Equally well known with the last sign is that of the EAGLE AND CHILD, occasionally called the BIRD AND BANTLING, to obtain the favourite alliteration. It represents the crest of the Stanley family, and the following legend is told to account for its origin:--In the reign of Edward III., Sir Thomas Latham, ancestor of the house of Stanley and Derby, had only one legitimate child, a daughter named Isabel, but at the same time he had an illegitimate son by a certain Mary Oscatell. This child he ordered to be laid at the foot of a tree on which an eagle had built its nest. Taking a walk with his lady over the estate, he contrived to bring her past this place, pretended to find the boy, took him home, and finally prevailed upon her to adopt him as their son. This boy was afterwards called Sir Oscatell Latham, and considered the heir to the estates. Compunction or other motive, however, made the old nobleman alter his mind and confess the fraud, and at his death the greater part of the fortune was left to his daughter, who afterwards married Sir John Stanley. At the adoption of the child, Sir Thomas had assumed for crest an eagle looking backwards; this, out of ill feeling towards Sir Oscatell, was afterwards altered into an eagle preying upon a child. How matters were afterwards arranged may be seen in “Memoirs containing a Genealogical and Historical Account of the House of Stanley,” p. 22. _Manchester_, 1767. Bishop Stanley made an historical poem upon the legend, which is not without parallel, and seems to be either a corruption of or suggested by the fable of Ganimede. Edward Stanley, in his “History of Birds,” (vol. i. p. 119,) cites several similar stories. But the Stanley family is not the only one that bears this crest. Randle Holme (b. iii. p. 403) gives the arms of the family of Culcheth of Culcheth as “an infant in swaddling-clothes proper, mantle gules, swaddle band or, with an eagle standing upon it, with its wings expanded sable in a field argent.” “The fause fable of the Lo. Latham” is also told at length, with slight variations from the usual story, in a MS. in the College of Arms;[182] in this version the foundling is made the son of an Irish king. The Eagle and Child occurs as the sign of a bookseller, Thomas Creede, in the old Exchange, as early as 1584. Taylor the water-poet also names some instances of the sign among inns and taverns, and particularly extols one at Manchester:-- “I lodged at the Eagle and the Child, Whereas my hostesse (a good ancient woman) Did entertain me with respect not common, She caused my linnen, shirts, and bands be washt, And on my way she caused me be refresht; She gave me twelve silke points, she gave me baken, Which by me much refused at last was taken. In troath she proued a mother unto me, For which I ever more will thankefull be.”[183]