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 people consider the alleged deed of grant a forgery, and if this be so, the arms only exist by right of subsequent record and the question of augmentation rests upon tradition. The curious charge of the woman's breast distilling drops of milk to typify the nourishment afforded to the king's army is at any rate most interesting (Plate VI.). The earliest undoubted one in this country that I am aware of dates from the reign of Edward III. Sir John de Pelham shared in the glory of the Battle of Poictiers, and in the capture of the French King John. To commemorate this he was granted two round buckles with thongs. The Pelham family arms were "Azure, three pelicans argent," and, as will be seen, these family arms were quartered with the buckles and thongs on a field gules as an augmentation. The quarterly coat forms a part of the arms both of Lord Chichester and of Lord Yarborough at the present day, and "the Pelham buckle" has been the badge of the Pelham family for centuries.

Piers Legh fought with the Black Prince and took the Count de Tanquervil prisoner at the Battle of Crecy, "and did valiantly rere and advance the said princes Banner att the bataile of Cressy to the noe little encouragement of the English army," but it was not until the reign of Queen Elizabeth that the augmentation to commemorate this was granted.

The Battle of Flodden was won by the Earl of Surrey, afterwards the Duke of Norfolk, and amongst the many rewards which the King showered upon his successful Marshal was the augmentation to his arms of "a demi-lion pierced in the mouth with an arrow, depicted on the colours for the arms of the Kingdom of Scotland, which the said James, late King of Scots, bore." According to the Act of Parliament under which it was granted this augmentation would seem now to belong exclusively to Lord Mowbray and Stourton and Hon. Mary Petre, but it is borne apparently with official sanction, or more likely perhaps by official inadvertence, by the Duke of Norfolk and the rest of the Howard family.

The Battle of Agincourt is referred to by Shakespeare, who puts these words into King Henry's mouth on the eve of that great battle (Act iv. sc. 3):—


 * "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
 * For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
 * Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
 * This day shall gentle his condition."

There is actual foundation in fact for these lines. For in a writ couched in very stringent and severe terms issued by the same king in after years decreeing penalties for the improper assumption and use of false arms, specific exception is made in favour of those "who bore