The ROYAL ARMS are displayed in the undesirable neighbourhood of Silvertown. Although our present Queen has now reigned fifty years, the QUEEN’S ARMS only appear three times on Essex sign-boards, against no less than seventeen KING’S ARMS. Probably the fact that the number of kings has been very much greater than the number of queens will fully account for this. There is, however, a VICTORIA ARMS at Brentwood. It seems probable that during the last forty years many houses formerly known as the KING’S HEAD have come to be called the KING’S ARMS, after the recent craze for “arms;” for the former sign was much commoner, and the latter much rarer, forty years since than now. It may be pointed out, for instance, that in Mr. Creed’s list of signs round Epping in 1789, the King’s _Head_ appears six times, and the King’s _Arms_ only once; also that the Queen’s _Head_ appears twice, while the Queen’s _Arms_ does not appear at all. This shows the great prevalence of “Heads” over “Arms” on the sign-boards of last century, and also that the present prevalence of _Kings_ over _Queens_ in the same situation was observable even then. Probably the two Queen’s Heads given, which were at Harlow and Fyfield respectively, represented the portrait of Queen Anne. A token was issued by William Drane at the KING’S ARMS (depicted in the field), in Waltham Abbey in 1668, and the same sign is mentioned in the _Chelmsford Chronicle_ for 1786 as occurring at Halstead. The sign still exists at both those places; but it is, of course, difficult to say whether or not the houses are the same as those that displayed the sign in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively. The sign of the KING’S ARMS at Waltham Abbey in 1668 can hardly have been more than eight years old at the time, as no one would have ventured to display such a sign during the time of the Commonwealth. Doubtless it was set up at the time of the Restoration in 1660 in honour of the new king, Charles II., for whose father, perhaps, this William Drane had fought.