Pictures of Heralds (and a Lot of Others)

August 3, 2015, 4:00 am

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Saw a series of photographs over the weekend, an exhibit called "The Queen's People," an exhibition of a series of photographs by Hugo Rittson Thomas, that was really petty cool.  Each subject, if you'll pardon the pun (or even if you won't!), including Her Majesty Elizabeth II, was photographed "in the round" in that you can see front, back, and both sides.  (It was all done with mirrors and careful placement of the lights.

The photographs of particular interest to heraldry enthusiasts are number 28, the Earl Marshal (who is the heralds'"boss"), number 29, Thomas Woodcock, Garter Principal King of Arms, in full uniform and tabard, with baton (below) (the captioning has some pretty gross errors.  The photograph below was captioned "Gater King," which makes him sound like the ruler of a Louisiana swamp!  Though, of course, that would be "Gator King"), and number 26, Michael O'Donoghue, York Herald.

You can find the entire series on-line on the website of The Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/royalty/11778089/The-Queens-People-New-exhibition-by-photographer-Hugo-Rittson-Thomas.html and a smaller selection (but with fewer errors in the captions!) at the website of The Guardian at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2015/aug/02/the-queens-people-portraits-by-hugo-rittson-thomas-in-pictures

Don't forget to look at all of the photographs there; it's a great series, and you really get to see a lot of the people who work for the Queen in one capacity or another.

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You've (Sometimes) Got to Love Modern Technology!

August 6, 2015, 4:00 am

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So I was continuing my reading in Heralds and Heraldry in Shakespeare’s England, ed. by Nigel Ramsay (for more information on this book, see my post of December 25, 2014 at http://blog.appletonstudios.com/2014/12/merry-christmas-to-me.html), specifically Chapter 12,  ‘Heraldry and Alternate Emblematic Forms in the Age of Shakespeare’, by Alan R. Young.  It's an interesting article, and speaks a little about badges and more about impresse, emblems or devices which were adopted and used somewhat coats of arms, but rather than being hereditary were often devised for a specific event.

The article has numerous footnotes, and I thought to myself, "Some of those books sound interesting!  I wonder if I can find any of them scanned and uploaded on the internet?"  Well, I looked, and now my reading list has increased by a fair bit.  How cool is that?  We live in an age where you can see a book referenced in an article, go on-line, and find and download that book to your computer or electronic reader, all from the comfort of your own home/desk/couch.  Sometimes, you've just got to love all this modern technology!

Since I believe that I might not be the only person interested in acquiring digital copies of these books, I share here with you their titles and the links where I found them, and from where you can read  and/or download them yourselves in a number of digital formats.

Enjoy!

The Art of Making Devises by Henry Estienne, translated into English by Thomas Blount, 1646 (the link is to the 1648 edition)

https://archive.org/details/artofmakingdevis00estie

Historic Devices, Badges, and War-criesby Mrs. Bury Palliser, 1820 (link is to the 1870 edition)

https://archive.org/details/cu31924029796939

Minerva Britanna by Henry Peacham, 1612

https://archive.org/details/minervabritannao00peac

Heraldic Badges by A.C. Fox-Davies, 1907

https://archive.org/details/heraldicbadges00foxdrich

Devises Héroiques by Claude Paradin, 1557 (link is to the 1614 edition)

https://archive.org/details/devisesheroiques01para

Dialogo dell’imprese militari et amorose by Paolo Giovio, 1555 (link to the 1574 edition)

https://archive.org/details/dialogodellimpr00giov

The Wrong Heraldry Can Be Deadly

August 10, 2015, 4:00 am

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In certain times and places, at least, bearing a particular coat of arms could kill you.  No, really!

