Some favourites of the signboard have, however, been more fortunate than others. HENRY VIII., for instance, may still be seen in many places; indeed, for more than two centuries after his death, almost every KING’S HEAD invariably gave a portrait of Bluff Harry. Older kings occasionally occur, but their memories seem to have been revived rather than handed down by successive innkeepers. If we are to believe an old Chester legend, however, THE KING EDGAR INN, in Bridge Street of that city, has existed by the same name since the time of the Saxon king. The sign represents King Edgar rowed down the river Dee by the eight tributary kings. The present house has the appearance of being built anterior to the reign of Elizabeth, and the sign looks almost as old, but it would be unwise to give the place or the sign a much higher antiquity. KING JOHN is the sign under whose auspices Jem Mace, the pugilist, keeps a public-house in Holywell Lane, Shoreditch. The same king also figures in Albemarle Street and in Bermondsey; whilst the great event of his reign, MAGNA CHARTA, is a sign at New Holland, Hull. JOHN OF GAUNT may be seen in many places; and we may surmise that his upholders are stanch Protestants, who value his character as a reformer and supporter of Wicliffe. The BLACK PRINCE may not unlikely have come down to us in an uninterrupted line of signboards; so little was his identity sometimes understood, that there is a shop-bill in the “Banks Collection”[56] on which this hero is represented as a negro! There is a QUEEN ELEANOR in London Fields, Hackney, probably the beautiful and affectionate queen of Edward I., buried in Westminster Abbey, 1290, in honour of whom Charing Cross, Cheapcross, and seven other crosses, were erected on the places where her body rested on its way to the great Abbey. What prompted the choice of this sign it is hard to say. At Hever, in Kent, a rude portrait of Henry VIII. may be seen. Near this village the Bolleyn or Bullen family formerly held large possessions; and old people in the district yet shew the spot where, as the story goes, King Henry often used to meet Sir Thomas Bolleyn’s daughter Anne. Be this as it may, years after the unhappy death of Anne, the village alehouse had for its sign, BULLEN BUTCHERED; but the place falling into new hands, the name of the house was altered to the BULL AND BUTCHER, which sign existed to a recent date, and would probably have swung at this moment, but for a desire of the resident clergyman to see something different. He suggested the KING’S HEAD; and the village painter was forthwith commissioned to make the alteration. The latter accepted the task, drew the bluff features of the monarch, and represented it as other King’s Heads, but in his hands placed a large axe, which signboard exists to this day.