Quite an early instance of playful treatment is furnished by the seal of Roger Leybourne (ob. 1284). This has a small banner standing behind the shield, which is hung on a tree with side branches; one of these supports the crested helm, and the other ends in a bunch of leaves (pl. [XI] A).
Thomas lord Holand and Wake (c. 1353) has within a traceried panel a tree standing in a rabbit warren and supporting his crowned helm with its huge bush of feathers. Hanging on either side are two shields, one with beautiful diapering of his lordship of Wake, the other (originally) of his lordship of Holand (pl. [XXVII] A).
PLATE XXVII.—Methods of arranging shields.
- A Thomas lord Holand and Wake, c. 1350.
- B Margaret Beauchamp, wife of John Talbot earl of Shrewsbury, after 1433.
Thomas of Woodstock duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III, used from about 1385 a lovely seal with the stock of a tree standing within a paling and surrounded by water on which float two chained Bohun swans, for his wife Eleanor Bohun; from the tree hangs a large shield of the duke's arms, with his crested helm above, and from two side branches are suspended diapered shields of the earldom of Hereford (azure two bends, one gold, the other silver), also in reference to his Bohun marriage.
Margaret daughter of Richard Beauchamp earl of Warwick, and wife of John Talbot earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford, in her fine shield (after 1433) suspends by their straps her father's shield and the impaled shield of her husband and herself from the ragged staff of her father's house (pl. [XXVII] B).
Thomas Holand earl of Kent used in 1398 a seal bearing his badge of a white hind with a crown for a collar, reclining under a tree, and with the shield of his arms hanging round its neck (pl. [XVIII] B).
In the fourteenth century seal of the mayoralty of Calais a boar has a cloak tied about his neck and flying upwards banner-wise to display the arms of the town, which were barry wavy with a crowned (?) leopard rampant (fig. [129]). A similar treatment occurs on the half-florin of King Edward III, which has for device a crowned sitting leopard with a cloak about his neck with the royal arms.