Polycrates, and the still older Eastern myth of
Solomon and the evil genii. And in speaking
for the last time of fish, we may state that
several Swiss and German families bear for arms
fish skeletons only; which look as uncomfortable
as the arms "adumbrated," or only traced in
outline, in use in old times to show that all the
substance, that is the land and the tenements,
had departed, and only the empty title remained.

The manner of bearing the coat armour—or
to speak correctly, of charging the field—varied
according to merit; all things not being equally
honourable; for even two colours (tenné and
sanguine) are " stainand" or disgraceful, and the
arms of abatement were known to every knight
as the worst punishment, short of personal
violence, that could be made for unknightly vices
in those days. Each charge and every position
meant something. The pale was a park paling
(first borne by Hugh, Lord of Hinckley, high
steward to Henry the First), but not to be
confounded with the'" party per pale" of blazoning;
the chevron was a house-top, and old Legh, in
his Accidens of Armorie, speaks of one " bearing
three cheveronells; the auncestors of this
hath builded three grete houses in one province;"
the cross leaves no room for doubt that it came
originally from the crusades; the canton is a
thing cantonée or cornered; but no one knows
quite what is the saltire, heralds being
divided as to its meaning. Gutée, or sprinkled,
came originally from the Duke of Anjou, King
of Sicily, who, after the loss of that island,
appeared at a tournament with a black shield
sprinkled with water to indicate tears for his
loss. Gutée de sang was when the shield was
blood spotted; and gutée de poix when it was
splashed with the burning pitch which it was
the custom for the besieged to fling down from
the castle gates. Those roundlets or plates of
all colours so often seen, also mean different
things. They are bezants or Byzantine golden
coins; plates or silver coins; torteaux—tortellys,
or little cakes, emblematic of plenty and
representing* bread; pommes or apples; hurts or
whortleberries; pellets or ogresses—meaning the
piletta or leaden heads of blunt arrows used
for killing deer but saving the skin; golpes
or wounds (five golpes are the five wounds
of Christ); oranges; and guzes or eyeballs;
according as they are gold, silver, red, green,
blue, black, purple, orange, or sanguine. Even
women—though not allowed to bear a crest,
seeing they could not wear it in its origin,
as the ensign of estate and name on the helmet,
and only suffered to take their husband's or
father's " cote armure" under certain restrictions
—even they had a special charge assigned
them for good offices; as in the " flasques " or
"voiders," those pieces hollowed out of the sides
of the shield to represent the hollowed arm-holes
of the surcoat, the sleeveless or voided garment
worn in the time of Richard the Second. Which
flasques were granted to gentlewomen as a reward
for good deeds rendered to prince or princess.
This was in days when heraldry meant, a living
thing, and before the times of such irreverent
knaves as William and Christopher Dakyns,
makers of false pedigrees and dealers in false
coats who so long ago as the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, fitted over a hundred families with
pretended genealogies. William lost his ears
for the offence on his first conviction, and was
imprisoned twice.

* Dame Julyan Berners said it should he "wastel
brede," the finest bread made, from the French
gasteau or gateau.

There is a meaning, and was once a beginning,
to even royal arms; which seem as if they had
always been what they are now, and which it
would cost a small rebellion to change.

The genesis of the royal arms of England is
rather curious. William the Conqueror, William
Rufus, and Henry the First, all bore two lions,
or " leopards, passant guardant," says tradition;
Stephen, two centaurs, with lions' bodies instead
of horses', also traditional; Henry the Second
continued the more ancient lions or leopards,
adding a third for his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine
and Guyenne, which again is traditional: (but
the fact that Richard the First so bore them is
established). Henry's badge was a carbuncle,
"the gem escarbuncle which is found within the
saphir," and which a dragon kept from the pollution
of profane fingers. His device was a "genet"
(viverra genetta) passing between two sprigs
of broom, which seems to have been originally
meant as a mere play upon words: " II portoit
ung Genett entre deux Plantes de Geneste," as
the old phrase went. In 1235 the Emperor
Frederick sent three leopards to Henry the Third, in
token of armorial bearings which he bore. His
motto was " Ke ne dune, ke ne tine, ne pret
ke desire" " he who gives not what he has,
takes not what he desires." Edward the First had
for his badge a rose, the flower gold, the stalk
green; on the reverse of his great seal is a bear
standing against a tree; and on his coat armour
he joined his wife's arms by " dimidiation."
Edward the Third quartered the arms of France,
as has been said, the three lions on the first and
fourth, and a field "semé" of fleur-de-lys on the
second and third. His supporters were a gold
lion on the right, on the left a silver falcon,
"membered or," that is with beak, claws, &c.,
in gold. His devices were many. One was
the stock of a tree, with two green sprigs
issuant, to show his flourishing line; another
was a griffin, which he bore on his private
seal; a third was an eagle, a device granted
with great pomp to William Montacute, Earl
of Salisbury; a fourth was a sword erect on a
chapeau, the blade enfiled with three fleur-de-
lys, in token of his French successes; and
embroidered on the shield and tunic, in which he
went to the Canterbury tournament of 1349,
was this motto, with a white swan for a cognisance:

       Hay! hay! the wythe swan,
       By Godes soule I am thy man!

His son, the Black Prince, bore "a sunne
arysing out of the clowdes, betokening that,