Ai.-MS'iKONG — A Note on Four Armorial PendanU. 193 



the Petrie collection, measures \-^ inches in length, and 1 inch across the top 

 of the shield ; it has also a loop for suspension, measuring | an inch fi-om the 

 top of the shield (Plate X, fig. 4). The field in this case has been left plain, and 

 the exposed part of the metal was probably gilt, the design, a sleeve, was 

 enamelled; the enamel has now almost entirely perished, but a speck 

 remaining in one corner leaves no doubt about its colour, which was red ; the 

 arms are, therefore, gold a maunch gules, being the weU-known coat of the 

 Hastings family. This family held the Earldom of Pembroke from 1339 to 

 1389, and Lawrence (Hastings), Earl of Pembroke, who was born about 1318, 

 and died in 1348, also held the Lordship of Weysford or Wexford.' 



The third example, Petrie No. 1040, is the most interesting. It measures 

 Ij inches in length and \^ inches across at the top : the loop for suspension 

 measures about f inch from the top of the shield (Plate X, fig. 5). In this 

 case practically all the enamel has disappeared, but from some slight traces 

 that can be discerned the shield seems to have been covered on both sides with 

 green enamel. The device on it appears to be an ape with a long tail, and 

 curiously shaped head. The ape is not often met with as an heraldic device, 

 and in this case I take it represents not the coat-of-arms, but the well- 

 known crest of the FitzGeralds. This curious crest and the legend probably 

 invented to account for it are so well known that they need not be recalled.^ 



Apart from other considerations, this little shield is interesting, as being 

 a very early example of the use of the ape as a crest or badge by the Leinster 

 FitzGeralds, as it is probably not later than the fifteenth century. A slab 

 showing the FitzGerald arms, with an ape as a supporter on the dexter side, 

 built into the wall of the White Castle, Athy, has been recently figured by 

 Lord Walter FitzGerald, who says, "The probable date is early in a.d. 1500 ; 

 and, as far as I am aware, it is the earliest existing example of a monkey used 

 as a supporter."^ The use of crests and supporters was introduced consider- 

 ably later than that of the actual coats- of -arms, and the earliest reference to 

 the use of the monkey as a crest by the FitzGerald family that I am aware of 

 is in an armorial manuscript of 1530, written by Thomas Wall, Windsor 

 Herald of Arms, and afterwards Garter, now in the possession of Mr. Oswald 

 Barron, F.S.A., where the following entry appears among the crests of Irish 

 nobles : — " 78. Therle of Kyldare beryth to his crest a marmoset in his kinde 



1 " Complete Peerage," edited by G. E. C. [Cokayne], lS9o, vol. vi, pp. 209-2U. 



^ "Who shall undertake to say how these tales arise ? One thinks of the crest of the Lathoms, 

 -and of the Earls of Derby, their descendants, with its eagle and baby legend, or of that of the Leinster 

 FitzGeralds, with its ape and baby story" (" Peerage and Pedigree," hv J. Horace Round, vol. i, 

 J. 316). 



'Joiirnal Co. Kildare Archaeological Society, vol. vi,p. 51.3. 



