can ever attain the exalted position it once occupied, yet are its historical teachings too precious to allow of its ever becoming extinct.
I shall cite a few examples to illustrate the intimate relation that exists between Heraldry and History. The arms of William, Duke of Normandy, were two lions passant; and, after the Conquest, these became the arms of England. When Henry II. married Eleanor, he added her single lion of Guienne and Aquitaine to his own; thus forming the three lions which have ever since served as the royal arms. Thus, then, whenever we see a royal shield charged with only two lions, we know it to be the arms of one of the four kings between 1066 and 1154.[1] Three lions borne without any other charge indicate the period between 1154 and 1299, the year in which Edward I. married Margaret of France, when her paternal arms—Azure, semée de fleurs-de-lys, or,—were quatered on the royal shield of England. In 1380, Charles VI. of France substituted three fleurs-de-lys for the field semée, which change Henry V. adopted on his accession to the English throne.
In the reign of James I., the lion of Scotland and harp of Ireland appeared, to which were added, in 1689, the arms of Nassau for William and Mary. On the union of England and Ireland in 1801, the fleurs-de-lys were relinquished, and the Hanoverian arms—which had since 1714 been quatered—were placed on a shield of pretence, where they remained until the accession of our present queen, who, on account of the Salic law which obtains in Hanover, is precluded from inheriting that crown.
- ↑ Henry married Eleanor in 1151, but it was not until three years later that he succeeded to the throne.
