Humphrey Duke of Gloucester Part 50

The third badge has a particular interest. It is found at frequent intervals on the St. Albans tomb, and it appears in a slightly different form in other places. It seems to represent a cup with sprays of some plant issuing from the top. On the tomb the sprays look like daisies or their foliage, whereas in drawings of this same badge that occur in several ma.n.u.scripts in the College of Arms and elsewhere, they seem to be laurels. They vary, too, as to the number of sprays. On the tomb there are seven or eight in each cup, whilst in the extant drawings, which date mostly from the seventeenth century, they vary from one to three (College of Arms, Garter Types and Badges, and MS., L. 14, f. 105, B.). Gough thought that this badge was the rebus of Wheathampsted, and represented wheat sheaves (Gough, _Sepulchral Monuments_, vol. ii. part III. p. 142). This, however, is disproved by the fact that it was not Wheathampsted who built the Duke's tomb, and it was unlikely that Abbot Stoke would put his predecessor's mark on a monument built by himself, and secondly by an entry which we find in more than one place under the drawings of the cup, which reads, 'Humfrey Duke of Gloucester bare this cup with a Laurell branch, in the respect he bore to Learning' (College of Arms, Miscellanea Curiosa, i. 105, B. Cf. Ashmole MS., 1121, f. 227).

III. SEALS

There are few impressions of Gloucester's seal still surviving. In the British Museum there is attached to a warrant a very small seal bearing the Duke's coat of arms and round it the motto 'Loyalle et Belle'

(_Additional Charters_, x.x.xvi. 146). This is the only evidence to prove the use of this motto by the Duke, save some rather inconclusive remarks on the fly-leaf of one of his ma.n.u.scripts (Sloane MS., 248). A larger impression is attached to a grant of custody given by Gloucester and dated September 22, 1426 (_Additional Charters_, 6000). This seal is in fairly good preservation and on one side bears the Duke's arms between two feathers and surmounted by a cap, on the other a representation of the Duke himself holding a drawn sword and riding on a horse.

In the Mons archives attached to a charter granted by Gloucester there is a round seal which is described as follows: 'Il represente un ecu ecartele aux 1 et 4 a trois fleurs de lis et aux 2 et 3 trois lions pa.s.sants, surmounte d'un heaume qui a pour cimier un leopard, et accoste de deux plumes; supports: deux beliers.' The legend runs: 'Sigilu.

Humfridi. filii et fratris. regis. ducis Glocestrie. comitis Pembr. et camerarii Anglie' (_Cartulaire_ iv. 440).

Two more seals are preserved amongst the deeds in Magdalen College, Oxford. Both are attached to warrants issued by Gloucester in his capacity of Chief Keeper of the King's Forests on this side of the river Trent. The first is a round brown seal bearing the ducal arms within a border of antlers rising from a deer's head. Above is the figure of an heron, which with the antlers were the signs of this particular office.

The inscription so far as it can be read runs: 'S. H. duc Glouc ... Angl ac just. et capit. cust. forestr' (_Magdalen College Deeds_, Selborne, 112; cf. Selborne, 115). The second is a seal of green wax, hollow on the reverse, and though much broken, still reveals the stag's head and antlers surrounding Gloucester's arms (_Magdalen College Deeds_, Shotover, 4).