This, again, led to the custom of prefixing to inns the arms of men of note who had sojourned in the house, as may be seen in Machyn’s Diary:--“The xxv day of January [1560] toke ys gorney into Franse, inbassadur to the Frenche kyng, the yerle of Bedford and he had iij dozen of _logyng skochyons_,” (lodging escutcheons). Thus, on the road from London to Westchester the coats of arms of several of the lord-lieutenants of Ireland might formerly have been observed, either as signs to inns or else framed and hung in the best rooms. That this was a general custom with ambassadors appears from Sir Dudley Digge’s “Compleat Ambassador,” 1654; who, alluding in his preface to the reserve of English ambassadors, observes:--“We have hardly any notion of them but their arms, which are hung up in inns where they passed.” Montaigne also mentions this practice as usual in France:--“A Plombières il me commanda à la faveur de son hostesse, _selon l’humeur de la nation_, de laisser un escusson de ses armes en bois, qu’un peintre dudict lieu fist pour un escu; et le fist l’hostesse curieusement _attacher à la muraille pas dehors_.”[165] But the feudal relations between the higher and lower classes contributed above all to the adoption of this description of signs. A vassal, for instance, would set up the arms or crest of his feudal lord; a retired soldier the arms of the knight under whose banneret he had gathered both glory and plunder; an old servant the badge he had worn when he stood at the trencher, or followed his master in the chase; and, doubtless, many publicans adopted for their sign the badge of the neighbouring wealthy noble, in order to court the custom of his household and servants. Bagford, in his MS. notes about the art of printing,[166] has jotted down a list of signs originated from badges, which we will transcribe in all the unrestrained freedom of Bagford’s spelling, in which, as well as in bad writing, he surpassed all his contemporaries, (_see_ note, p. 102:)-- “Then for ye original of signes used to be set over ye douers of tradesmen, as Inkepers, Taverns, etc., thay hauing been domestic saruants to some nobleman, thay leauing ther Masters saruis toke to themselves for ther signes ye crest, bag,[167] or ye arms of ther Ld., and thes was a destincsion or Mark of one Mannes house from anouther, and [not] only by printers but all outher trades: and these seruants of kinges, queenes, or noblemen, being ther domestick saruants, and wor ther Leuirs[168] and Bages, as may be sene these day ye maner of the Leuirs and Bagges by ye wattermen:--