and, _Or, three ravens sa._ And, once more, their original Shield--_Gu., a chevron or_, is differenced by the COBHAMS by charging the Ordinary with three lioncels, three eaglets, three crosslets, three mullets, three estoiles, three crescents, or three fleurs de lys, all of them sable. The particular devices and figures selected thus to mark Cadency, like those charged upon Labels or Bordures, must be considered to have a special significance of their own, though this significance may frequently fail to be discerned in consequence of our being no longer able to trace out their association with the sources from which they were obtained. The alliances and the incidents that give these various Marks of Cadency, when it is possible to ascertain what they may have been, illustrate in a striking manner the motives by which the early Heralds were influenced when they differenced the Arms of Kinsmen. [Illustration: No. 348.--Beauchamp of Warwick.] [Illustration: No. 349.--Beauchamp of Bletshoe.] _Official Insignia_ sometimes become Marks of Cadency. Thus, JOHN DE GRANDISON, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1327-1369), on the bend in his paternal arms, No. 89, substitutes a _golden mitre_ for the central eaglet, as in No. 350. WILLIAM COURTENAY, Archbishop of Canterbury (A.D. 1381-1396), adopts a different course, and charges three golden mitres upon each point of the Label of Courtenay--_Or, three torteaux, over all a label of three points az. charged on each point with as many mitres gold_. And again, HENRY LE DESPENCER, Bishop of Norwich (A.D. 1370-1406), places about his paternal shield an _azure bordure charged with eight golden mitres_ (see the largest shield in No. 351). On his official seal the canopied effigy of the Bishop stands between this, his personal Shield, and the Shield of his see--_az., three mitres or_: but his Secretum, or private seal, is much more interesting, as an heraldic image of the man himself. Haughty, fierce, cruel, and pugnacious, his career not less inglorious as a military commander than as a churchman, this HENRY LE DESPENCER, a grandson of the unhappy favourite of the no less hapless EDWARD II., was one of the war-loving prelates who occasionally appear sustaining a strange, and yet as it would seem a characteristic, part in the romantic drama of mediæval history. His Secretum, No. 351, displays his Shield of _Despencer_, differenced with his bordure of mitres, couché from a large mantled helm, surmounted by a mitre, in place of a crest-coronet, which supports the Despencer crest, a silver griffin’s head of ample size; on either side are the Shields of the _see of Norwich_, and of _Ferrers_ (the Bishop’s mother was Anne, daughter of WILLIAM Lord FERRERS of Groby)--_Or, seven mascles, three three and one, gu._; the legend is, S . HENRICI . DESPENCER . NORWICENSIS . EPISCOPI. [Illustration: No. 350.--Bishop Grandison.] [Illustration: No. 351.--Secretum of Bishop le Despencer.]