heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

54 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
Richard says, with perhaps a sneering allusion to the fact that
Catherine Swinford's children were born before marriage, and legitimatised
by Act of Parliament afterwards,
" Let him that is a TRUE-BORN gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth
From off this briar pluck a white rose with me."
To which Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, rejoins (I suppose insinuating his
belief in the story that Edmund Crouchback had been really the eldest
back in favour
son of Henry III., and suppressed on account of his humped
of his brother Edward, and that therefore Richard had no true right to
the throne)
:
" Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."
The Prince of Wales' plume is
another badge, erroneously attributed
to the plume of the King of Bohemia, said to have been taken by the
Black Prince at the battle of Cresy, with the motto " Ich dien," translated
" I serve ;" a token of royal humility.
Really, the ostrich plume was originally borne by King Stephen, who
one a Sagittarius, under which sign of the Zodiac he
adopted two devices ;
had entered England and triumphed by the aid of his archers and the other
;
a plume of three ostrich feathers, with this motto, " Vi nulla invertitur ordo,"
i.e. "My determination once taken, nothing alters it;" illustrated by the
stability of the quill, which, once fixed, will withstand great pressure from
the wind, and if bent a little while the blast lasts, is not easily broken.
This was not only his policy but his character. He had perhaps
reasonably assumed that when his cousin, Prince Henry, was drowned,
Henry I., his uncle, would recognise him as heir to the throne. Instead of
which he sent for his daughter Matilda, the widowed Empress, and compelled
the Barons of England to swear fealty to her, and married her to
Geoffry Martel.
Stephen therefore determined to gain his legitimate rights,
as being male heir, female succession being unknown in England
at that
time, and, in spite of the tremendous odds against him, to acquire the
kingdom. He did so ; and, notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of
Robert of Gloucester, Matilda's natural brother and general, attained the
throne and remained King of England to his death. He is not generally
a very attractive personality in history, but his character is thus very favourably
drawn by the historian Stowe "
: This was a noble man and hardy, of
" passing comely favour and personage he excelled in martial policy,
" gentleness and liberality towards all men ; and although he had continual
" war, yet did he never burden his Commons with exactions."