312 The Tavern Signs of Wiltshire and their Origin. 
In addition to the loyal signs mentioned above, there are ten 
charged with the portrait of her present gracious Majesty; six of 
the ‘ Prince of Wales,’ )esides several especially honouring his 
‘* Feathers :”? moreover there are others of the “‘ Princess of Wales,” 
and the “ Duke of Edinburgh.” Some of these last have been 
transformed from former signs of the reigning monarch, by merely 
altering the name: indeed it is worthy of remark that even to this 
day in some places, and until very modern times most commonly, — 
the striking features of Henry VIII. represented the sign of the 
King’s Head, while the portrait of Elizabeth was the conventional 
type for the Queen’s Head. For your British landlord moves with 
the times, and Jacobite or Hanoverian, Tory or Whig, he is not 
particular: a few touches with the painter’s brush transforms the 
one into the other, and changes the dynasty, or the individual, in no 
time. We have however the “ George,” in compliment to the kings 
of that name, eleven times repeated ;! and there is at Salisbury the 
sien of “ William IV.:’’ and (more remarkable) at Swindon, that 
of the “ King of Prussia,” not however King William of present 
renown, but “ King Frederick the Great,” the hero of Rosbach, and 
our most honoured ally, who somehow contrived to become popular 
in England, and whose portrait, with cocked hat and pig-tail com- 
plete, used to be a very common emblem in this country. I reckon 
the loyal sign-boards in the county, all told, at no less than a 
hundred and thirty. 
(3) The “ Religious” or “ Ecclesiastical” emblems require a little 
more notice, because their original intention is in many cases ob- 
scured, in others partly obliterated, and in some dropped out of 
sight altogether. First and foremost in frequency of all the signs 
used in the county stands the “ Bel/,’ which is repeated without 
companionship no less than thirty-one times, and joined to the 
“Crown” (evidently representing Church and State) three times 
more; while united in a strange alliance with a “shoulder of mutton” 
(at Swindon and Marlborough) yet twice more; making a total of 
1 Some of these, however (perhaps the majority of them), more accurately 
belong to the next, or ecclesiastical, division, having reterence to the Patron 
Saint of England, rather than to the reigning sovereign. 
