Heraldry

If you are going to try to impress people by displaying your arms all over your house, on the walls and ceilings, there may be places where you just don't want everything to be quite so much in everyone's face.

In one of the upper rooms at Mount Stuart (a game room, really, for just relaxing) there was a set of wooden chairs along one wall that did not display the Crichton-Stuart coat of arms on them.

No, they just display a painted shield shape with the three crests used by the family underneath the coronet of a marquess.

The three crests (from left to right) are:

Stewart: A demi-lion rampant gules beneath the motto Nobilis ira (Noble ardour)

Crichton: A wyvern wings elevated and addorsed fire issuant from the mouth all proper

and Herbert: A wyvern wings addorsed vert in the mouth a sinister hand couped gules

Just the sort of heraldic display, really, that you could do in your own home, even if you weren't entitled to a coronet and/or had only one crest. Properly scaled and painted, it could make a nice, even slightly understated, exhibit.

It also wouldn't require obtaining a second mortgage on the house to pay for it.

Just a thought. Do with it what you will.

But I thought these chairs at Mount Stuart created a very pleasing heraldic atmosphere.

I know, right? There is just so very much heraldry to be seen at Mount Stuart that we're probably all getting a bit weary. At least, I know I am. You can only spend so much time looking at other people's stuff without it becoming a bit of a sensory overload.

But never fear! There's only a very few blog posts remaining for this wonderful, heraldry-filled, house, and we'll have to move along to something else.

In the meantime, though ...

Back on the ground floor in the rooms with those beautifully carved heraldic ceilings (https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2018/03/now-this-is-armorial-family-tree.html), the doorways had some more carved or cast coats of arms.

(You can see parts of those ceilings in the above picture.)

Supported by two nude figures with strategically place ribbons, and surmounted by the coronet of a marquess, we have on the left

the arms of Windsor, and on the right,

the arms of Stuart, both of which we have seen a number of times before in the house (e.g., https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2018/04/an-heraldic-chapel-ceiling.html).

The level of detail in these depictions is truly wonderful!

In my last post, I shared some pictures of a pair of shields over a doorway on the ground floor of Mount Stuart.

Today, we're looking at a similar pair of shields, with different arms on them, from a similar doorway (again, between rooms with that wonderful carved heraldic ceiling).

The arms here are proving a little tougher to track down, though they share the nude supporters and both are surmounted by the coronet of a marquess.

The shield on the left would be blazoned Argent a lion rampant sable armed and langued gules.

Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials notes over twenty families (and even more branches of families) bearing this coat of arms. Without finding someone with a distinct connection to the Crichton-Stuart family, it is difficult to narrow down the likely owner of this coat of arms.

The shield on the right would be blazoned Gules a lion rampant within a bordure or charged with eight roses gules barbed and seeded proper.

Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials gives this coat of arms as that of Dunbar, but as a quartering with Randoph. Burke's Peerage cites several Dunbar baronets, all of whom bear Dunbar quartered with Randolph (Or three cushions within a double tressure flory counter-flory gules), with various differences between them.

I am not finding any Dunbar family connections to the Crichton-Stuarts sitting here with Burke's Peerage cutting off the circulation in my lap. (Well, it is a large book, after all!)

I am unable at this time to give you a positive identification of the origins for either of the coats of arms depicted here. Clearly there is some relation to the Marquess of Bute; why else would they have been carved or molded onto the walls of his house? But without the who, I cannot even speculate as to the why.

Still, they remain fine examples of heraldic art at Mount Stuart.

Among the many heraldic stained glass windows to be seen at Mount Stuart was this pair of windows displaying some non-personal heraldry.

The window on the left displays a variant of the coat of arms of the Royal Burgh of Dumfries:

I say "a variant" since the depiction here leaves out the shield (Argent a cross gules) born by the Archangel, and shows him brandishing a staff to attack the dragon while his sword remains in its scabbard by his side. It has also changed (e.g., the placement of the sun and moon) or is missing (e.g., the cloud) a few other minor elements.

