In some books it is stated that the introduction and gradually increasing use of gunpowder in war led by degrees to the abandonment of shields; but the above evidences completely refute such an idea. Heavy mail armour, exaggerated into an absurdity--as pointed out by King James--did so disappear when it became evident that such afforded no protection whatever against a small bit of well-directed lead. But shields had already been abandoned by the knights,--long before, at a period when gunpowder was as yet a great and rare mystery.
Besides, we find round shields were still in continued use by the foot-soldiery, when every battlefield was contested with fire and sword--the smoke as well as the din of battle.
Moreover, examples have come down to us of such shields with fixed pistols projecting through, and with a peep-hole for sighting. Thus shields were made the handmaid of gunpowder; and, as a matter of fact, they were in use by foot soldiers so late as the middle of the seventeenth century.
We noticed that the heater shields which obtained so largely during this century, and grew less and less pointed as it progressed, at last became much squarer. The seal of Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, 1372, might well be taken for the fifteenth century; the square heater, with blunt-shaped base; the inscription in Gothic, and curiously placed at the top and bottom; and the two supporting helmets, with mantlings and huge panaches, out of which appear below the hinder half of the bodies and legs of two animals, the rest of their carcasses being crammed inside these helmets. This is taken from the engraving in _Herald and Genealogist_, vol. ii, p. 56.
But from about this date downwards we can perceive much more discriminating taste exercised in designing seals. The seal of Richard Earl of Arundel, 1330-76, from the engraving in _Herald and Genealogist_, vol. ii, p. 54, is an example of such beautiful design and execution.[3]
The small seal of Matilde Fraunceys, relict of Simon Fraunceys, citizen of London, attached to a deed 33 Edward III. [1359], is a characteristic example of ordinary small well-executed seals prevailing in this century. The engraving is from the _Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries_, 11th Dec., 1856.