398 WILD FLOWERS. 



the prevailing opinion when Dame Juliana Barnes 

 wrote, that the arms of the King of France " were 

 certainli sende by an Aungell from Heaven, that is 

 to say, iij flowris in maner of swordis in a field of 

 azure, the which certain armys were giuen to the 

 aforesaid King of Fraincee in sygne of euerlasting 

 trowbull, and that he and his successors always with 

 battle and swords should be punished/' 



turies, as an architectural finial ; and Planche shews that it 

 was employed for the top of the sceptre, or for the sword hilt, 

 from the earliest period of the French monarchy. It was 

 also adopted in England, and elsewhere in Christendom. 

 Selden mentions an extant MS., written under the instruc- 

 tions of King Edgar, on the reformation of monastic manners, 

 and ornamented with a contemporaneous portrait of that 

 monarch, wearing the crown fleuri ; in which, also, Edward 

 the Confessor is represented on some of his coins : that is to 

 say, with the open crown, or bandalet (the cynebcend, or royal 

 fillet, of the Saxons, as their cynehelme was the helmet en- 

 circled by the fillet, which is now represented by the modern 

 crown) surmounted with fleurs de lys set at intervals. William 

 the Conqueror, on his great seal, wears a similar crown, with 

 crosses alternating with the fleurs de lys ; as does Henry I., 

 both upon his seal and his coins : these monarchs did not 

 like their successors adopt their emblem in proof, real or 

 fancied, of their claim to sovereignty in France ; and, as is 

 justly remarked by Mr. Leake, in his valuable " Notes on 

 Crowns," Edward the Confessor probably selected it (for though 

 given in the above-named drawing of Edgar, it does not appear 

 on Saxon coins until the time of this saintly monarch) on ac- 

 count of its still earlier application to the kings of the Bible, as 

 seen in almost every early Saxon drawing illustrative of Scrip- 

 ture narrative. (See a MS. in the "Bib. Cottoniana," &c.) 

 The sanctity attached to the flower will easily explain this. 

 The flower itself was formerly called flos gladioli, whence our 

 botanical tribe of gladiolus, or sword-flower, in allusion to 

 the form of its leaves. 



