Vincent bore “Azure three quatrefoils silver.”

Quincy bore “Gules a cinqfoil silver.”

Bardolf of Wormegay bore “Gules three cinqfoils silver.”

Cosington bore “Azure three roses gold.”

Hilton bore “Silver three chaplets or garlands of red roses.”

Quincy.Bardolf.Cosington.Hilton.

Beasts and Birds.—The book of natural history as studied in the middle ages lay open at the chapter of the lion, to which royal beast all the noble virtues were set down. What is the oldest armorial seal of a sovereign prince as yet discovered bears the rampant lion of Flanders. In England we know of no royal shield earlier than that first seal of Richard I. which has a like device. A long roll of our old earls, barons and knights wore the lion on their coats—Lacy, Marshal, Fitzalan and Montfort, Percy, Mowbray and Talbot. By custom the royal beast is shown as rampant, touching the ground with but one foot and clawing at the air in noble rage. So far is this the normal attitude of a lion that the adjective “rampant” was often dropped, and we have leave and good authority for blazoning the rampant beast simply as “a lion,” leave which a writer on armory may take gladly to the saving of much repetition. In France and Germany this licence has always been the rule, and the modern English herald’s blazon of “Gules a lion rampant or” for the arms of Fitzalan, becomes in French de gueules au lion d’or and in German in Rot ein goldener Loewe. Other positions must be named with care and the prowling “lion passant” distinguished from the rampant beast, as well as from such rarer shapes as the couchant lion, the lion sleeping, sitting or leaping. Of these the lion passant is the only one commonly encountered. The lion standing with his forepaws together is not a figure for the shield, but for the crest, where he takes this position for greater stableness upon the helm, and the sitting lion is also found rather upon helms than in shields. For a couchant lion or a dormant lion one must search far afield, although there are some medieval instances. The leaping lion is in so few shields that no maker of a heraldry book has, it would appear, discovered an example. In the books this “lion salient” is described as with the hind paws together on the ground and the fore paws together in the air, somewhat after the fashion of a diver’s first movement. But examples from seals and monuments of the Felbrigges and the Merks show that the leaping lion differed only from the rampant in that he leans somewhat forward in his eager spring. The compiler of the British Museum catalogue of medieval armorial seals, and others equally unfamiliar with medieval armory, invariably describe this position as “rampant,” seeing no distinction from other rampings. As rare as the leaping lion is the lion who looks backward over his shoulder. This position is called “regardant” by modern armorists. The old French blazon calls it rere regardant or turnaunte le visage arere, “regardant” alone meaning simply “looking,” and therefore we shall describe it more reasonably in plain English as “looking backward.” The two-headed lion occurs in a 15th-century coat of Mason, and at the same period a monstrous lion of three bodies and one head is borne, apparently, by a Sharingbury.

Plate IV.

THE BEGINNING OF A ROLL OF THE ARMS OF THOSE JOUSTING IN A TOURNAMENT HELD ON THE FIELD OFTHE CLOTH OF GOLD. BESIDES THE ARMS OF THE KINGS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND ARE TWO COLUMNSOF “CHEQUES,” MARKED WITH THE NAMES AND SCORING POINTS OF THE JOUSTERS.
Drawn by William Gibb.Niagara Litho. Co., Buffalo, N. Y.
England.