_Arms of Richard, King of the Romans_ (Vol. viii., p. 653.).--With
respectful submission to MR. NORRIS DECK, and notwithstanding his ingenious
conjecture that the charges on the border are pois, and the seal which he
mentions in his last communication, I think the evidence that the border
belongs to Cornwall, and not to Poictou, is perfectly conclusive.
1. The fifteen bezants in a sable field have been time out of mind regarded
as the arms of Cornwall, and traditionally (but of course without
authority) ascribed to Cadoc, or Caradoc, a Cornish prince of the fifth
century. They occur in juxtaposition with the garbes of Chester, upon some
of the great seals of England, and I think also upon the tomb of Queen
Elizabeth; and they are, to the present day, printed or engraved on the
mining leases of the duchy.
2. Bezants on sable are extremely frequent in the arms of Cornish families;
but crowned lions rampant gules do not occur in a single instance of which
I am aware, except in the arms of families named Cornwall, who are known or
presumed to be descended from this Richard, and bear his arms with sundry
differences. Bezants on sable are borne (_e.g._) by Bond, Carlyon,
Chamberlayne, Cole, Cornwall (by some without the lion), Killegrew,
Saint-Aubyn, Treby, Tregyan (with a crowned eagle sable, holding a sword),
Treiago, and Walesborough, all of Cornwall; and it is to be remarked that
bezants are not a common bearing in other parts of England, especially not
on sable.
3. When Roger Valtorte married Joan, daughter of Reginald de Dunstanville
(who was natural son of Henry I., and Earl of Cornwall nearly a century
before Richard, King of the Romans, but never Earl of Poictou), he added to
his paternal arms a border sable bezantée.
This is but a small portion of the evidence which might be adduced; but it
is, I think, quite enough to justify the statements of Sylvanus Morgan,
Sandford, Mr. Lower, and others, that the bezants pertain not to Poictou,
but to Cornwall.