[Illustration: FIG. 193. Arms of Cotes, from a mazer print of 1585-6.]
[Illustration: FIG. 194. Shield from the tomb of Margaret countess of Lennox (_ob._ 1578) in Westminster abbey church.]
[Illustration: FIG. 195. Achievement of arms from the monument of Sir Richard Pecksall (_ob._ 1571) in Westminster abbey church.]
The Lennox and Pecksall shields are likewise indicative of another characteristic change, the desire to illustrate ancient descent by the multiplication of quarterings. The disastrous consequences of this practice, even in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, have already been pointed out, but in the reign of Elizabeth it was carved to such an excess as to produce at times a mere patchwork of carved or painted quarters, in which the beauty of the heraldry was entirely lost. In the great hall of Fawsley House, Northants, there hangs a coloured achievement of the Knightley family containing actually 334 quarterings, which have been rightly described by Mr. J. A. Gotch as '330 too many for decorative effect.'
The heraldry of the seventeenth century is in general but a duller version of that of the later sixteenth century, with a tendency to become more commonplace as time goes on.
Under the Commonwealth every vestige of regality was ordered to be put down and done away; a very large number of representations of the royal arms were defaced and destroyed; and the leopards of England were for a time 'driven into the wilderness' along with the lion of Scotland. It was nevertheless thought desirable that the United Kingdom should still have arms, and on THE GREAT SEALE OF ENGLAND/ IN THE FIRST YEARE OF FREEDOM BY GOD'S BLESSING RESTORED, that is, 1648, the cross of St. George appears for England, and a harp for Ireland. The royal crown was at the same time superseded, on all maces and other symbols of kingly power, by another which curiously reproduces all its elements. It had a circlet inscribed THE FREEDOM OF ENGLAND BY GOD'S BLESSING RESTORED, with the date, and for the cresting of crosses and fleurs-de-lis there was substituted an intertwined cable enclosing small cartouches with the cross of St. George and the Irish harp. The new crown was also arched over, with four graceful incurved members like ostrich feathers, but wrought with oak leaves and acorns. These supported a pyramidal group of four handsome cartouches with the cross and harp surrounded by an acorn, instead of the orb and cross.[29] Perfect examples of this singular republican crown still surmount the two maces of the town of Weymouth.