heiress of Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk, a son of King Edward I. Legendary origins According to a longstanding legend, the Black Prince obtained the badge from the blind King John of Bohemia, against whom he fought at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. After the battle, the prince is said to have gone to the body of the dead king, and taken his helmet with its ostrich feather crest, afterwards incorporating the feathers into his arms, and adopting King John's motto, "", as his own. The story first appears in writing in 1376, the year of the Black Prince's death. There is, however, no sound historical basis for it, and no evidence for King John having used either the motto or the crest (he actually bore a crest of vultures' wings). Nevertheless, King John was also Count of Luxembourg, whose badge was an ostrich feather as has been noted above. Therefore, the claim on the Black Prince’s tomb that he had adopted the badge to honour the dead king’s courage might well be true after all. Since a key factor in the English army's victory at Crécy was the use of Welsh archers, it is also sometimes said to have been Edward's pride in the men of Wales which led him to adopt a symbol alluding to their assistance. The Freemen of Llantrisant claim that it was their ancestors (the Black Army) who killed King John of Bohemia and captured his ostrich-feather emblem. The mediaeval German motto "" ("I serve") is a near-homophone for the Welsh phrase "" meaning "Your Man", which might have helped endear the young Black Prince to the Welsh soldiers in particular. Again, however, there is no historical evidence to support this theory. In 1917, during the First World War, it was rumoured that the motto might be formally changed to "Eich Dyn" to avoid the use of German. House of Lancaster John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, the Black Prince's second younger brother, used ostrich feathers in several contexts, including on a shield very similar to the Black Prince's "shield for peace", although in Gaunt's case the feathers were ermine. Single ostrich feather supporters were also used by John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset (1404-1444) (as shown in his Garter stall plate in St George's Chapel), the second son of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1371-1410), the eldest of the