As explained in the article "Artificial Arms" by David Gelber of The Time Literary Supplement:

On January 13, 1547, as Henry VIII lay close to death, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was brought to the Guildhall and arraigned for treason. His offence: the misappropriation of the arms of Edward the Confessor, with the intent of disrupting the succession and depriving the King's son and lawful heir of the throne. It mattered little that the arms the nobleman stood accused of usurping were a fifteenth-century fabrication (it was only a hundred years after the sainted King's death that the first examples of heraldry appeared). The discovery in the earl's house at Kenninghall of escutcheons of the Confessor's apocryphal arms provided the cabal led by Thomas and Edward Seymour, uncles to the future Edward VI, with the evidence it needed to eliminate a putative enemy. Surrey himself conspired in the fiction that fixed his doom. Far from protesting that the arms were merely a chronicler's invention, he insisted on his family's immortal right to them by gift of King Edward [the Confessor, not Edward Tudor, soon to be Edward VI] himself. These arguments made little impression. A common jury, swayed by the insistence of - among others - Edward Barker, Garter King of Arms, that Surrey had no claim to the arms in question, found him guilty of treason. Six days later he was beheaded.

So be very careful about which emblems you display on your coat of arms if the current monarch is a bit paranoid about his status because he's only the second generation of his family to sit on the throne, and has a tendency to overreact to any threats, real or only perceived, to that status.  You have been warned!

The rest of this very readable article describes in narrative form many of the chapters by different authors in the book I spoke of once again in my last post, Heralds and Heraldry in Shakespeare's England, edited by Nigel Ramsay.

The entire article is well worth the read, and if it piques your interest sufficiently to go out and obtain a copy of the full book yourself, well, then, my work here is done.

Mr. Gelber's article can be found on the website of The Times Literary Supplement at http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1509415.ece

Royal Worcester Heraldry

August 13, 2015, 4:00 am

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The article itself doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with heraldry; it's about the 200-plus year old diary of one of the founders of Royal Worcester porcelain, John Flight, and how it details how he went to France following the revolution there in 1789 to spy upon French porcelain makers and steal their secrets.

Heady stuff, historically interesting, but not really heraldry, right?

But if you scroll down to near the bottom of the article, they have a picture of a piece from a breakfast set made by Royal Worcester in 1804 for then-Baron (Horatio) Nelson of the Nile, with his doubly-augmented coat of arms on it (along with his two crests).

If you are interested, this old (2012) article, "Diary of Royal Worcesters porcelain maker details how he STOLE trade secrets from French potters after Revolution," can be found on the website of the Daily Mail at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178330/Royal-Worcester-porcelain-Remarkable-diary-porcelain-maker-1791-details-stole-trade-secrets.html#ixzz3i83vlVYY

And on that note, I will leave you with one of my favorite heraldic poems, from C.W. Scott-Giles' volume Motley Heraldry, with his take on the Nelson arms:

These arms the Nelsons bore in days of old:

A black cross flory on a shield of gold,

And over all a bendlet gules, to show

Due difference from Samson and Lamplow.

When one Horatio Nelson rose to fame,

With ‘Sir’ and ‘K.B.’ bracketing his name,

The Kings of Arms his scutcheon did resplend

With three exploding bombs upon the bend.

Later, they gave Lord Nelson of the Nile

An augmentation in a lavish style –

A ship disabled and a fort destroyed

(Which probably the Baron much enjoyed.)

When Viscount Nelson of the Nile at last

Beyond the reach of earthly honours passed,

His brother (made an Earl), the heralds gave

The golden word TRAFALGAR on a wave.

The shield is a fine biographic gloss,

But where, alas! is Nelson’s ancient cross?

A New Heraldic Acquisition

August 17, 2015, 4:00 am

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I've been collecting clothing with coats of arms on it -- tshirts, baseball caps, ties -- for quite some time now. And I've shared a number of these items with you over the years.  And, of course, I'm always on the lookout for new items to add to these collections.

But this latest acquisition is a new one for me; it's a regular, long-sleeved, button-down shirt, not a tshirt.  And it's absolutely, literally covered with coats of arms.

I'd seen, and purchased, it on-line last week, and it arrived on Saturday.  Imagine my happiness at opening the package and unfolding this!

Isn't it great!  (But I think that if I'm going to ever wear it with a tie, I'll have to go out a buy a plain one; all of the ties I already own have too much of a pattern to go well with a shirt like this!)

I can hardly wait to make an opportunity to wear it.

I've got another heraldic shirt purchased and on its way.  I'll be sure to share it when it arrives, too.

Another Heraldic Find

August 20, 2015, 4:00 am

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Once again, I don't even have to go looking for it to run across heraldry, even here in what you might think at first blush is an heraldic desert.  Or, more specifically, Fort Worth, Texas.

