LILY. 11 



end of August, in the year 1558. The monarch 

 died on the twenty-first of the following month, 

 and it is pretended that, at the moment of his 

 death, the bulb of this Lily shot out on a sudden 

 a stem with two joints, supporting flowers as 

 full blown, and as odoriferous as the flowers are 

 in Spain in their ordinary season. This beauti- 

 ful flower was cut, we are told, and placed upon 

 the great altar of the church of St. Juste on the 

 borders of Castile. 



By whom, and at what period this beautiful 

 Lily was brought to this country, is beyond our 

 research; but we may presume that it was 

 amongst the earliest exotics that graced the gar- 

 dens of England, and probably was one of the 

 plants which we gained from Palestine, by means 

 of the early Crusaders, as Chaucer notices it in 

 armorial bearings. 



*' Upon his crest he bare a tour. 

 And therin stiked a Lily flour." 



It was in the reign of Edward the Third that 

 the Heralds' College was first instituted in Eng- 

 land, and in eighteen years afterwards this mo- 

 narch ordered the arms of France to be quartered 

 with those of England, which continued to em- 

 blazon the British arms for four hundred and 

 forty-four years, being most graciously dispensed 



