or sentimental, by the cadets of the house and their servants; for whilst the use of the cockade is a survival of the right to be waited on and served by a soldier servant, the use of a badge by a cadet may be a survival and reminder of the day when (until they married heiresses and continued or founded other families) the cadets of a house owed and gave military service to the head of their own family, and in return were supported by him.
From the wording of the recent grants of badges I believe the intention, however, is that the badge is to descend of right to all of those people on whom a right to it would devolve if it were a quartering.
The use of badges having been so limited, the absence of rule and regulation leaves it very much a matter of personal taste how badges, where they exist, shall be heraldically depicted, and perhaps it is better to leave their manner of display to artistic requirements. The most usual place, when depicted in conjunction with an achievement, is on either side of the crest, and they may well be placed in that position. Where they exist, however, they ought undoubtedly to be continued in use upon the liveries of the servants, and the present practice is for them to be placed on the livery buttons, and embroidered upon the epaulettes or on the sleeves of state liveries. Undoubtedly the former practice of placing the badge upon the servants' livery is the precursor of the present vogue of placing crests upon livery buttons, and many heraldic writers complain of the impropriety of placing the crest in such a position. I am not sure that I myself may not have been guilty in this way; but when one bears in mind the number of cases in which the badge and the crest are identical, and when, as in the above instance, devices which are undoubtedly crests are exemplified as and termed badges, even as such being represented upon wreaths, and even in that form granted upon standards, whilst in other cases the action has been the reverse, it leaves one under the necessity of being careful in making definite assertions.
Having dealt with the laws (if there ever were any) and the practice concerning the use and display of badges in former days, it will be of interest to notice some of those which were anciently in use.
I have already referred to the badge of the ostrich feathers, now borne exclusively by the heir-apparent to the throne. The old legend that the Black Prince won the badge at the battle of Crecy by the capture of John, King of Bohemia, together with the motto "Ich dien," has been long since exploded. Sir Harris Nicolas brought to notice the fact that among certain pieces of plate belonging to Queen Philippa of Hainault was a large silver-gilt dish enamelled with a black escutcheon with ostrich feathers, "vuo scuch nigro cum pennis de
