[43] Dall. pp. 31-32. The offering of trophies to the Deity is of a much earlier origin, and it was derived from the nations of antiquity. The Old Testament furnishes us with several instances, the classics with many more: "It was very common," says Robinson, "to dedicate the armour of the enemy, and to suspend it in temples."--Vide Homer, Iliad, vii. 81, "I will bear his armour to Troy, and hang it up in the temple of Apollo;" and Virgil, Æn. vii, describes a temple hung round with ----"helmets, darts and spears, And captive chariots, axes, shields, and bars, And broken beaks of ships, _the trophies of their wars_." _Dryden_, vii. 252. But, what is more to our purpose, "It was also customary to dedicate to the gods their own weapons, when they retired from the noise of war to a private life." (Rob. Archæolog. Græc.) From I Sam. xxi, 9, it appears that David, after his victory over Goliath, had dedicated the Philistine's sword to God as a trophy. "Behold it is here," says the priest, on a subsequent occasion, "wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod." In I Chron. x, 10, we read that the Philistines put the armour of Saul "in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon;" and, in xxvi, 27, we are told that "out of the spoils won in battles did they (the Israelites) dedicate to maintain the House of the Lord." [44] Hist. Poet. i, 302. [45] The second book of Upton's treatise, written in the fifteenth century, is entitled 'Of _Veterans_, now called Heralds.' [46] Nicolas' Karlaverok, p. 4. [47] Nicolas' Karlaverok, p. 44. The charge here blazoned, a cross patée, is, in fact, a cross patonce. [48] Ibid., Notes, p. 368. [49] Waterhouse's Discourse, p. 77. [50] Let it not be understood from this remark that I mean in the slightest degree to advocate war as a means of acquiring national greatness. The war which Edward waged against France was totally unjustifiable; and the desolating civil wars which followed the misgovernment of his pusillanimous grandson Richard, were (as many of our subsequent wars have been) a disgrace to the very name of England. [51] Strutt's Roy. and Eccl. Antiq. [52] Holinshed. [53] The engraving above is from Royal MS., 14 E. iii. Brit. Mus. [54] Decline and Fall, v. 6, p. 59. [55] Apparently the village of Retiers, near Rennes, in Brittany. [56] De Controversia in Curia Militari inter R. de Scrope and R. Grosvenor, Milites, Rege Ricardo Secundo, 1385-1390. E Recordis in Turre, Lond. Asservatis, vol. i, p. 178. [57] Vide Historical and Allusive Arms; Loud. 1803, p. 43, et seq. Anecdotes of Heraldry and Chivalry; Worcester, 1795.