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Stories About Flags, Continued, and Description of An: Davenports

Sometimes the crests bestowed were not so satisfactory to the gentle spirits of the owners. This, alas! is said to be the case with that borne by the Davenports. The members of this family in Cheshire are about as numerous as the Smiths are in America, and the laughing boys of this county, perched on the fence-posts, or loitering on the corners of the streets, delight, as they see one of the well known family approaching, to sing aloud as they prepare to vanish into secure remoteness, — "There are as many Leighs as fleas, And Davenports as dog's legs."

The cross fitchée on their shield is an evidence of the family having been in some way connected with the Crusades, and the best friends of the family declare that the crest represents the head of a vile infidel Saracen, who was captured by some noble but forgotten ancestor, and for his black crimes was put to death halter-fashion. But others, who probably are the basest of enemies, assure us that, whatever relation the crosses fitchées have with the Holy Wars, the crest alludes to no such noble origin. Quite the contrary; for it was placed, amid tears and groans, upon the family escutcheon during the Wars of the Roses, when the axe or the rope was the means resorted to for sending a captured enemy to the Better Land. One of the Davenports, during some unlucky skirmish, was carried a prisoner into the enemy's camp, and doomed by his stern conqueror to be hanged on the nearest greenwood tree. Just as the noose was being adjusted, the inventive mind of the victorious captor suggested a better punishment, and with an evil smile he bade the executioners pause. He then told the trembling, half-dead Davenport that he should have his life given him, - death need not be his portion, and that, too, without a penny of ransom being extorted; he need only promise to place the effigy of his own ropeencircled head above the family shield, and to swear, by all that was good and holy, that to the latest generation this crest should be worn by his posterity.

STORIES ABOUT FLAGS AND CRESTS.