"=Johans de Beauchamp proprement Portoit le baniere de vair Au douz tens et au sovest aier.=" 'John de Beauchamp Handsomely bore his banner of vair, To the gentle weather and south-west air.'[48] The best authorities are agreed that coat-armour did not become hereditary until the reign of Henry III and his successor. Before that period families "kept no constant coat, but gave now this, anon that, sometimes their paternal, sometimes their maternal or adopted coats, a variation causing much obfuscation in history."[49] Many of the nobility who had heretofore borne ensigns consisting of the honorable ordinaries, the simplest figures of heraldry, now began to charge them with other figures. Some few families, however, never adopted what are called common charges, but retained the oldest and simplest forms of bearing, such as bends, cheverons, fesses, barry, paly, chequy, &c.; and, as a general rule, such coats may be regarded as the most antient in existence. With respect to Welsh heraldry, Dallaway thinks that the families of that province did not adopt the symbols made use of by other nations, until its annexation to the English Crown by Edward I. Certain it is that many of the oldest families bear what may be termed legendary pictures, having little or no analogy to the more systematic armory of England; such, for example, as a wolf issuing from a cave; a cradle under a tree with a child guarded by a goat, &c. The reigns of Edward III and Richard II were the "palmy days" of heraldry. Then were the banners and escocheons of war refulgent with blazon; the light of every chancel and hall was stained with the tinctures of heraldry; the tiled pavement vied with the fretted roof; every corbel, every vane, spoke proudly of the achievements of the battle-field, and filled every breast with a lofty emulation of the deeds which earned such stately rewards. We, the men of this calculating and prosaic nineteenth century, have, it is probable, but a faint idea of the influence which heraldry exerted on the minds of our rude forefathers of that chivalrous age: but we can hardly refuse to admit that, by diffusing more widely the enthusiasm of martial prowess, it lent a powerful aid to the formation of our national character, and strongly tended to give to England that proud military ascendancy she has long enjoyed among the nations of the earth.[50] [Illustration: (Ordeal Combat.)]