e of a
fleur-de-lis, and the motto, "Mon sang teint les banniers de France."
When Edward III. claimed the crown of France, in the year 1340, he
quartered the ancient shield of France with the lions of England. It
disappeared, however, from the English shield in the first year of the
present century.

_Gillyflower._ This was the old name for the whole class of carnations,
pinks, and sweet-williams, from the French _girofle_, which is itself
corrupted from the Latin _caryophyllum_.[505] The streaked gillyflowers,
says Mr. Beisly,[506] noticed by Perdita in "Winter's Tale" (iv. 4)--

"the fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,
Which some call nature's bastards"--

"are produced by the flowers of one kind being impregnated by the pollen
of another kind, and this art (or law) in nature Shakespeare alludes to
in the delicate language used by Perdita, as well as to the practice of
increasing the plants by slips." Tusser, in his "Five Hundred Points of
Good Husbandry," says:

"The gilloflower also the skilful doe know,
Doth look to be covered in frost and in snow."

[505] "Nares's Glossary," vol. i. p. 363.

[506] "Shakespeare's Garden," p. 82; see Dyce's "Glossary," p. 184.

_Harebell._ This flower, mentioned in "Cymbeline" (iv. 2), is no doubt
another name for the wild hyacinth.

Arviragus says of Imogen:

"thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins."

_Hemlock._ In consequence of its bad and poisonous character, this plant
was considered an appropriate ingredient for witches' broth. In
"Macbeth" (iv. 1) we read of

"Root of hemlock, digged i' the dark."

Its scientific name, _conium_, is from the Greek word meaning cone or
top, whose whirling motion resembles the giddiness produced on the
constitution by its poisonous juice. It is by most persons supposed to
be the death-drink of the Greeks, and the one by which Socrates was put
to death.

_Herb of Grace_ or _Herb Grace_. A popular name in days gone by for rue.
The origin of the term is uncertain. Most probably it arose from the
extreme bitterness of the plant, which, as it had always borne the name
_rue_ (to be sorry for anything), was not unnaturally associated with
repentance. It was, therefore, the herb of repentance,[507] "and this
was soon changed into 'herb of grace,' repenta