[9] “Supporters,” as explained in the Glossary at the end, are the animals represented as holding up or _supporting_ the shields of arms of royal and other distinguished personages. They are referred to in an amusing manner by the inimitably comic Dickens, who, in _Little Dorrit_, puts into the mouth of his by no means pleasant character, Flora Finch, the description of them quoted at the head of the following chapter. [10] _Historic Devices, Badges, and War Cries_, p. 2. [11] _Tokens Issued in the Seventeenth Century_, &c. By William Boyne, F.S.A. London, 1858. [12] Quarterly: first and fourth, gules; three lions passant guardant in pale, or, for England, &c. [13] These are commonly blazoned as follows, but they belong equally to Middlesex, and in reality no county possesses arms:--Gules, three seaxes proper, hilts and pomels or, points to sinister. [14] Gules; two staves raguly and couped, one in pale surmounted by another in fess, both argent, between two ducal coronets in chief or, and the bottom of the staff enfiled with another of the last. [15] Azure; three lions passant, regardant, in pale or. [16] Azure; three roses, two and one, in base, or; in chief as many lilies, argent, stalked and leaved vert; all within a bordure gules charged with eight plates. [17] Gules; a portcullis with chains pendant, or, nailed and pointed azure. [18] Argent; a cross of St. George; cantoned in the first quarter, a dagger erect, gules. [19] Sable; a chevron or, between three hammers argent, handled of the second, ducally crowned of the last. [20] Gules; on a chevron argent between three pair of barley garbs in saltire or, three tuns sable, hooped of the third. [21] Sable; a chevron between three tuns argent. [22] Gules; a balance between three garbs or; on a chief, a hand supporting the balance, &c. [23] Gules; a demi-virgin couped below the shoulders, issuing from clouds all proper, vested or, crowned with an eastern crown of the last, her hair dishevelled and wreathed around the temples with roses of the second, all within an orle of clouds proper. [24] Azure; on a chevron between three towers argent, a pair of compasses open sable. [25] A landscape, the base variegated with flowers, a man proper, vested round the loins with linen argent, digging with a spade, all of the first. [26] Gules; a chevron between three wheels, or, on a chief argent, an axe lying fessways proper. [27] Azure; a chevron or; in chief a fleur-de-lys argent between two brick axes paleways of the second; in base a bundle of laths of the last. [28] _More about Stifford_, p. 95. [29] Azure; two slaughter axes indorsed in saltire argent, handled or, between three bulls’ heads couped of the second, two in fess, one in base; on a chief argent, a boar’s head couped, gules, between two block-brushes vert. [30] Argent; a chevron engrailed between three pairs of compasses, extended, sable.