Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/233

 BORNE BY THE PLANTAGENETS. 157 all having names attached to them, and the arms of Beau- champ, a fess between six crosslets on their jupons, but each with a difference, viz., the eldest having a label, the second an annulet, another a crescent, another a martlet, another a fleur-de-lis, and another a mullet ; all of which, except the label, are placed on the fess : the other son appears with a label on his breast and an annulet on the fess ; but I appre- hend there is some error in the print, for the label is faint, as if it had been imperfectly erased ; and what looks like an annulet was probably some other charge, as that is the dif- ference on the fess of the second son. I hardly think a double difference was intended, for there is reason to believe that this was either the third or fourth son, since the name attached to it is William, which the fourth son is said to have borne ; but there are, unfortunately, two Williams in these engravings, and the other bears a crescent for his difference. One of them should have been Reynburn, as that name does not appear, though there was a son so named, who is said to have been the third. I question, however, whether the order of birth ascribed to these sons can be relied on after the second, who was Thomas, and succeeded his father in the earldom, Guy, the eldest, having died in his father's lifetime. There is, nevertheless, sufficient to show that the modern order was not observed in regard to these differences, nor, with the exception of the label, were they placed on the same part of the coat which the modern rules prescribe.^ It is highly probable that it was to these figures that Spelman referred in his Aspilogia, p. 141, when he stated that the first six of the modern differences were exemplified in a window of St. Mary's Church, Warwick, upon the arms of the six sons of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick ; though, in fact, there were seve^i figures, and these were in two windows, viz., the great North Window of the Church, and a South Window of the choir. Something must be said of the date of these figures, for they may otherwise be supposed to have been executed man}^ years after the deaths of those whom they represent. This, 1 think, the costume sufficiently determines ; for, though evidently much misinterpreted by the artist, it shows them to belong to the latter part of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century, as they are all in ^ Wriothesley, a herald temp. Edw. IV., claimed the credit of devising the present usage of placing all the marks of cadency in chief. See Spelman's Aspilogia, ]). 140.