3^2 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



which they admired or possessed, or having some special 

 significance relating to the person or circumstances of the time. 

 Frequently the device was associated with a motto or legend, 

 as such a short pithy sentence was termed, which elucidated I he 

 idea contained in it, or else gave to it a peculiar shade of 

 meaning. These devices or emblems were embroidered upon 

 garments and hangings, and depicted in various ways for 

 personal adornment, and for many other purposes, yet not sub- 

 ject to rigid and pedantic heraldic laws, being altogether 

 more free in their uses and interpretations. Many of the 

 devices of noble and illustrious families which have become 

 hereditary as household badges or crests were originally of this 

 nature. Our Plantagenet kings took their name from the 

 circumstance of Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, husband of the 

 Empress Matilda or Maud, wearing a plume of blossoming 

 broom (planta genista) in his head gear. Who does not know 

 the dreadful story of the wars of the rival houses of York and 

 Lancaster, when the red and white roses become the badges of 

 faction, and the best blood of England flowed in lavish streams 

 in fratricidal strife. Many other emblems that have become 

 historical in our literature will be recognised by the careful 

 reader, but unless he is well read in the works of the early 

 emblem-writers he will miss much that is weighty and signifi- 

 cant. To take only a single instance : Shakspere makes the 

 victorious Richard exclaim, 



"Now is the winter of our discontent 

 Made glorious summer by this sun of York ; 

 And all the clouds, that lower'd upon our house, 

 In the deep bosom of the ocean buried." 



To the ordinary reader this may sound only a prettily turned 

 phrase, but there is much more than meets the eye, as in num- 

 berless instances in Shakspere and other writers of his age, in 

 which happy allusions, understood at the time, are now obscure. 

 To know that the " sun in splendour " was the badge of the 

 House of York at once gives the key to the bright imagery in 

 which the immortal bard enwrapped his ideal, and played upon 

 the double sense. 



