[Illustration: FIG. 128. Arms and supporters, a dragon and a greyhound, of King Henry VII in King's college chapel at Cambridge.]
Besides the more or less regular use of supporters just described, there are a number of curious and irregular ways of supporting shields. These deserve special attention, not only from their value in showing how delightfully heraldry used to be played with, but as precedents for similar variety of treatment at the present day, when supporters so-called often do not support anything. Over the doorway, for example, of the National Portrait Gallery in London the 'supporters' of the royal arms are merely a pair of cowering beasts at the base of the shield.
Quite an early instance of playful treatment is furnished by the seal of Roger Leybourne (_ob._ 1284). This has a small banner standing behind the shield, which is hung on a tree with side branches; one of these supports the crested helm, and the other ends in a bunch of leaves (pl. XI A).
Thomas lord Holand and Wake (_c._ 1353) has within a traceried panel a tree standing in a rabbit warren and supporting his crowned helm with its huge bush of feathers. Hanging on either side are two shields, one with beautiful diapering of his lordship of Wake, the other (originally) of his lordship of Holand (pl. XXVII A).
A Thomas lord Holand and Wake, _c._ 1350.
B Margaret Beauchamp, wife of John Talbot earl of Shrewsbury, after 1433.
PLATE XXVII.--Methods of arranging shields.]
Thomas of Woodstock duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III, used from about 1385 a lovely seal with the stock of a tree standing within a paling and surrounded by water on which float two chained Bohun swans, for his wife Eleanor Bohun; from the tree hangs a large shield of the duke's arms, with his crested helm above, and from two side branches are suspended diapered shields of the earldom of Hereford (_azure two bends, one gold, the other silver_), also in reference to his Bohun marriage.
Margaret daughter of Richard Beauchamp earl of Warwick, and wife of John Talbot earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford, in her fine shield (after 1433) suspends by their straps her father's shield and the impaled shield of her husband and herself from the ragged staff of her father's house (pl. XXVII B).