PLATE XXVI.—Arms, supporters, and badges of the Lady Margaret Beaufort, 1455.
Fig. 127. Seal of Cecily Nevill, wife of Richard duke of York and mother of King Edward IV, 1461.
It is of course all-important that supporters should be shown standing upon something solid, and not on so precarious a footing as the edge of a motto or forked scroll. One of the beautiful armorial groups with the supporters of King Henry VII in King's college chapel at Cambridge (fig. [128]) shows how effectively and yet unobtrusively this may be done. In the splendid panel at New Hall in Essex with the crowned arms, etc. of King Henry VIII his dragon and greyhound supporters stand in a bush of roses and pomegranates (fig. [189]); and in the well-known glass at Ockwells the supporters have fields full of flowers to stand on.
Fig. 128. Arms and supporters, a dragon and a greyhound, of King Henry VII in King's college chapel at Cambridge.
Besides the more or less regular use of supporters just described, there are a number of curious and irregular ways of supporting shields. These deserve special attention, not only from their value in showing how delightfully heraldry used to be played with, but as precedents for similar variety of treatment at the present day, when supporters so-called often do not support anything. Over the doorway, for example, of the National Portrait Gallery in London the 'supporters' of the royal arms are merely a pair of cowering beasts at the base of the shield.