I was attending and participating in a commemorative ceremony for a former Civil War soldier over in Fort Worth the other day, and as I pulled up behind a pickup truck parked on the street in front of Pioneers Rest Cemetery where he is buried, I saw this in the back window:

I'm not certain what it represents; I think it may be related to a specific Boy Scout troop, or perhaps a recreationist organization. (The owner of the truck is involved with both.)

Still, it just goes to show that sometimes, you just can't help practically tripping over heraldry (of one sort or another) wherever you go, no matter whether you're looking for it or not!

As Promised, My _Other_ Recent Heraldic Acquisition

August 24, 2015, 4:00 am

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As I said last week when talking about my new acquisition of an heraldic shirt, I had another one on the way, and it has arrived!

As you can see, it's not crammed full of shields like the last one, and here most of the heraldry appears to be made up (several of the shields have the letters "TH" on them, presumably for the manufacturer, Tommy Hilfiger), but still, I think it's going to be a fun shirt to wear in the fall for cooler weather.

And in the time since I ordered these first two shirts, I've found yet another shirt with heraldry all over it, this time with what appear to be British arms with coronets of rank (I've spotted the coronets of both barons and viscounts in looking at the pictures of it), crests, and supporters.  I'll let you know all about it after it arrives (sometime this week, I think!).

If the pattern of shields doesn't repeat itself too closely, it's possible that I could even give a short talk on the identification of the coats of arms on it, to include a brief discussion of the owners of each coat.  (As was suggested one time that I could do with one of my heraldic ties.)

I'll let you know when it gets here!

And the Third (and Last, I Promise!) Heraldic Shirt

August 27, 2015, 4:00 am

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Well, my third (and last, at least for a while) shirt with heraldry has arrived, and it's a humdinger, if I do say so myself, with coronets, and crests, and supporters (oh, my!).

As I said before, at first glance many of the coats of arms appear to be British, although I've already noticed a few where the colors may not be accurate.  For example, the blue bend on the red field in the pictures below.  You can be sure that I'll be trying to track some of these down as soon as I get the time, just to see how real, or not, they are.  I'll let you know my findings when that happens.

Still and all, it's a nice heraldic shirt, and I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to wear it somewhere appropriate.

This will, however, be the last post for some time about the heraldry-related items that I've bought.  I promise!  (The truth is, I don't think I can afford to buy any more for a while; the budget won't stand it.)

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Movie Clip About the U.S. Army's Institute of Heraldry

August 31, 2015, 4:00 am

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Ran across an old (1969, but I can't tell you how much it hurts me personally to say that something from 1969 is "old", given that I was in college at that time) YouTube movie clip (8 minutes) giving a bit of the history and work of the U.S. Army's Institute of Heraldry the other day.  Being that old, it's a bit dated, of course; for one thing, the TIoH is now based in Fort Belvoir, Virginia (still just a little outside of Washington, DC), and a lot less of their current work is related to the conflict the U.S. was then fighting in the former country of South Vietnam.

Anyway, I found the whole thing to be interesting, with a fair bit of heraldry and a good bit of the story of the Institute itself.

You can watch the clip on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK9s9R3x6Fk&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy!

Some Results of Research on Arms on Heraldic Shirt

September 3, 2015, 4:00 am

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Well, I've had the time to do some research on the latest of my heraldic shirt acquisitions.

The results were surprisingly better than I had expected.  But, to report things in order:

All of the coronets on these arms were that of an English earl.  No dukes, no marquesses, no viscounts, no barons.  My immediate thought was that they were probably spurious.

The coats of arms themselves are not really, as I had initially suspected, entirely bogus.  They do appear to be examples of actual arms, though in many cases the tinctures are changed (for example, one of the coats, labeled Landaff, would be blazoned Gules a lion rampant sable; a search on the internet for the Welsh motto with it came up with a coat of arms for Williams, Sable a lion rampant sable), and the text underneath them appears to refer to a place rather than the surname of the armiger.  And, of course, the coronet and supporters in many cases are inappropriate to the rank of the armiger.  Still, there was success in tracking some of them down.  To keep from boring you too much, I will give only a couple more examples.

