NOTES.

I.

The badge of the Bear and Ragged Staff was so celebrated in the
fifteenth century, that the following extract from a letter addressed
by Mr. Courthope, Rouge Croix, to the author, will no doubt interest
the reader, and the author is happy in the opportunity afforded of
expressing his acknowledgments for the courteous attention with which
Mr. Courthope has honoured his inquiries:--

"COLLEGE OF ARMS.
"As regards the badge of Richard Nevile, Earl of Warwick,--namely, the
Bear and Staff,--I agree with you, certainly, as to the probability of
his having sometimes used the whole badge, and sometimes the Staff
only, which accords precisely with the way in which the Bear and Staff
are set forth in the Rous Roll to the early earls (Warwick) before the
Conquest. We there find them figured with the Staff upon their
shields and the Bear at their feet, and the Staff alone is introduced
as a quartering upon their shields.

"The story of the origin of these badges is as follows:

"Arth, or Arthgal, is reputed to have been the first Earl of Warwick,
and being one of the knights of King Arthur's Round Table, it behooved
him to have a cognizance; and Arth or Narth signifying in British the
same as Ursus in Latin, he took the Bear for such cognizance. His
successor, Morvidus, Earl of Warwick, in single combat, overcame a
mighty giant (who had encountered him with a tree pulled up from the
root, the boughs of which had been torn from it), and in token of his