The White Hart ("hart" is an archaic word for a mature stag) was the personal emblem and livery of Richard II, who derived it from the arms of his mother, Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent", heiress of Edmund of Woodstock. In the Wilton Diptych (National Gallery, London), which is the earliest authentic contemporary portrait of an English king, Richard II wears a gold and enamelled white hart jewel, and even the angels surrounding the Virgin Mary all wear white hart badges. In English Folklore, the White Hart is associated with Herne the Hunter.
There are still many inns and pubs in England that sport a sign of the White Hart, the fifth most popular name for a pub.
Arthur C. Clarke wrote a collection of science fictional tall tales under the title of Tales from the White Hart, which used as a framing device the conceit that the tales were told during drinking sessions in a pub named the White Hart that existed somewhere between Fleet Street and the Embankment. This pub was fictional, but was based on a real pub named the White Horse where the science fiction community of London met in the 1940s and 1950s.
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or hart:
“With sweetest milk, and sugar, first
I it as mine own fingers nurst.
And as it grew, so every day
It wax’d more white and sweet than they.
It had so sweet a Breath!”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
“Come, ye Sinners, poor and wretched,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore.
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of Pity join’d with Pow’r.
He is able, he is able, he is able;
He is willing: doubt no more.”
—Joseph Hart (1712–1768)