But in a large number of cases the badge has a different and often quite obscure origin, like the Bohun swan, the Percy crescent and swivel, the Beauchamp bear and ragged staff, the Lovel hanging-lock, the Zouch eagle and crooked billet, and the Berkeley mermaid.
Fig. 104. Daisy plant (marguerite) badge of the Lady Margaret Beaufort, from Henry VII's chapel at Westminster.
A few families, e.g. the Staffords (fig. [105]), the Bourchiers, and the Wakes, used as a badge some special form of knot, and attention has already been called to the peculiar knots pounced upon the effigy of Queen Anne of Bohemia. Interesting examples of the Bourchier knot may be seen on the tomb of archbishop Thomas Bourchier at Canterbury, and on the brass of Sir Humphrey Bourchier at Westminster (fig. [106]), and a good instance of the application of the knot is afforded by the seal of Joan Stafford countess of Kent and lady of Wake, who encircles her impaled shield with a cordon of Stafford knots (pl. [XVIII] D). On the tomb at Lowick (Northants) of Edward Stafford earl of Wiltshire (ob. 1498) the shields are encircled with cordons of Stafford knots with another Stafford badge, the nave of a wheel, alternating with the knots (fig. [107]). On the canopy of the tomb at Little Easton in Essex of Henry Bourchier earl of Essex (ob. 1483) and his wife Isabel, sister of Richard duke of York, is a badge formed by placing a Bourchier knot within a fetterlock of York.
Fig. 105. Part of the brass at Exeter of canon William Langeton, kinsman of Edward Stafford bishop of Exeter, 1413, in cope with an orphrey of [X]'s and Stafford knots.