of which presided a king; and he had so great an army that he could devote 330,000 men to guard his standards, which were "3 crosses of gold, fyn, grete and hye, fulle of precious stones." It is related of Columbus that he saw on one of the islands of the West Indies, which he then apprehended to be a part of the continent of Asia, a grave and sacred personage whom he at first believed to be Prester-John. This incident serves to show that the existence of this chimerical being was credited even so lately as the close of the fifteenth century, although Roger Bacon, in the thirteenth, doubted many of the tales related of him--"de quo tanta fama solebat esse, et multa falsa dicta sunt et scripta."[104] The best account of him is to be found in the work of Matthew Paris, the monk of St. Albans, who wrote before the year 1250. Marco Polo also mentions him in his travels.[105] Porny places him in Abyssinia under the title of _Preter cham_, or 'prince of the worshippers,' while Heckford[106] considers him a priest and one of the followers of Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century. _Kings_ and _bishops_ occur as charges; but rarely. The heads of Moors and Saracens are more common, and belong to the category of trophies, having originated, for the most part, during the Crusades. The arms of the Welsh family of Vaughan are 'a cheveron between three children's heads ... enwrapped about the necks with as many snakes proper.' "It hath beene reported," saith old Guillim, "that some one of the ancestors of this family was borne with a snake about his necke: _a matter not impossible_, but yet very unprobable!" Besides heads, the armorial shield is sometimes charged with arms and legs, naked, vested, or covered with armour, hands, feet, eyes, hearts, winged and unwinged, &c. The coat of Tremaine exhibits three arms (et tres manus!) and that of the Isle of Man, three legs, as here represented. Of the former, Guillim remarks, "these armes and hands conjoyned and clenched after this manner may signify a treble offer of revenge for some notable injurie." If we might be jocular upon so grave a subject as armory, we should consider the second coat a happy allusion to the geographical position of the island between the three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland, as if it had run away from all three, and were kicking up its heels in derision of the whole empire![107] [Illustration]