heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

INTRODUCTION. 6 1
The Chevaliers de la Cordeliere were instituted 1498. Anne adopted
this name in honour of St. Francis, the patron saint of her father. The
badge, a silver cord of true-lovers' knots, with large knots between, was
worn around their arms. The motto, a rebus, "J'ai le corps delie."
Ferdinand I., 1494, the illegitimate son of Alfonso when the Duke
of Sessa, who had joined the party of John of Anjou, son of Rene, was
in his power refused to put him to death, but condemned him to imprisonment,
saying that he could not imbrue his hands in the blood of his
relations. He then took for his device the ermine, surrounded with a wall
of mud, with the motto, " Malo mori quam fcedari." In a MS. book of
Ferdinand, the motto "Probanda" is used with the ermine, also " Nunquam,"
never.
Sylvanus Morgan, in his Sphere of Gentry, says, " The ermine is a
" creature of so pure a nature that it will choose rather to be taken than
" defile its skin." It is said that hunters surround it with a wall of mud,
which it will not attempt to cross, and therefore becomes an easy prey.
Hence the ermine is the emblem of purity and of honour without
stain. The robes of royal and noble persons are lined with ermine, to
signify the internal purity that should regulate
given the following stanza, without name, expressing
"To miry places me the hunters drive,
That I my robes of purest white may stain ;
Then yield I, nor will further strive,
For spotless death, ere spotted life, is gain."
their conduct. I have been
the same idea :
Joan of Navarre, daughter of Charles II., King of Navarre, and
second wife of Henry IV., King of England, also bore this badge. The
canopy of her tomb at Canterbury is dignified with this device the ermine
collared and chained, with the motto, "A tamperance," subscribed in golden
characters.*
I should exhaust your patience, and to little purpose, if I were to go
into all the ways of dividing the shield per fesse, per saltire, per bend,
&c. and all the varieties of lines used engrailed, indented, wavy, dancette,
embattled, and what not.
I will not trouble you with a long dissertation about ordinaries and
subordinaries, blazoning or marshalling (the former of which signifies the
right description of the arms, the latter the correct arrangement) ; nor
need I dwell at length upon impaling, quartering, and inescutcheons, suffice
it to say that the first describes the position of a wife's arms (if
one of
many children) on her husband's shield, the last the position thereof if
she were an heiress (i.e.
had no brothers), and the second the incorporation
of her arms by
her children with their father's coat.
* Sandford's Genealogical History.