incorrect. If a gentleman, on his marriage with an heiress, adopts her paternal crest, he ought to relinquish his own.
Badges.
Badges, or Cognizances, are distinguished from crests in not being supported on a wreath. They were intended to be borne on helmets, banners, caparisons, &c., and also on the breasts of common soldiers, attendants, and household servants. The white hart, lodged, of Richard II., and the red and white roses of the Lancastrian and Yorkist factions, are familiar examples of badges. In the historical plays of Shakespeare, frequent allusions are made to badges. Clifford, in his quarrel with the Earl of Warwick, exclaims:—
‘I am resolved to bear a greater storm
Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;
And that I’ll write upon thy burgonet (helmet),
Might I but know thee by thy household badge.’
To which threat, Warwick replies:—
‘The rampant bear chained to a ragged staff.
This day I’ll wear aloft my burgonet.’
King Henry VI., Part II., act v. sc. 1.
In the ancient ballad, entitled ‘The Rising of the North Countrie,’ we read:—
‘Now spreade thine ancyent (banner), Westmorland,
Thy dun bull faine would we spye;
And thou the Earle of Northumberland
Now raise thy half-moone up on hye.’
Neville, Earl of Westmorland, carried a dun bull as a badge, and a dun bull’s head and neck erased, on
