoli, in the Riccardi Palace at Florence, wherein the rich cavalcade is shown, winding about by rock and river and wooded landscape, on which the painter has lavished all his poetry of invention and feeling for fresh nature.
In England the story of the Three Kings was often introduced into plays and pageants.[22] In the ninth report Hist. MSS. Com., Part I., is a full description, dated 1501, of a pageant given at the Guildhall, entitled ‘The 3 Kyngs of Coleyn.’ It seems that managers of sacred plays were fined if they failed to give satisfaction, for in the records of the town of Beverley, under the year 1519, occurs the following entry: ‘Also 2s. received of Richard Trollop, Alderman of the Painters, because his play of the Three Kings of Cologne was badly and disorderly performed.’ Mr. Thomas Wright, F.S.A., in his edition of the Chester Mysteries, shows that they took place on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Whitsun week. To each City company was assigned a play, twenty-four in all; to the Vintners the journey of the Three Kings, and to the Mercers their offerings and return.
The lives of the Three Kings were printed by Tresyrel in Paris in 1498, and by Wynkyn de Worde in 1516. The gifts of these Kings were recorded in the following Latin verses, which, if written with blood from the little finger of a person troubled with falling sickness, and hung about the neck, were according to an old book—‘The Myrrhour of a Glasse of Healthe’—an infallible cure; it will be observed that they do not quite agree with the description given by the Venerable Bede:
‘Jaspar fert myrrham, thus Melchior, Balthazur aurum,
Hæc tria, qui secum portabit nomina regum,
Solvitur à morbo, Christi pietate, caduco.’
A mediæval ring was found some time ago at Dunwich, whereon the above lines were inscribed; it is figured in Fairholt’s ‘Rambles of an Archæologist,’ 1871. In 1794 Mr. Craven Ord, F.S.A., described a bas-relief of alabaster, in the church of Long Melford, Suffolk, representing the offerings of the Magi. It still exists in good condition; an illustration of it appeared as frontispiece to a monograph on the church printed in 1887. Another interesting memento was a leaden box found in the Thames, and drawn for Mr. Roach Smith’s ‘Collectanea Antiqua,’ i. 115; on which, in six compartments, are delineated the story of the Salutation of the Virgin and the offerings of the Three Kings.
In the Gentleman’s Magazine for February, 1749, vol. xix., p. 88, it is stated that the following prayer for protection was found in the linen purse of William Jackson a smuggler, who had been condemned to death for taking part in the murder of Galley and Chater, two Custom-house officers, but was so struck with horror on being measured for his irons that he died (a Roman Catholic) in Chichester Gaol a few hours after the sentence was pronounced upon him:
‘Sancti tres Reges,
Gaspar Melchior Balthazar,
Orate pro nobis nunc et in hora
Mortis nostræ.