Richard II.," published by the Antiquarian Society. That king's mother had bequeathed to him a new bed of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths.[1] Through family feeling, not merely the white swan, but this cognizance of the Yorkists—the ostrich feather—was sometimes figured on orphreys for church copes and chasubles, since in the Exeter, A.D. 1506, we find mentioned a cope, "le orfrey de rubeo damasco operato de opere acuali cum rosis aureis ac ostryge fethers insertis in rosis," &c.;[2] and again, "le orfrey de blodio serico operata de opere acuali cum cignis albis et ostryge fethers—i casula de blodio serico operata opere acuali cum ostryge fethers sericis, le orfrey de rubeo serico operato cum ostryge fethers aureis."[3] Lincoln Cathedral, too, had a cope of red damask, with ostriges feathers of silver.[4] This somewhat odd element of design for a textile is to be found on one here, No. 7058, p. 129.
To eyes like our own, accustomed to see nowhere but in English heraldry, and English devices, harts figured as lodged beneath green trees in a park as in Nos. 1283-4, p. 43, or stags couchant, with a chain about the neck, as at pp. 53, 239, and in both samples gazing upward to the sun behind a cloud, it would appear that they were but varieties of the pattern sketched for the silken stuffs worn by Richard II., and admirably shown on that valuable, yet hitherto overlooked specimen of English mediæval workmanship in copper and engraving still to be found in Westminster Abbey, as we before observed,[5] and the symbolism of which we now explain. The pattern of the silken textile worn by the king consists of but three elements—the broom-pod, the sun's rays darting upwards from behind a cloud, and a stag lying down on the grass, looking right forward, with about its neck a royal crown, down from which falls a long chain. The broom tells, of course, that Richard was a Plantagenet. His grandfather's favourite cognizance was that of sunbeams issuing from clouds; his mother's—Joan, the fair maid of Kent—the white hart. The latter two were evidently meant to bring to mind the words of the Psalmist, who says:—"The heavens show forth the glory of God. He hath set His tabernacle in the sun. The Lord is my light, and His throne as the sun." The white hind brings to our thoughts how the hart panting for the water-fountains, is likened to the soul that pants after God. This symbolism is unfolded into a wider breadth upon the design for the stuffs here, No. 1310, p. 53; No.
