With the rise to power of the Yorkists on the accession of Edward IV a rival collar to that of the Lancastrian livery came into vogue, composed of blazing suns and York roses disposed alternately (fig. [182]). It may be seen in various forms on a number of monumental effigies and brasses, usually with the couchant white lion of the house of March as a pendant, but on the accession of Richard III the lion was replaced by his silver boar. On the wooden Nevill effigies at Brancepeth the earl has a collar of rayed suns with the boar pendant, while the countess has a collar of alternate suns and roses. Joan countess of Arundel, on her effigy at Arundel (fig. [166]), shows another variation by interpolating the FitzAlan oak leaves between the suns and the roses.
Fig. 182. Collars of suns and roses from (1) the effigy of a knight of the Erdington family at Aston, Warwickshire, and (2) from the effigy of Sir Robert Harcourt, K.G. 1471, at Stanton Harcourt, Oxon.
After the accession of Henry VII the collar of SS was again revived, but with variations and different pendants. The effigy, for example, at Salisbury of Sir John Cheyney, K.G. (ob. 1489), has appended to his SS collar a large portcullis charged with a rose. A collar of gold weighing over 7 ounces is recorded to have been given in 1499 to adorn the image of the Holy Trinity in Norwich cathedral church, and is described as containing twenty-five letters of S, two tirets, two 'purcoles' (portcullises), and one double R(?) with a red rose enamelled.[26] A similar collar, but all of gold, is shown in the portrait of Sir Thomas More, painted by Holbein in 1527 (fig. [183]). On a brass c. 1510 at Little Bentley in Essex the collar of SS has a portcullis pendant, and on the Manners effigy (c. 1513) at Windsor and the Vernon effigy (1537) at Tong the pendant to the knight's collar is a large double rose.
Fig. 183. Sir Thomas More wearing the collar of SS, from an original portrait painted by Holbein in 1527, belonging to the late Mr. Edward Huth.
The collars on the Salkeld effigies (1501) at Salkeld in Cumberland are composed of SS and four-leaved flowers alternately, and that worn by Sir George Forster (ob. 1526) on his tomb at Aldermaston in Berkshire is of SS laid sideways and alternating with knots, and has a portcullis and rose pendant. In 1545 Sir John Alen, sheriff in 1518 and lord mayor in 1525 and 1535, bequeathed for the use of the lord mayor of London, and his successors for ever, his collar of SS, knots, and roses of red and white enamel; and a cross of gold with precious stones and pearls was given to be worn with it in 1558. An effigy of a Lisle c. 1550 at Thruxton in Hants has a similar collar of SS, knots, and roses, also with a cross as a pendant. Sir John Alen's collar, somewhat enlarged, and with a modern 'jewel' as a pendant, is still worn by the lord mayor of London, and is the only medieval collar of SS that has survived.