The blazon of the arms of Dumfries is as follows: Azure semy of estoiles or, standing on a cloud the figure of the Archangel Michael wings expanded brandishing in his dexter hand a sword over a dragon lying on its back in base with its tail nowed fessways all proper on his sinister arm an escutcheon argent charged with a cross gules, in dexter flank an increscent in the sinister flank the sun in his splendour of the second [or].

The arms in the window on the right are those of the Royal Burgh of Ayr:

This coat of arms is blazoned: Gules a castle triple-towered argent betwixt a Holy Lamb cross staff and banner of Saint Andrew on the dexter and on the sinister the head of John the Baptist in a charger proper, in the base the sea azure.

As happens fairly frequently in heraldry, the water here ("the sea azure") is portrayed barry wavy argent and azure instead of plain blue. (We see this in other depictions of the arms of Ayr, too.)

As with the other stained glass windows at Mount Stuart, heraldic and otherwise, the workmanship is first-rate. And it's nice to see some non-family heraldry displayed there.

Tucked away in Mount Stuart we ran across a couple of items decorated with some Jacobite heraldry: the arms of Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, the younger son of the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, and brother of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie".

The grandson of deposed King James II and VII, Henry Benedict Stuart was the fourth and final Jacobite heir to publicly claim the thrones of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland. Unlike his father and his brother, he made no effort to seize the throne. Following the death of his brother, the Papacy did not recognize him as the lawful ruler of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but referred to him as the Cardinal Duke of York. He had been named Duke of York while in his youth by his father, and held a number of offices in the Catholic church, including Archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica. For more specifics on these, and on his life in general, see the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Benedict_Stuart.

But more to the heraldic point here, during the pretense of his father and brother, he bore a coat of arms consisting of the Royal Arms of France and England quarterly, Scotland, and Ireland, differenced by a white crescent (the cadency mark of a second son).

Those arms were found in two places in Mount Stuart:

Prominently displayed on an old print:

And also on a (presumably, pewter; it doesn't look like silver to me) plate or charger, surmounted by an ecclesiastical galero. Nowadays, the heraldic convention is to use a galero with six tassels on each side (as on the plate below) for a bishop; one with ten tassels on each side for an archbishop; and one with fifteen tassels on each side for a cardinal.

You can click on the pictures to see the full-size images, which more clearly show the crescent in the center.

I found these items to be a fascinating display of heraldry in the context of history, encompassing the history of both Great Britain and of Mount Stuart.

I always think that the late J.P. Brooke-Little said it best, in the introduction to his An Heraldic Alphabet:

You can study heraldry until you are azure ... in the face but inevitably discover, from time to time, that you really are quite vert.... I have found this over and over again but, never forget, herein lies the fun and if heraldry ever ceases to be fun- chuck it.

It is a truism which I find myself reminded of from time to time, and just the other day was another one of those times.

I'm in the middle of completing a big project which I am doing in order to better do another big project. (More about that second project another time, perhaps.) This project involves compiling the blazons of coats of arms from Florence into a single, and thus for me more easily usable, document.

The sources I am using consist of a book of blazons of Florentine heraldry in English done about 1900, a photo-reproduction of an old Florentine armorial with no blazons, and a compilation of several Florentine armorials with the blazons done in French. So as you can see, a diverse set of books!

Copying the English blazons into my document was pretty easy; converting it to Word from .pdf and then cleaning up the formatting and the places where it didn't recognize, or misrecognized, a word was comparatively simple. I expect that between my familiarity with blazon terms in English and general familiarity with many French blazons, I shouldn't have too much difficulty in translating those blazons from French to English, with occasional resort to a French heraldic dictionary and my pocket French-English dictionary.

