FIG. 672. |
FIG. 673.--Arms of Cape Town: Or, an anchor erect sable, stock proper, from the ring a riband flowing azure, and suspended there from an escocheon gules charged with three annulets of the field; and for the crest, on a wreath of the colours, upon the battlements of a tower proper, a trident in bend dexter or, surmounted by an anchor and cable in bend sinister sable. |
*1 Supporters of Lord Hawke: Dexter, Neptune, his mantle of a sea-green colour, edged argent, crowned with an Eastern coronet or, his dexter arm erect, darting downwards his trident sable, headed silver, resting his sinister foot on a dolphin, also sable; sinister a sea-horse or, sustaining in his fore fins a banner argent the staff broken proper.Occasionally the compartment itself--as a thing apart from the supporters--receives attention in the blazon, e.g. in the case of the arms of Baron de Worms, which are of foreign origin, recorded in this country by Royal Warrant. His supporters are: "On a bronze compartment, on either side a lion gold, collared and chained or, and pendent from the compartment a golden scroll, thereon in letters gules the motto, 'Vinctus non victus.'"
*1 Arms of Boston: Sable, three coronets composed of crosses patté and fleurs-de-lis in pale or. Crest: A woolpack charged with a ram couchant all proper, ducally crowned azure.Probably of all the curious "supporters" to be found in British armory, those of the city of Southampton (Plate VII.) must be admitted to be the most unusual. As far as the actual usage of the arms by the corporation is concerned, one seldom if ever sees more than the simple shield employed. This bears the arms: "Per fess gules and argent, three roses counterchanged." But in the official record of the arms in one of the Visitation books a crest is added, namely: "Upon a mount vert, a double tower or, and issuing from the upper battlements thereof a demi-female affronté proper, vested purpure, crined and crowned with an Eastern coronet also or, holding in her dexter hand a sword erect point upwards argent, pommel and hilt of the second, and in her sinister hand a balance sable, the pans gold. The shield in the Visitation book rests upon a mount vert, issuing from waves of the sea, and thereupon placed on either side of the escutcheon a ship of two masts at anchor, the sails furled all proper, the round top or, and from each masthead flying a banner of St. George, and upon the stern of each vessel a lion rampant or, supporting the escutcheon."
*1 The caltrap was an instrument thrown on the ground to injure the feet of horses, and consisted of four iron spikes, of which one always pointed upwards.Two other instances of regular compartments are mentioned by Nisbet, viz. those carried by the Macfarlanes of that Ilk and the Ogilvies of Innerquharity. The former consists of a wavy representation of Loch Sloy, the gathering-place of the clan, which word is also inscribed on the compartment as their cri-de-guerre or slogan; while the latter is a "green hill or rising terrace," on which are placed two serpents, "nowed," spouting fire, and the motto, "Terrena pericula sperno." For some of the foregoing instances I am indebted to Seton's well-known "Law and Practice of Heraldry in Scotland."