of the unicorn’s horn against poison, which in England remained even in the time of Charles II., though Sir E. Ray Lankester (Science from an Easy Chair, London, 1910, p. 127) mentions that a cup made of rhinoceros horn was then handed over to the Royal Society for experiment, with the result of entirely disproving the superstition. In the court ceremonial of France as late as 1789 instruments of “unicorn’s” horn were still used for testing the royal food for poison. So-called unicorns’ horns, or articles made of unicorn’s horn, have always been sought after as “curiosities”; some of them, like the cup mentioned above, were of rhinoceros horn; others, like the horn seen at Windsor by Heutzner, a German traveller, in 1598 (see E. Phipson, Animal-lore of Shakespeare’s Time, p. 456), were probably narwhals’ tusks. Another medieval legend about the unicorn is that when it stooped to drink from a pool its horn, dipping into the water, purified and rendered it sweet. The traditional rivalry of the lion and the unicorn, which is generally considered to date at earliest from the Union of England and Scotland, when the lion and the unicorn appeared as the supporters of the royal arms, is referred to, curiously enough, in Spenser’s Faery Queene, ii. 5.
In heraldry the unicorn was sometimes used as a device (see Heraldry, where two English families are enumerated who used the unicorn on their arms), but more frequently as a supporter, and subsists to the present day as the left-hand supporter of the royal arms. This position it assumed at the Union, the Scottish royal arms having previously been supported by two unicorns. The origin of these is uncertain. The unicorn first appears (c. 1480), as a single supporter, on two gold coins of James III. of Scotland, hence known as “unicorns” and “half-unicorns” (see Lindsay, Coinage of Scotland, pp. 135-137 and plate xiii. figs. 22-27). It is represented in a sitting posture, having round its neck a crown, to which is attached a chain and ring, and holding the shield between its front feet. Seton (Law and Practice of Heraldry in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1863, p. 274, foot-note) suggests that the unicorn as a supporter may have been introduced into Scotland by the marriage of James I. with Jane Beaufort, the Beauforts as dukes of Somerset having used it as such.[1] However this may be, the unicorn became established by the end of the 15th century. J. A. Smith in “Notes on Melrose Abbey” (Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, ii. 257) describes a table dated 1505 on which are sculptured the royal arms supported by two unicorns. The royal arms are also supported by unicorns on the Great Seals of Scotland from the time of Queen Mary onwards (see Anderson, Diplomata Scotiae, plate lxxxviii. xc. xci.) At the Union, when the unicorn became a supporter of the royal arms both of England and Scotland, a royal crown was added on the head of the unicorn, in addition to the crown with chain and ring round its neck (see Great Seal of James I. and VI. in Anderson, pl. xciii.), but this crown was removed after the Hanoverian succession. In England after the Union the unicorn became the left-hand supporter, but in Scotland, as late as 1766, it was still put on the right (Seton, p. 442), and Scotland displayed great reluctance to alter this, or to remove the crown from the head of the unicorn. Seton tells us how in 1853 a petition was made in favour, among other things, of retaining the crown on the unicorn, but without success. The rule, however, that the unicorn is to be the left-hand supporter, uncrowned, is still sometimes ignored, and Seton states (1863) that in the case of seals, such as that of the Board of Manufactures, which bear the Scottish arms alone, the two unicorns are still kept as supporters.
Authorities.—There are many treatises on the unicorn and other fabulous beasts, from the 16th century onwards. Of these, good bibliographies are given by Drexler, s.v. Monokeros, in Roscher’s Lexicon, and by Rev. W. Haughton in Annals and Magazine of Natural History for 1862, p. 363, “On the Unicorn of the Ancients.” (C. B. P.)
