1892-93.] 505 



was added to the English shield, completing the number still 

 seen in the Royal achievement ; be this as it may, Richard 

 Cceur-de-Leon, during the lifetime of his father, certainly 

 bore two lions (as seen on his first great seal), which may be 

 blazoned as two lions combattant. On the great seal of Richard, 

 after his return from the Holy Land and his captivity in Ger- 

 many, a.d. 1194, we have the first representation of the three 

 lions, or leopards as they were at this time sometimes designated. 

 Lions were depicted only in the act of combat (that is, rampant) ; 

 in a walking position they were heraldically leopards, a practice 

 which has continued as late as the fifteenth century, and which 

 has given rise to many mistakes in the description of the 

 English shield. "Lion Leopards" was a term afterwards 

 applied to all lions not rampant. 



It is a remarkable fact that all these lions are the insignia of 

 territories which have long been separated from the crown of Eng- 

 land ; the first is said to denote Normandy, the second Poictou, 

 and the third, as stated, Aquitaine. About the same period 

 (that is, during the eleventh century), the monarchs of Eng- 

 land, the kings of Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Leon, Bohemia, 

 Hungary, the native Princes of Wales, the Dukes of Normandy, 

 the Counts of Flanders, Holland, Hainault, &c, appear as with 

 one accord to have adopted the lion as a device or heraldic 

 bearing, illustrating in a remarkable manner the popularity of 

 the emblem, and the readiness of each of these heroes to 

 " assume a virtue if they had it not." 



It may be mentioned here that Dickens commits a curious 

 anachronism in placing three lions upon the Norman standard 

 at the Battle of Hastings. The following passage from " The 

 Child's History " is one in which it is attempted to be shown 

 that some of the great novelist's prose writings are virtually 

 blank verse : — 



Soldiers with torches going to and fro 

 Sought the corpse of Harold 'mongst the dead. 

 The warrior, worked with stones and golden thread, 

 Lay low, all torn and soiled with English blood, 

 And the three lions kept watch o'er the field. 