One of the coats, labeled with what looks like the name Dabon or Badon, would be blazoned Argent on a bend azure three escallops argent.  (Well, except for a few places on the shirt, where the field was Gules, leading initially to some confusion on my part.  You can see both versions on the picture of the shirt above, one just below the collar buttonhole, and the other on the collar above and to the right.)  I could not find that name in Burke's General Armory.  The motto with the arms on the shirt, Virtus probata florebit(Proved virtue will flourish), was identified by Fairbairn's Crests as that of Bernard and Bernard-Beamish.  Looking up Bernard in Burke's, I found "Bernard (Earl of Bandon). Ar[gent] on a bend az[ure] three escallops of the field.  Crest - A demi lion ar[gent] holding a snake p[ro]p[e]r.  Supporters - Dexter, a stag; sinister, an unicorn, both ar[gent] each ducally gorged and chained or. Motto - Virtus probata florebit."  On the shirt the unicorn is lacking its horn (though it has its horn in the color on color depiction), and the stag is proper, or brown, but everything else matches up.

In another case, the arms on the shirt labeled Donoughnare or Donoughnore (as near as I can make out the small script), which I would blazon as Per pale gules and azure, a lion rampant argent within an orle of eight crosses (crosslet/bottony) or, I recognized from my earlier work on The Gore Roll (http://www.appletonstudios.com/Congress2004DBA.pdf) as the arms of Hutchinson, Per pale gules and azure a lion argent within an orle of ten crosses crosslet or.

And sure enough, the arms appear in Burke under Hutchinson as Per pale gules and azure a lion rampant argent between eight crosses crosslet or.  (The number of crosses around the lion varies a bit; the seal used by the Hutchinsons in 18th Century Boston has only seven crosses crosslet around the lion.)  The crest on the arms on the shirt and on the Hutchinson arms is a cockatrice.  The supporters on the shirt (which do not appear on the Hutchinson arms in any other source) are a pair of cockatrices.

The motto with the arms on the shirt, Fortiter gerit crucem (He bears the cross bravely) is that of Allan of Blackwell Grange per Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, while Fairbairn ascribes it to: Allan, Hely-Hutchinson, Hutchinson, Lawrence, M'Hutcheon, and Trittou.

So, despite the attribution on the shirt, and the addition of the coronet and supporters, the coat of arms itself, with the crest and motto, would pretty clearly belong to Hutchinson.

Not huge results for an hour or so of poring through the reference books (and pulling out the magnifying glass to try to read the names and mottos on the shirt; apparently my eyes aren't any younger than the rest of me!), but still an interesting search on this new heraldic acquisition.

The Next Time You Visit France

September 7, 2015, 4:00 am

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Something to keep in mind the next time you go to visit France -- I ran across an article about a Museum of Heraldry in the little town of St-Jean-de-Valériscle, NNW of Nimes (from whence comes our "denim," or "serge de Nimes") and NW of Avignon.

Regis Germain has created a collection of 1,200 depictions of coats of arms for the Museum, which is open to the public Sunday through Thursday of each week, with guided tours several times each of those days.

So if you are ever in the area, you might decide to stop by and take a look at the massive displays of heraldry there.

You can find an article (in French) about the Museum of Heraldry and a bit of its history on the website of Midi Libre at http://www.midilibre.fr/2015/08/03/le-musee-des-blasons-unique-en-france-est-installe-a-st-jean-de-valeriscle,1198480.php

Heraldic Shields Created by Boy Scouts

September 10, 2015, 4:00 am

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A nicely-illustrated article from last Sunday, September 6, on the website of East Grinstead Online discusses the carved and painted shields on the pew ends at St. Swithun's Church there.

According to the article, a 1946 Guide to St. Swithun's says: "Shields of old-time Sussex families, carved by East Grinstead Boy Scouts, are fixed to the pew ends." The 1975 Guide adds that the shields were the work of the Boy Scouts in the 1930s under Dr. Spencer Lewis Walker.

Dr. Walker was a local GP who began his practice in East Grinstead in 1910 and became the Scoutmaster of the newly-formed Boy Scouts until 1947.  He died in 1967 at the age of 89.

