4 Lyme Hall. 



To commemorate the act of heroism alluded to, after 

 the battle there was ordered to be depicted upon the 

 shield, so as to occupy the centre, an honorary escut- 

 cheon, representing the mailed right arm of a warrior, 

 the hand grasping a silver pennon, and the whole set 

 round with silver stars, which the black ground of the 

 escutcheon (so coloured in allusion to the title of the 

 Black Prince) made look so much the more brilliant. 

 Stars were placed upon it because symbolical of excel- 

 lence and perfection, and, in a soldier, of fidelity and 

 loyalty. So instructively does heraldry, when rightly 

 read, become not only an auxiliary to history, but in its 

 symbolism, a key-note to the best part of philosophy, 

 which, Lord Bacon tells us, consists essentially in the 

 perception of the " respondences of things," the original 

 and immortal harmonies between the objects of nature 

 and the properties, qualities, and possessions of the hu- 

 man soul, and the playing forth of them, as illustrated in 

 this "respondence" of the stars with what is noble and 

 illustrious in character and action. This, accordingly, is 

 what we now find represented in stone and painting at 

 Lyme Hall, and thus is the memory of the great deed at 

 Crecy preserved for ever in the family. According to 

 some historians, it was Piers Legh who effected the 

 rescue, and to whom the grant was made ; but the 

 account that gives honour to Sir Thomas Danyers 

 appears to be the true one, and, in any case, the 

 origin of the escutcheon remains the same. 



