plate could not be pierced or pushed into the body of the knight, as the hauberk was apt to be if the gambeson or hacketon was imperfect underneath, the breast only having at that time the additional protection of a steel plate.

Edward III. and the Black Prince, from the initial letter to the grant of the Duchy of Aquitaine.

This great improvement was of Italian origin. The Florentine annals give the year 1315 as the date of a

new regulation in armour, by which every horseman who went to battle was to have his helmet, breastplate, gauntlets, cuisses and jambes, all of iron, a precaution taken on account of the disadvantage which their cavalry had suffered from their light armour at the battle of Catina, so that what was adopted by them to supply a deficiency was assumed by the soldiers of Northern Europe as a relief from their superabundance of defensive armour.

The various pieces for the limbs, worn during this reign, were the brassarts, demi-brassarts, and vant or vambraces for the arms; the cuissarts or cuisses for the thighs, and the greaves or jambs (steel boots) for the legs, with sollerets of over-lapping plates for the feet. The backs of the leathern gauntlets were also furnished with overlapping plates, and the knuckles armed with knobs or spikes of iron, called gads or gadlings, the tops from the wrist being of steel and lined with velvet. In a trial by combat adjudged between John de Visconti and Sir Thomas de la Marche, fought before Edward III. in close lists, at Westminster, Sir Thomas de la Marche gained the advantage by striking the gadlings of his gauntlets into the face of his adversay. The gauntlets of Edward the Black Prince are of brass or laton, and the gadlings instead of being spikes are made in the shape of lions or leopards. They hang above his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, with his velvet surcoat, which is gamboised (that is, stuffed with wool and stitched in perpendicular lines), and emblazoned with the arms of France and England, quarterly; his tilting helmet, his shield made of the famous cuir-bouilli (vide page 163), and the scabbard of his estoc or small stabbing-sword; the sword itself having been taken away, as is reported by Oliver Cromwell. The helmet and gauntlets are engraved on p. 139. The shape of the former is scarcely

changed from that of the helmet of the preceding reign. It is conical to fit the bascinet, which has assumed the same form, and over it was worn the knight's cap and crest, the former being an addition to the military costume of this period.

Tilting helmet and gauntlets of Edward the Black Prince, in Canterbury

Cathedral.

It is impossible for us to pass from this subject without a few words upon the long-disputed origin of the famous "Prince of Wales' feathers," and the no less famous epithet of "the Black Prince," by which the hero of Cressy and Poitiers was distinguished. First, then, of the feathers.

On a seal appended to a grant of Prince Edward to his brother, John of Gaunt, dated 1370, twentyfive years after the battle of Cressy, Edward is seen seated on a throne, as sovereign prince of Aquitaine, with a single feather and a blank scroll on each side of him, and the same badge occurs again upon the seal to another grant in 1374. This is, we believe, their earliest known appearance. The popular tradition of three feathers having been the crest, arms, or badge of John, King of Bohemia, slain at the battle of Cressy, is not traceable to any credible authority. It is first mentioned by Camden, in his 'Remains,' who says, "the victorious Black Prince, his (Edward III.'s) sonne, used sometimes one feather, sometimes three, in token, as some say, of his speedy execution in all his services, as the posts in

the Roman times were called pterophori, and wore feathers to signifie their flying post haste; but the truth is that he wonne them at the battle of Cressy from John, King of Bohemia, whome he there slew.” The learned writer, however, neglects to state upon what authority he asserts this to be "the truth";' and it is rather singular that the minute and pictorial Froissart, and all the cotemporary historians, Walsingham, Knighton, Giovanni Villani, &c. &c. should make no allusion whatever to so interesting an incident. Yet such is the case. Barnes, in his Life of Edward III., quotes Sandford's Genealogical History. Sandford quotes Camden, and Camden quotes nobody; but admits that, even in his time, it was a disputed point, by giving another and not very improbable derivation circulated at that period.

The German motto "Ich Diene "," generally rendered "I serve," first seen upon the tomb of Prince Edward, at Canterbury, has perhaps helped to give currency, if it did not give birth, to the belief of the Bohemian origin of the feathers; but Camden himself did not credit this part of the story, for he goes on to state, though still without quoting his authority, that to the feathers, the prince himself "adjoined the old English word 'ic dien' (thegn), that is, 'I serve; according to that of the apostle, the heir, while he is a childe, differeth nothing from a servant."

6

339

We are therefore also inclined to doubt the story of Edward slaying the King of Bohemia, if by the words "whom he there slew," Camden would imply his having done so in personal combat. It is very improbable that the generous and chivalrous Edward would have ruthlessly cut down a brave blind old man; and the cotemporary historians content themselves with the mere statement of the fact of his being found slain, after the battle, beside the two knights who had guided him into the melée. singham, p. 157; Froissart, c. 130.

7 "Dien" is spelt on the tomb with a final e.

Wal

Now it certainly may be argued, on the other hand, that the King of Bohemia did feudal service to the King of France, as Count of Luxembourg, at the battle of Cressy; and there appears no reason for Edward's selecting a German motto (for it is absurd to call it old English) to express his own service to his father, supposing it, as Camden has done, to have been assumed with that modesty and filial affection for which the prince was as much renowned as for his valour: but the crest of John of Bohemia was the entire wing or pinion of an eagle, apparently from its shape, as may be seen on his seal engraved in Olivarius Vredius (vide fig. a in annexed engraving), and not one or three distinct ostrich feathers. In the same work, it is true, however, that we do meet with crests of wings or pinions surmounted by

Helmet of John, King of Bohemia, and another from seals in Olivarius Vredius.

distinct feathers (vide fig. b), and one or three such might have been plucked from the crest of the King of Bohemia as a symbol of triumph; and granted as a memorial of victory and heraldic distinction by Edward III. to his gallant son. Yet "to vouch this is no proof;" and again we ask, is it likely so interesting a fact could have passed unnoticed by all the cotemporary historians? Again, the feathers are