Plume and Motto of the Prince of Wales
Dr. Doran, F.S.A., has thus briefly told their history, profiting in his inquiry by the researches of Sir Harris Nicolas:—“Old Randall Holmes solved the difficulty in his summary way, by asserting that the ostrich feathers were the blazon on the war-banner of the ancient Britons. The only thing that in any way resembles the triple feathers in ancient British heraldry is to be found on the azure shield of arms of King Roderick Mawr, on which the tails of that monarch’s three lions are seen coming between their legs, and turning over their backs, with the gentle fall of the tips, like the graceful bend of the feathers in the Prince’s badge. The feathers themselves, however, do not appear in connexion with our Princes of Wales until after the battle in which the blind King of Bohemia lost his life. The crest of the Bohemian monarch was an eagle’s wing; as for the motto of Ich dien, it was assumed by the Prince to characterize his humility, in accordance with a fashion followed to a late period even by princesses—Elizabeth of York, for instance, took that of “Humble and Reverent.” Edward of Woodstock, therefore, did not adopt either the badge or the legend of the dead King of Bohemia; such is the conclusion at which nearly all persons who have examined into this difficult question have arrived. Nevertheless, John, Count of Luxemburg, was the original style and title of him who was elected King of Bohemia, and fell so bravely and unnecessarily at Cressy. Now, the ostrich feather was a distinction of Luxemburg; and it is from such origin that the Princes of Wales derive the graceful plumes, which are their distinguishing badge, but not their crest. This much is stated by Sir H. Nicolas, in the Archæologia (xxxi. 252); and Mr. D’Eyncourt (Gent. Mag. xxxvi. 621) suggests that the King of Bohemia’s crest looks more like ostrich feathers than a vulture’s wing. The question may be considered as having been set at rest by John de Ardern. He was a physician, contemporary with the Black Prince; and in a manuscript of his in the Sloane Collection (76 fo. 61), Ardern distinctly states that the Prince derived the feathers from the blind King. In the directions given in this will for the funeral procession, banners bearing the arms of France and England quarterly, and others with the ostrich-plume, are respectively described as those of war and peace. The ostrich symbolised Justice, its feathers being nearly all of equal length.”