UNIFORMS. The word “uniform” (Lat. unus, one, and
forma, form), meaning adjectively homogeneous, is specifically
used as a substantive for the distinctive naval and military
dress, which serves, in its various styles, to give homogeneity
to the several services, regiments and ranks. Although in
ancient history we occasionally meet with uniformed soldiers,
such as the white and crimson Spanish regiments of Hannibal,
it was not until the beginning of large standing armies that
uniforms were introduced in modern times. Before this, armed
bodies were of two sorts, retainers and mercenaries, and while
the former often wore their master’s livery, the latter were
dressed each according to his own taste or means. The absence
of uniforms accounts very largely for the significance attached
to the colours and standards, which alone formed rallying points
for the soldier and his comrades, and thus acquired the sacred
character which they have since possessed. A man who left
the colours wandered into the terrifying unknown, for there was
nothing to distinguish friend and foe. Even if the generals
had ordered the men to wear some improvised badge such as a
sprig of leaves, or the shirt outside the coat, such badges as
these were easily lost or taken off. The next step in advance
was a scarf of uniform colour, such as it is supposed was worn
by the “green,” “yellow” and other similarly-named brigades
of the Swedish army under Gustavus Adolphus. This too was
easily removed, as in the example of the squire who at Edgehill
put on the orange scarf of the parliamentarians and with no
more elaborate disguise succeeded in recapturing the lost royal
standard from the hands of Essex’s own secretary. By this
time, in France at least, the general character of the clothes and
accoutrements to be worn on various occasions was strictly
regulated by orders. But uniformity of clothing was not to be
expected so long as the “enlistment” system prevailed and
soldiers came and went, were taken in and dismissed, at the
beginning and 'end of every campaign. The beginnings of
uniform are therefore to be found in truly national armies, in
the Indelta of Gustavus, and the English armies of the Great
Rebellion. In the earlier years of the latter, though the richer
colonels uniformed their men (as, for instance, the marquess of
Newcastle’s “Whitecoats” and the king’s own “Bluecoats”),
the rustics and the citizens turned out for war in their ordinary
rough clothes, donning armour and sword-belt. But in 1645
the parliament raised an army “all its own” for permanent
service, and the colonels became officials rather than proprietors.
The “new model” was clothed in the civilian
costume of the date—ample coat, waistcoat, breeches, stockings
and shoes (in the case of cavalry, boots)—but with the distinctive
colour throughout the army of red and with regimental
facings of various colours. The breeches were grey. Soon afterwards
the helmet disappeared, and its place was taken by a
grey broad-brimmed hat. From the coat was evolved the tunic
of to-day, and the hat became the cocked hat of a later generation,
which has never altogether disappeared, and has indeed
reverted to its original form in the now familiar “slouch-hat.”
For service in Ireland the red coat was exchanged for one of russet colour, just as scarlet gave way to khaki for Indian service in the 19th century. The cavalry, however, wore buff leather coats and armour long after the infantry had abandoned them; the Austrians (see Plate I., line 1, No. 2), on account of their Turkish wars, retained them longer than any.
Thus the principle ever since followed—uniform coat and variegated facings—was established. Little or nothing of sentiment led to this. By choice or convenience the majority of the corps out of which the new model was formed had come to be dressed in red, with facings according to the colonel’s taste, and it is a curious fact that in Austria sixty years afterwards events took the same course. The colonels there uniforming their men as they saw fit, had by tacit consent, probably to obtain “wholesale” prices, agreed upon a serviceable colour (pearl grey), and when in 1707 Prince Eugene procured the issue of uniform regulations, few line regiments had to be reclothed. The preferences of the colonel were exhibited in the colour of the facings (Plate I., line 1, fig. 3). In France, as in England and Austria, the cavalry, as yet rather led by the wealthy classes than officered by the professional, was not uniformed upon an army system until after the infantry. But in 1688 six-sevenths of the French cavalry was uniformed in light grey with red facings; and about half the dragoon regiments had red uniforms and blue facings. Louvois, in creating a standing army, had introduced an infantry uniform as a necessary consequence. The native French regiments had light grey coats, the Swiss red, the German black and the Italian blue, with various facings. The French grey was probably decided upon, like the Austrian grey, as being a good “service” colour, which could be cheaply manufactured (Plate I.,
- ↑ Willement, Regal Heraldry, p. 70, says that it was also so used by Anne Boleyn and by the earls of Hertford.
