heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

ROYAL HERALDRY. 365.
Claude Frankel, in his history of I' Origin des Armoiries, says that the
blazoners of the shield of France, wishing to shew that the first French
were derived from the Secambres, who inhabit the marshes of Prize, near
Holland, Zealand, and Gueldre, gave to their kings the "fleur-de-pavillee "
(which is a little yellow lily that grows near and in the marshes in the
months of May and June), in a field of blue, which resembles the water
which reflects the colour of the heavens. Others say that they were frogs,
given in disdain because we came from the Loire, and for that reason they
call us " crapaux franchons." Jean de Fournes mentions having seen on
a boss at a house in Nismes that which appeared to be fleurs-de-lis, but were
frogs. Another opinion is that Childeric I., having adopted bees as the
badge of his nation, these, through faulty representation of painters and
sculptors, became fleurs-de-lis. Menestrier says that Louis VII. "lejeune"
adopted the symbol as illustrative of his cognomen " Fionas," on account of
his beauty. He is represented on his seals with a flower in one hand and a
sceptre in the other, and a lily is really a term for flowers generally.
Armorial bearings commenced to be emblazoned about this time. It is very
possible that he adopted the flower in his blazon, because it is called fleurde-lis
; ly in Celtic signifies king, which he diverted into fleur -de-Louis.
The seal of Philip I., son of Louis le Jeune, is attached to a deed
requiring the Abbey of St. Martin, of Pontoise, to assume as a coat-of-arms
a fleur-de-lis. It is certainly true that before the age of Louis this was
never used as an armorial bearing, though
it may have been used as a
device until, in an heraldic age,
it was adopted as a blazon.
concludes by saying that of all these opinions
most probable, but not more than probable.
Pierre Larousse
that of Menestrier is the
What an interesting historical epoch, then, does the assumption of
The commencement of the final effort to accomplish
this device mark !
the fond dream of royal ambition, the aim of political and matrimonial
policy; yet the beginning of the end also of a decline, slow perhaps, but
uninterrupted, complete, never to be recovered ! At first all seemed to
promise the former. Crecy (August 25, 1346), with its awful carnage,
and King Philip flying for his life, attended by only five barons, to the
castle of Broye. Calais the following month surrendered, and the key, as it
were, of the province of Ponthieu, the dower of his grandmother Eleanor of
the battle
Castile, attained. Then, ten years afterwards, Sept. igth, 1356,
of Poictiers, and John, King of France, left almost alone upon the field,
surrendering himself captive to Denis de Morbecque, with the request that
be taken to the Prince of Wales. Did not the dream seem already
he may
realised when "up the Strand," then a muddy country lane, through a
concourse of exulting people, the Black Prince, mounted on a " little black
" hackney," conducted the conquered king, on a white steed, with very rich
Z 2