"_Upon his shoulders a scheld of stele
With the lybbardes painted wele._"
"The Metrical Romance of Richard
Cœur de Lyon."
"_Make the libbard stern
Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did yearn._"
SPENSER, "Faerie Queen," Book i. canto vi.
A curious character, partly real and partly fictitious has been ascribed
to the lybbard or leopard of heraldry. It was said to be the offspring of
a lioness and a panther, the Northmen or Normans, according to some
authorities, having adopted that beast of prey, noted for rashness, as
typical of themselves, so characterised by boldness and impetuosity. The
standard of Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, they say, bore a leopard. A
second lion or leopard was added to the Norman shield when the county of
Maine became annexed to the Duchy of Normandy; and the two lions or
leopards--for they are indiscriminately so termed--were thus borne, it is
said, upon the standard of William the Conqueror, and by his descendants.
A third lion was added by Henry II. on his marriage with Eleanor of
Aquitain, a lion being also the arms of that province.
[Illustration: A Leopard passant.]
It has been keenly contested whether the three animals in the royal shield
of England were lions or leopards. The subject has been ably treated by
Mr. J. R. Planché in the "Pursuivant of Arms," and also by Charles
Boutell, M.A., in several of his works. The case seems to stand thus:
In ancient coats the name is believed to be given to the lion in certain
attitudes. The French heralds call a lion passant a _leopard_. Thus
Bertrand du Guesclin, the famous Breton, declared that men "devoyent bien
honorer la noble fleur-de-lis, qu'ils ne faissaient le félon liépard," and
Napoleon, strongly to excite the valour of his soldiers, exclaimed, "Let
us drive these leopards (the English) into the sea!"
"_Lion Léoparde_" is the term used in French heraldry for the lion when
borne _passant guardant_ as in the royal shield of England. When _rampant_
they call it "léoparde lionné," as if in this attitude the leopard assumed
the position and bold character of the lion. The attitude _passant
guardant_ thus denoted the peculiar stealthy tread and cat-like
watchfulness of the leopard and panther.
The Emperor Frederick II. (1235) sent King Henry of England three leopards
as a present in token of his armorial bearings.
It is a great argument in favour of the substitution of the lion for the
leopard, Mr. Boutell thinks, that the latter should have almost
disappeared from English heraldry, the face and head only retaining their
place in modern coats.
[Illustration: A Leopard's Face, jessant-de-lis.]
"_A leopard's head_" should show part of the neck, _couped_ or _erased_,
as the case may be; _guardant, affronté_ or front face, is always to be
understood of the leopard, and never in profile.
"_A leopard's face_" shows no part of the neck, and in conjunction with
the term "_jessant-de-lis_" is used with respect to a leopard's face
having a _fleur-de-lis_ passing through it.
The insignia of the See of Hereford is: _gules three leopards' heads
reversed jessant-de-lis, or_.
In heraldry the leopard represents those brave and generous warriors who
have performed some bold enterprise with force, courage, promptitude, and
activity. Thus Shakespeare alludes to the character of the bold soldier
"Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth."
In Christian Art the leopard is employed to represent that beast spoken of
in the Apocalypse, with seven heads and ten horns. Six of the heads are
nimbed, but the seventh, being "wounded to death," has lost its power, and
consequently has no nimbus.
_Three leopards passant guardant or, pelletée_, appear on the arms of the
Marquis of Downshire. It is also the sinister supporter.
The supporters of the town of Aberdeen are leopards.
_Sable three leopards rampant argent spotted sable_ are given as the arms
of _Lynch_. It is, however, probable that the _lynx_ was the animal
originally blazoned as "arms parlantes" for the name.
_Ermine on a cross patonce sable, a leopard's head, issuing out of a ducal
coronet or_, crest, a _demi-leopard erect, proper_.--_Dickens._
_A leopard's face, breaking with his mouth a sword_, is the crest of
_Disne_.
The supporters of the Earl of Northesk are _two leopards reguardant_.
The leopard or panther, says Dr. P. M. Duncan, F.R.S.,[22] was the only
one of the greater feline animals, except the lion and tiger, which seems
to have been known to the ancients. It is always represented as drawing
the chariot of Bacchus, and the forlorn Ariadne is sculptured as riding on
one of the spotted steeds of her divine lover. The panther was also
constantly used in the barbarous sports of the amphitheatre, and, in
common with the lion and tiger, has been both executioner and grave to
many a bold-hearted martyr.
The leopard's skin was a favourite mantle in the olden times in Greece. In
the "Iliad," Homer, speaking of Menelaus, says:
"With a pard's spotted hide his shoulders broad
He mantled o'er,"
and the leopard, or panther, is given in the "Odyssey" as one of the forms
assumed by Proteus, "the Ancient of the Deep."
A curious ancient superstition about the leopard is embodied in its name.
It was thought not to be actually the same animal as the panther or pard,
but to be a mongrel or hybrid between the male pard and the lioness, hence
it was called the lion-panther, or _leopardus_. This error, as Archbishop
Trench tells us, "has lasted into modern times"; thus Fuller: "Leopards
and mules are properly no creatures."
Some writers, says Boutell, describe the leopard as the issue of the pard
and lioness, and they assign the unproductiveness of such hybrids as a
reason for its frequent adoption in the arms of abbots and abbesses.
"Mulus et abbates sunt in honore pares."
The leopard and panther are now acknowledged to be but slight varieties of
the same species. In Wood's "Natural History" some slight difference is
mentioned as to the number of spots. "The panther is fawn-coloured above,
white underneath, with six or seven ranges of patches resembling
rosettes--that is to say, each composed of an assemblage of five or six
simple black spots. It very much resembles the leopard, which inhabits the
same region (but has ten rows of spots which are of smaller size), It is
the wildest of the feline tribe, always retaining its fierce aspect and
perpetual growl."