Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/196

I 46 Additional Remarks on the whether the other characters were defigned for figures or letters ,- for numerals or for words ; and that the date of the year cannot now be afcertained without the aid of the concomitant proofs which the other parts of the infcription fupply. It was with this view that I drew attention to the dragon and fleur de lys as fufpicious marks of anachronifm, certainly as being far lefs applicable to the reign of either Henry the Ifl or Hid than to the times of the eighth king Henry, to the year 1123, or I ^33 than to 1^33. The ornaments on the panels on each fide of the compartment marked with the letters W. R. were from a want of information left unnoticed ; but Mr. Gough has given a clue to a furmife by terming, what Dr.Wallis called flowers, rofes ; and it muft be granted that they refemble rofes as much as they do any other flower. But, comparatively fpeaking, how feldom do we find the rofe ufed as an ornament upon buildings, or as a device upon armorial fhields and banners, before the partifans of York and Lan- cafter took a white and a red rofe for the badges of the contend- ing houfes ; and after the marriage of Henry the Vllth to the prin- cefs Elizabeth, daughter of king Edward the IVth, the union rofe was perpetually difplayed. For edifices thus embellifhed fubfequent to the commencement of that direful quarrel I will refer to the chapel of King's College in Cambridge, and to the chapel of Henry the Vllth at the eaft end of Weftminfter Abbey, where are to be feen rofes innumerable between imperial crowns and portcullifes ; and for banners charged with rofes red and white, and union, I will again mention the pictures at Windfor Caftle, as defcribed by fir Jofeph AylorTe and Mr.Topham ; both of them illufbrative of hif- torical incidents in the year 1520; and in the latter are banners difplaying the dragon and fleur de lys. Suppofmg therefore reclor Ranalde to have planned the fafhion of this mantle-piece in 1533, the rofes maybe deemed coetaneous embcllifhments. Perhaps by the