The motto of the family, _Vero nihil verius_ and _Verite vient_ formed a rebus on the name. The boar as a badge was evidently assumed for the same reason. The Latin name for the animal is _verres_, though the De Veres probably got it through the Dutch (_veer_ or _vere_), as they were a branch of the House of Blois, and owned the Lordship of Vere in Zetland. The boar has been a favourite device of the De Veres from a very early period. The feet of the cross-legged and mail-clad figure of Robert, the fifth Earl, who died in 1296, still existing at Earls Colne Priory, are placed against a boar, and the same animal appears in different capacities on all, or nearly all, the other existing monuments of the family. Stowe speaks of John, the sixteenth Earl, “riding into the city, to his house by London Stone, with eighty gentlemen in a livery of Reading tawney, and chains of gold about their necks, before him, and one hundred tall yeomen in the like livery to follow him, without chains, but all having his cognizance of the Blew Boar embroydered on their left shoulder.” As a badge, the boar is carved, alternately with the mullet (another device of the De Veres[61]), over the clerestory windows of Castle Hedingham Church; on several parts of Lavenham Church, Suffolk; on the roof of the south aisle of Sible Hedingham Church; over the west door of Chelmsford Church, and elsewhere. In the Chelmsford Museum, moreover, is preserved a wooden boss, taken from the ceiling of a room of the old BLACK BOY Inn when it was pulled down. On this is carved a boar, within a circular ribbon charged with seven mullets. Some information as to how these devices came into these positions is given hereafter. For close upon five centuries this mighty family, whose riches were immense, and whose power was second only to that of the sovereign, ruled over a large portion of East Anglia in semi-regal fashion. For 567 years, too, was the same title retained in this one family. It is no wonder, therefore, that their armorial bearings should have been largely used as signs by those who were in various ways dependent upon them; but it is interesting to find at the present day such comparatively clear evidence of this fact. The principal Essex inn exhibiting the sign of the BLUE BOAR (and the one from which, in all probability, some, at least, of our others have taken the name) was the once famous BLUE BOAR at Castle Hedingham. This ancient house may be cited as a good example of an inn deriving its sign directly from the armorial bearings of a great historical family which formerly resided in the immediate vicinity, and, without doubt, owned the house. Its sign, of course, represented the badge of the mighty Earls of Oxford. The inn was a fine old house standing in St. James’s Street, where its ornamental chimneys once formed the most prominent feature. After being injured by fire it was pulled down in 1865. On this occasion various old coins and other relics were discovered, the most