poet, as appears by an original warrant remaining in the office of the Duchy of Lancaster 1.

We will not stop to refute the idle conjecture of Menestrier, that the cypher SS was that of the Countess of Salisbury, or to offer an opinion on the hypothesis of a respectable antiquary that it denoted the word signum3, but proceed to state the evidence in proof of a proposition first suggested by the learned Anstis, and we think satisfactorily established, that the Collar of S, or" of ESSES," as it is written in many records, was a Lancastrian livery, and of the institution of Henry of Bolingbroke.

Amongst the unpublished minor poems of Gower, the Chronicle, in three parts, which forms a sequel to his Vox CLAMANTIS, merits a greater degree of consideration than it has hitherto received from antiquaries, on account of its curious enumeration of the badges of several distinguished personages of the court of Richard; the characters ascribed to them respectively by the poet, and the share which they had in the transactions leading to the deposition of that unfortunate sovereign. The date to which the poem refers, viz. 1387, is indicated by a chronogrammatical distich". The poem is in Leonine verses; and the persons alluded to by particular badges are named in the margin. The following are the principal actors in the scenes which the poet describes :

"King Richard, under his cognizance of the SUN.

Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, as the SWAN.
Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, as the HORSE.

Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, as the BEAR.

Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, and Earl Marshal, as
the CROWNED FEATHER.

Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, as the CRESCENT.
Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Duke of Ireland, as the BOAR.”

1 “ Ao. xvij. Ric. II. Livrez a Richard Dancastre pr. un coler a luy done pr. Mons'. le conte de Derby pr. cause d'une autre coler done p'. mondit Sr. a un esquier John Gower-vynt sys sold oyt deniers. De pr. Hugh Wat'ton Chamburien au Conte de Derby." See Retrospective Review, N. S. vol. ii. p. 117.

2 Menestrier de la Chevalerie, p. 44.

3 Gent. Mag. vol. 85. 109.

4 Address to the Earl of Pembroke, in his register of the Order of the Garter, vol. 1. 5 The Bodleian Library contains a fine copy, and there are two copies on parchment in the British Museum. Harl. No. 6291, and Bibl. Cotton. Tib. A. 4.

6" Tolle caput Mundi C. ter et sex lustra fer illi

Et decies quinque cum septem post superadde."

Some sarcastic English verses, said to have been written by an adherent of the house of Lancaster, in 1399, in which various persons are designated in a similar manner, will be found in the Archæologia, vol. xx. p. 90. As few of our readers trouble themselves with the collection of rubbish published in the volumes bearing that title, we shall shortly transfer these verses to our pages, for they are too curious to be allowed to remain unnoticed,

And against the following lines:

QUI GERIT S tandem turmam comitatur eandem
Nobilis ille quidem probus et juvenis fuit idem
Sic quasi de cælis interfuit ille fidelis—”

the poet has placed in the margin: "Strenuissimus comes Derbeie," who was then about twenty years old.

This affords indisputable proof that the letter S, whatever meaning may have been attached to it, was a favourite sign or cognizance of Henry at that date; and that it continued to hold a high place in his estimation in subsequent years, will appear from the following extracts from Wardrobe Accounts in the Office of the duchy of Lancaster:

"A°. 15 Ric. II. [1391-2] pro j coler auri fact. pro domino Henrico Lancastrie, Com. Derb. cum xvii. LITERIS DE S, ad modum plumarum cum rotulis et scripturis in eisdem cum signo in torect. eiusdem.”

"A°. 20 Ric. II. [1396-7] pro ponder. argenti unius Colerii facti cum ESSES rollati et dati Roberto de Waterton eo quod dominus [Hen. Com. Derb.] dederat colerium ipsius Roberti alio armigero," &c.

But the meaning of the letter S may be presumed to be explained as referring to the initial letter of the word SOUVENEZ, by another warrant, in the same custody, of which the following is an extract.

"pro pondere unius Colerii facti CUM ESSES DE FLORIBUS de Soveigne VOUS DE MOY penden. et amaill. ponderis viij unc." Comput. Garderobe Henr. de Lancastria. Com. Derby, de ao. 20 Ric. II.

