After the establishment of a true Heraldry, Badges were generally used to commemorate remarkable exploits, or in reference either to some family or feudal alliance, or to indicate some territorial rights or pretensions. Very many Badges are allusive, and consequently they are _Rebuses_ (see “Rebus,” p. 146). Some are taken from the charges of the bearer’s Shield, or they have a more or less direct reference to those charges. Some trace of Marshalling or of feudal Difference may constantly be observed in Badges; and even where the motive for the selection of certain devices has not been discovered, it may fairly be assumed that a good heraldic motive still exists, although it has become obscured or been forgotten. It was not uncommon for the same personage or family to use more than one Badge; and, on the other hand, two or more Badges were often borne in combination, to form a single compound device, as in Nos. 235 and 270. The _ragged staff_, in like manner, No. 294, and the _bear_, both of them Badges of the BEAUCHAMPS, Earls of WARWICK, were sometimes united to form a single Badge, and by the successors of that great family the “bear and ragged staff” were generally borne as a single device. (See No. 448, and p. 319.) Two distinct classes of Badges were in general use in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Those of the first class, well known as the insignia of certain eminent personages and powerful houses, were borne by all the followers, retainers, dependants, and partisans of those personages and houses: and they were so borne by them, and they were used by their owners for every variety of decorative purpose, because they were _known and understood_; and, consequently, because the presence of these Badges would cause all persons and objects bearing them to be readily and certainly distinguished. By means of these most useful devices a wide and comprehensive range was given to the action and the influence of true Heraldry, without infringing in the slightest degree upon the lofty and almost sacred exclusiveness of the Coat-Armour of a noble or a gentle house. In the words which SHAKESPEARE teaches CLIFFORD to address to WARWICK, “Might I but know thee by thy household Badge!” it is implied that all the followers of Warwick were well known by his “household Badge,” which was displayed by them all, while some other insignia were worn by the great Earl upon his own person.