The Correct Arms of the Slate of Neto York. 



287 



Yorkist badge from history and Shakespeare. I might add that the 

 notices of this badge of the sun are frequent in English literature. I 

 have before me extracts from Drayton's poems, from his Polyolbion 

 and from his Miseries of Queen Margaret, repeating the story of the 

 three suns. Drayton was a contemporary of Shakespeare. In the 

 22d song of the Polyolbion he distinctly affirms Avhat was the phe- 

 nomenon which induced Edward lY to choose the sun for his badge. 



" When to the Dake of York (his spirits as to awake), 

 Three suns at once appear'd, all severally that shown, 

 Which in a little space were joined all in one. 

 Auspicious to the Duke, as after it fell out. 



When this most warlike Duke in honor of that sign, 

 Which of his good success so rightly did divine. 

 And thankful to high heaven, which of his cause had care, 

 Three suns for his device still in his ensign bare." * 



It may be a convenience to subjoin the extract from the second 

 of the poems mentioned. 



" Until at length (as Fortune pleased to guide), 

 The conquest turn'd upon the Yorkists side. 

 ********** 



Three suns were seen that instant to appear, 



Which soon again shut up themselves 



Ready to buckle as the armies were, 



Which this brave Duke took to himself alone, 



His drooping hopes which somewhat seem'd to cheer; 



By his mishaps near lately overthrown; 



So that thereby encouraging his men, 



Once more he sets the white rose up again." f 



Later references to the prodigy of the sun may be mentioned, as 

 that of Hume, who refers the defeat of the Earl of Warwick by Ed- 

 ward IV, to an accident which led the Lancastrians to mistake the 

 star of the Earl of Oxford for the king's badge of the sun, and to drive 

 a portion of their own forces from the field. Bulwer-Lytton, in his 

 novel "The Last of the Barons," referring to the event, says: 

 **The housings of his steed were spangled with silver suns, for the sil- 

 ver sun was the cognizance of all his banners." Hardy, in his new novel 

 of The Laodiceans," now publishing, describing a walk in the church 

 of Stancy Castle, and the tombs of the knights upon the floor of the 

 ancient church, with their effigies sculptured upon them, tlms writes: 



* Polyolbion, Song 23 (Drayton, Chalmer's ed.), p. 341, published in 1613. 

 f From Miseries of Queen Margaret, 1596, p. 112, of Chalmer's Drayton. 