It would be desirable to examine minutely some of the Collars represented on figures upon ancient tombs, such as those at Methley, Harwood, Tanfield, and Snaith, in Yorkshire; Little Dunmow, in Essex; Bakewell, in Derbyshire; Eastbourne, in Sussex, and other places, with a view to describe the ornament stated to be interposed between the SS. Mr. Gough thought the ornament in question at Harwood resembled a pomegranate.

Whether the flower which, in 1397, was known by the appellation of "souvenez vous de moi," can be identified with the teucrium chamapitys, or ground pine, which, Gerard states, is called, in German, " vergiss mein nicht," and by us "forget me not ;" or with the myosotis scorpioides, or the veronica chamadrys, the flower to which the Germans, as well as our own botanists, now give that appellation, is a point which may deserve further investigation.

The splendid tomb of Henry IV. and of his consort Joan of

Navarre', in Canterbury Cathedral, is profusely adorned with this favourite device of that monarch. The figure of the queen has a Collar of S around the neck. In the roof of the canopy are three shields: the one containing the arms of the king impaling Evreux and Navarre; the second, those of the king alone; the third, those of the queen singly; each shield being encircled by a collar formed of twenty-three letters of S. The roof is intersected by diagonal lines formed apparently of the words" Soverayne," and " A temperance," divided by the king's badge of the crowned eagle, and that of the gennet appertaining to the house of Evreux; and the spaces between the lines are diapered with small sprigs terminating in flowers. The word Soverayne is also said to be repeated six times on the cornice of the canopy. A temperance was the motto of the illustrious family of the queen; but it does not elsewhere appear that the word Soverayne was in use, as a motto or device, by Henry. In the absence of any more probable solution of the enigma, may it not be conjectured that the word souvenez, which we find was written Soveigne in a public record, may have been transformed into Soverayne by a blunder of the painter, or read incorrectly by those who have described the decorations of the monument?

The collar of S appears to have been distributed, on various occasions, by Henry V. and Henry VI. According to Juvenal des Ursins, it was bestowed as a reward by the former upon several individuals who had been of his company at Agin-1 court. Hall, in his Chronicle3, says, that the mayor and aldermen of London wore "rich collars" when they proceeded to Blackheath in order to welcome the king's return from his victorious expedition. Walsingham informs us, that when the Emperor Sigismund received the Order of the Garter at Windsor, in 1416, from the hands of Henry V., that monarch decorated him, at the same time, with the collar of his livery, which the emperor ever afterwards wore in public and private. In a letter from one Forester to Henry V., published by Rymers, he

1 See Sandford, Gough, Dart, Willement, and Blore, for engravings and descriptions of this splendid tomb.

2 “Et avec ce il leur accorda que tous ceux de sa compagnée qui n'estoient nobles il les annobliroit, et leur en donnoient lettres, et vouloit que dès lors ils jouyssent de telles franchises comme les nobles d'Angleterre. Et afin qu'on les cognust il leur donna congé de porter un collier semé de lettres S de son ordre."Histoire du Roy Charles VI. fol. 1653. p. 316.

3 Page 72.

4 signumque regale imposuit collo suo, quod imperator ex post semper congessit in omni conventu publico et privato." Wals. Ypod. Neustriæ, p. 192, and his History, p. 441.

5 Fœdera, ix. 434; ibid. p. 440, 441.

"

says, "The emperor, on the 27th January [1416-17], entride the cite of Constaunce with the lyvere of the coler about his necke,. a glad syghte to alle your lyge men to see"“ moreover lyketh yow to wyte that on Sonaday the last day of Januarie your brother the Kyng of Rome werede the gowne of the garterez with your coler opynly at the hye messe. The same fact is averred also in a letter to the bishop of Durham, to be found in the Fœdera.

