heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

364 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
Lord Campbell, in his Lives of (he Chancellors, vol. i., p. 234, tells us
that
" this year, on the occasion of the appointment of Robert de Stratford*
" Bishop of Chichester, to succeed his brother John de Stratford as Chancellor,
" the great seal was broken on account of a change in the King's armorial
"bearings, and another seal, with an improved emblazonment of the faur-de-
" Us, was delivered by the King when embarking for France, to St. Paul, the
" Master of the Rolls, to be carried to the new Chancellor." In fact, the arms
of France were now for the first time quartered with the arms of England,
and the great seal was on both sides thus circumscribed " : Edwardus Dei
" Gracia Rex Francie et Anglie et Dominus Hibernie." In the charter,
however, to which the seal is affixed, he is styled, "Edwardus Dei Gracia Rex
" Anglie et Francie" giving England preference in the charter, and France
in the seal.*
And this being so, it is interesting to inquire how this particular
device became the cognizance of the sovereignty of France, f
This forms the subject of a long and elaborate article in the Grand
Dictionnaire Universel, by Larousse. "Are they flowers of the garden, or
"the irons of the lance or javelin, or crowns, or bees, or even frogs, which,
" as certain authors pretend, adorn the banners of the original races of our
" kings
? How did the fleur-de-lis
become the heraldic emblem of France
" Bourbonienne ?" These questions are discussed at great length. Some
believe, he says, that in the fifth century the shield of France was brought
by an angel to Clovis. Raoul de Preslis, in a discourse addressed to
Charles "
V., says And so you carry the arms of three fleurs-de-lis in token
:
" of the blessed Trinity, which were sent from God by His angel to
" King Clovis, the first Christian king, for his battle against King Candat,
" who was a Saracen, when before the battle took place in the valley the
"mount was taken, and named Mount-joye, and this gives rise to your
"battle-cry, 'Mount-joye St. Denis;' and in memory of this, the angel of
" our Lord from heaven shewed to a hermit who lived close by that he
" should erase from the shield of Clovis the three crosses which he had
" borne hitherto, and put in their place three fleurs-de-lis."
Pere Daniel thinks that the fleur-de-lis was an extremity of an
offensive weapon, lance or javelin, common to all Franks. Near Tivoli, he
says, a statue of a Roman Emperor has been found, ornamented with
fleurs-de-lis. In a mosaic portrait in the church of St. Vital of Ravenna,
which is of the time of Theodora, wife of Justinian, she is represented with
a crown in the middle of which is a fleur-de-lis. On the seals of the three
first Othos they have crowns of fleurs-de-lis. The seal of the Emperor
Rodolphe is semee-de-lis. The fleur-de-lis is also a Spanish royal ornament.
St. Ferdinand, King of Castile and Leon, at the commencement of the
century, bore a crown ornamented with fleurs-de-lis.
' Sandford's Gentalogical History. t See illustration page 349.