The article goes on to discuss some of the rules of heraldry, and a little more about the history of the shields in St. Swithun's.

You can see the whole article, with additional photographs, on the website of East Grinstead Online at http://bluebelldigital.co.uk/eastgrinsteadonline/2015/09/06/history-boy-scouts-heraldry-shields-at-st-swithuns/

What a great way to commemorate the local armigerous families there!

Nice Trip, If You Can Afford It

September 14, 2015, 4:00 am

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The headline reads:

Custom-made Christian Louboutin shoes, a coat of arms and a giant doll's house modelled after your own home: The outrageous gifts on a £163,000 'bespoke-your-life tour' of Europe

VeryFirstTo.com and Hurlington Travel are offering a first of its kind "bespoke your life" eighteen night tour of eight major European cities, with some seriously top of the line offerings, for one lucky couple who can afford the trip.

The one stop in all of their offerings that caught my eye, of course, was "In London, the couple will stay at The Savoy and visit the Earl Marshal’s Court to apply for the design and creation of their own coat of arms."

Mind you, if you don't want to do the whole trip, the College of Arms will grant an individual coat of arms for only £5,550 (or, I suspect, £11,100 for a couple), which is a lot less than the £163,000 (US$250,000) for the whole trip.  But then, of course, you'd be missing out on such things as the luxury accommodations, the one-of-a-kind gown by Givenchy, and the doll house based on your own home.

If you think that you'd like to learn more about this "bespoke your life" trip before just rushing out willy-nilly to sign up for it, you can read the article about it on the Travel News page of DailyMail.com at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3219412/Hurlingham-Travel-launches-bespoke-life-tour-Europe.html

But don't say I didn't warn you about the price!

A Newly-Added Section of Links

September 17, 2015, 4:00 am

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In an effort to keep this blog as a hopefully relevant resource for heraldry enthusiasts, and seeing the tremendous response to a recent post about an old movie clip of the College of Arms, I have added a new section to the Links down the left-hand side of the blog page, entitled "Movie Clips About Heraldry."

At this point, they're all YouTube clips of varying length (the longest one is over half an hour, but most of them are between three and six minutes long) having to do with one or another aspect (or sometimes, several aspects) of heraldry.  Some feature acknowledged experts in the field (one is bits of a longer interview with Peter O'Donoghue when he was Bluemantle Pursuivant at the College of Arms; he has since become York Herald there), while others are done by enthusiastic amateurs. In any case, the ones I have added to this section are among the best that I have found to date.  (There were some that I thought not good enough to include.)  As I run across more, I will add them to this set of links. And, of course, if you know of a particularly good one that's available on-line, let me know and I will include it as well.

I hope that you find this set of links to movie clips about heraldry to be useful!

What Is It With Davids and Heraldry?

September 21, 2015, 4:00 am

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Is there something about the genetic makeup of people named David that brings them to an interest in heraldry?  Is there something about being named David that causes one to develop a liking for coats of arms?

Those are probably questions without any real answers, except maybe "no." I don't know of anything about people whose given name is David which would lead them into this somewhat arcane field as an interest.

What brought on this particular musing was a recent (September 16, 2015) article on myKawartha.com about Peterborough, Ontario, Canada resident David Rumball.  I know David from his membership and participation in the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, of which I am also a member.  However, I don't happen to live in Canada, so he gets to be a lot more active in the Society than I do.  Indeed, he just stepped down this year after a two-year tenure as the RHSC President.

I especially remember one of the annual RHSC meetings which I attended where Mr. Rumball, David Cvet (another past RHSC President) and I billed ourselves as "The Three Davids." Ah, good times!

Anyway, it's a really nice article about a really great guy who just happens to share a given name and an interest in heraldry with little ol' me.  (That's a picture of him with the grant of his coat of arms from the Canadian Heraldic Authority above.)  If you'd like to know more about David Rumball, you can read the entire biographical article at http://www.mykawartha.com/news-story/5841677-peterbio-david-rumball/

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Some (More) Nice Armorial Silver

September 24, 2015, 4:00 am

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This time its a pair of George III ambassadorial silver plates, hallmarked 1813 by silversmith Paul Storr for Charles William Stewart, 1st Baron Stewart.

