make a clear distinction between it and the French crown, which has the fleurs-de-lis only and surmounts the coat of arms of that country. The king himself wears an arched crown, but the impressions are so bad that the details of it cannot be followed.
 Fig. 631. |
 Fig. 632. |
"Henry VII. on his Great Seal uses as ornaments for the crown, crosses-patée alternately with fleurs-de-lis, and also arches with an orb and cross at the top (Fig. 633) and, on some of his coins, he reverts to the three fleurs-de-lis with points between them, arches being still used, with the orb and cross at the top (Fig. 634). An ornamental form of crown bearing five ornamental leaves alternately large and small, with arches, orb, and cross at the top (Fig. 635), occurs on the shillings of Henry VII. On the crowns of Henry VIII., as well as upon his Great Seals, the alternate crosses-patée and fleurs-de-lis are found on the rim of the crown, which is arched, and has an orb and cross at the top, and this is the form that has remained ever since (Fig. 636). So we may consider that the growth of the ornament on the rim of the crown has followed a regular sequence from the points with one pearl at the top, of Æthelstan, to the trefoil of Canute; the arches began with Edward the Confessor, and the centre trefoil turned into the cross-patée of Henry VI. The fact that the remaining trefoils turned eventually into fleurs-de-lis is only, I think, a natural expansion of form, and does not appear to have had anything to do with the French fleur-de-lis, which was adopted as an heraldic bearing for an entirely different reason. The Royal coat of arms of England did bear for a long time in one of its quarterings the actual fleurs-de-lis of France, and this, no doubt, has given some reason to the idea that the fleurs-de-lis on the crown had also something to do with France; but as a matter of fact they had existed on the crown of England long anterior to our use of them on the coat of arms, as well as remaining there subsequently to their discontinuance on our Royal escutcheon.
 Fig. 633. |
 Fig. 634. |
 Fig. 635. |
 Fig. 636. |
"The cross-patée itself may possibly have been evolved in a somewhat similar way from the three pearls of William I., as we often find the centre trefoil, into which, as we have seen, these three points eventually