Lobineau, in his " Preuves de l'Histoire de Bretagne," gives an extract from the accounts of the Duke of Brittany, bei tween 1414 and 1424, in which there is mention of a collar of SS of the order [livery] of the King of England, containing twenty-six letters of S enamelled with the motto A MA VIE.

Both Henry V. and VI. appear to have revived the use of the symbol of the broom-cods. Amongst the jewels of the former, in the copious inventory on the parliament roll, many collars are mentioned, and some formed of broom-cods; and the latter monarch used such a collar alternated with the letter S. There is extant a writ of privy seal, dated 26th July, in the 4th of his reign, ordering payment, inter alia, to " Johan Palyng, orfevre, de Londres, pour un coler d'or fait de S et Bromecoddes, pour nous mesmes, poisant deux unces et demy et trois deniers d'or.".

This king also, in the twelfth year of his reign, sent six gold, twenty-four silver-gilt, and sixty silver collars of his livery to the Emperor Sigismund, in order that he might deliver the same to the inhabitants of Basle, and to other knights and esquires, according to the discretion of the said emperor and of the king's ambassadors there resident; and, in the same year, there was a further supply of eighty collars of gold, silver-gilt, and silver, for the emperor's distribution amongst counts, barons, knights, and esquires of his realms 3.

On the accession of Edward IV. the WHITE ROSE was substituted for the letter S, in the collar of the king's livery....:

The figure of Sir Robert Harcourt, Knight of the Garter, on his tomb at Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire, is represented as adorned with a collar of roses, from which there is pendent a WHITE LION, the badge of Edward IV. as Earl of March. A collar of roses also encircles the neck of the effigy of James, Lord Berkeley, who died in 1463, in Berkeley church. ay

The Lancastrian device again became general upon the restoration of the princes of that house to the regal power. There are

1 Page 921.

2 Warrant of privy seal, 14 Apr. 12 Hen. VI. and Cottonian MSS. Cleopatra, F. iv. ' 3 Another, dated 19 Dec. 12 Hen. VI.

4 Gough's Sep. Mon. p. 114.

I

several warrants for the delivery of collars of the king's livery to foreign ambassadors during the reign of Henry VII., by whom the PORTCULLIS was introduced alternately with the letter S ; and collars in that form, with a rose pendent, were then issued to the two chief justices and the chief baron, and have ever since been worn by their successors in those high offices.

By the statute for reformation of excess in apparel, 24 Henry VIII., the wearing of a collar of gold, "named a collar of S," was restricted to the degree of a knight. In the following year Sir Stephen Pecocke, mayor of London, and such of the aldermen as were knights, appeared on several occasions of ceremony in collars of SS'. The collar now worn by the city chief magistrate, composed of SS., roses, knots, and portcullises, was presented to the corporation by Sir John Allyn, and first worn by Sir William Laxton in 1544°.

The wills of Henry VII. and VIII. are sealed with a signet on which are the royal arms, surrounded by a collar of S, and a rose, between two portcullises, pendent therefrom.

Since the accession of Elizabeth, no mention has been discovered of the issue of collars of the royal livery, excepting those which are still provided by the lord chamberlain for the judges, the kings and heralds of arms, and certain officers of the royal household.

STANDARDS.

In the article on "the BANNERS used in the English army," some observations were made on STANDARDS, about which very little is known. It is, therefore, with much satisfaction that we are enabled to lay before our readers the blazoning, from contemporary manuscripts, of those which were borne by many of the principal individuals in this country in the reigns of Edward the Fourth and Henry the Eighth.

It is stated in the paper referred to, that Standards “had in the chief the cross of St. George, were slitte at the end, and contained the crest or supporter, with the poesy, worde, and device of the owner." The length of them varied according to the rank of the bearer: the king's was from eight to nine yards in length; that of a duke seven yards; a marquess's six yards and a half; an earl's six yards; a viscount's five yards and a half; a baron's five yards; a banneret's four yards and a half; and a knight's four yards. They were registered by the heralds,

1 Hall, pp. 798. 800. 805.

2 Maitland's London.

3 N. S. vol. i. pp. 111. 113, 114, 115.