The plates are engraved with the Royal arms ...

and the arms of Lord Stewart ...

and were created on the occasion of his appointment as ambassador at Vienna on August 27, 1814.  The blazon for this Quarterly: 1st and 4th, Or a bend compony argent and azure between two lions rampant gules (Stewart); 2nd and 3rd, Azure [though the hatching appears to show gules] a saltire argent (Scotland), overall in fess point a crescent for difference. 

You can learn more about both this fine pair of plates and their owner Lord Stewart (later Lord Vane; he changed his name by Royal License following his marriage to his second wife, Frances Vane-Tempest, in order to secure her inheritance), along with a formal portrait of the man known by his admirers as "Fighting Charlie" and by his detractors as the "Golden Peacock," on the myfamilysilver blog at http://www.myfamilysilver.com/blog/index.php/2015/07/ambassadorial-silver-for-the-golden-peacock-charles-stewart-lord-stewart-3rd-marquess-of-londonderry-1778-1854/#.VaOJJ_lVhBc

And, of course, if you would like to own these plates yourself (they're listed at a mere £5,500), you can find more information, and add them to your cart, at http://www.myfamilysilver.com/mp/item/21819/a-fine-pair-of-george-iii-ambassadorial-silver-plates

A (Heraldically-Related) Tempest in Hong Kong

September 28, 2015, 4:00 am

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There is apparently a crisis of academic freedom at Hong Kong University.  In a recent (September 25, 2015) article about this crisis on the website of Hong Kong Free Press, writer Alvin Y.H. Cheung talks about what the University should stand for, and alludes to HKU's coat of arms to help make his point.

As he notes, "HKU's coat of arms - like all heraldry - is laden with symbolism." He then discusses the shield, its colors and charges, and then its mottos (one on the shield in Chinese, the other on the ribbon below the shield in Latin), supporters, and crest, all as pointing to a fusion of East and West.

I find that his next to last paragraph is especially strong:

Perhaps the most important lesson to take from HKU's heraldry is that it represents a connection to university values and a wider tradition of learning. The very idea of a university - a self-governing body of teachers and students - shares its origins with heraldry, in Medieval Europe. The current debate over HKU's institutional autonomy - and the increasingly-overt signs of political interference with the process of appointments - represents a direct attack on all of the values embodied in the university coat of arms.

All in all, it's an interesting article, bringing to a 21st Century discussion of academic freedom an appreciation of a centuries old Western heraldic tradition and how the latter may apply to the former.

You can read the entire article on-line at https://www.hongkongfp.com/2015/09/25/the-university-of-hong-kongs-academic-crisis-a-blot-on-its-coat-of-arms/

Another Academic Coat of Arms from Hong Kong

October 1, 2015, 4:00 am

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While I was searching on-line for a picture of the full coat of arms of Hong Kong University for the last post, I ran across this interesting shield:

It's the coat of arms/logo of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

I find that in some respects it reminds me of some of the arms granted by the Canadian Heraldic Authority to members of First Peoples tribes and people of Far Eastern ancestry living in Canada.

Anyway, I found it intriguing enough that I felt I just had to share it with you all.

Enjoy!

And That Goes for the Coat of Arms, Too!

October 5, 2015, 4:00 am

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I ran across this the other day, and just couldn't resist sharing it with all of you.

(You're welcome.  I'll see myself out now.)

I Found a "Two-Fer"

October 8, 2015, 4:00 am

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Well, that's what they call 'em down here in Texas.  A "two-fer" is when you find "two things for the price of one." Even when, in this case, the "price" was "free."

Driving home from work the other day, I ended up behind a Cadillac (the upper of the two coats of arms in the picture below, a simplified version of the arms of Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, who helped found the city of Detroit, Michigan) which had a specialty license plate which bore the arms of the sorority Delta Sigma Theta.

And here's a clearer version of the sorority's arms (taking a photograph with a phone camera through the front windshield while stopped a traffic light is not the most ideal of conditions):

Anyway, I thought it was kind of cool.  I'd never seen the Delta Sigma Theta insignia before, and in conjunction with the Cadillac logo/arms, I just couldn't resist trying to get a shot and sharing it with you.

It was a two-fer.