It's the other book, of pictures of the pages of an old Florentine armorial but without any blazons, that taught me once again that I still have so much to learn about heraldry. In the course of going through that armorial page by page, I ran across several coats of arms with a charge I do not recall ever having seen before. This charge:

"Well," I said to myself, "it's not a cog wheel, exactly. The center of the wheel is too small, and the 'cogs' are way too long and they flare out a bit at the ends. But what is it?"

I didn't really want to flip through the entire Italian dictionary of heraldry that I have in the hopes of eventually finding a drawing of this charge, or at least something very similar. But then I thought, "maybe these same arms appear somewhere in the French book of Florentine heraldry. I wonder how they are blazoned there."

So I starting searching the index for the names and then looking up the blazons of the arms, and found this charge blazoned as a roue déjantée, which the on-line Bing translator (the word déjantée doesn't appear in my French-English dictionary) translated into English as a “crazy wheel.” Looking up "wheel" in my English-Italian dictionary gave me the word ruota, and looking under ruota in my Italian heraldic dictionary finally allowed me to identify this charge. It is a ruota di mulino: “É la ruota a pale, che veniva un tempo utilizzata dai mulini ad acqua.” (Dizionario di Araldica, di Valfrei, p. 173) It is a mill wheel (not to be confused with a mill stone!): “It is the paddle wheel, which was used once by the water mills."

So there you have it! A not-terribly-long, but involved, search through a number of books in three different languages, and success! I now feel slightly more azure in the face, and a little less vert. But it is just this sort of thing that keeps heraldry fun for me!

How about you?

A couple of conversation threads on Facebook and a recent news article on the web have brought to my attention the fact that the Craigie Primary School in Perth, Scotland, has run afoul of the office of the Lord Lyon King of Arms for using an unregistered armorial device as their badge. Their badge came to the attention of Lyon after the school tried to design a wall mural.

Scotland, in case you didn't already know this, is pretty much the only country in the world with the legal "teeth" to enforce heraldic law. Which means he can require individuals and corporate entities displaying or using heraldic devices in Scotland to regularize them by registering them with his office, or demand that they cease such use and display. (I don't know that Lyon ever has, but he has the right to send people out to take down, mar, and/or deface any such displays which are not in conformance with the Lord Lyon King of Arms Act of 1672.)

In this specific instance, a spokeswoman for the Court of the Lord Lyon (presumably Snawdoun Herald Elizabeth Roads) said: “Every school badge has to be registered if it is heraldic. If they are not registered, the school or organisation must cease using them.”

Much of the discussion back and forth in comments on the news article and on the Facebook posts seems to center around: (1) whether the school's badge is "heraldic;" and (2) whether Lord Lyon should waive the registration fee for a primary school.

Let me address the second argument first.

The Lyon Court is a branch of the government; there may, in fact, be no provision for Lord Lyon to waive the fees (which go into the government treasury and are not earmarked for the use of the Lyon Court). So even if he wanted to waive the fee, he may not be able to, in this or any other instance.

For the first argument, that the school's badge isn't really heraldry, let's take a look at what they have been using.

Well, it's certainly not classic heraldry, is it? And it's not on any of the standard shield shapes.

The standard shield shape seems to be the underlying argument by those who think that Lord Lyon should let this badge slide. And yet ... A.C. Fox-Davies, in his A Complete Guide to Heraldry, notes that "Arms [may] be depicted upon a banner, a parallelogram, a square, a circle, or an oval; and even then one would be correct, for the purposes of armory, in describing such figures as shields on all occasions on which they are made the vehicles for the emblazonment of a design which properly and originally should be borne upon a shield. Let no one think that a design ceases to be a coat of arms if it is not displayed upon a shield."

He then notes that on the Royal Warrants of Queen Elizabeth I commanding the heralds' Visitations during her reign, that the King of Arms to whom the warrant was addressed was to “correct, cumptrolle and refourme all mann’ of armes, crests, cognizances and devices unlawfull or unlawfully usurped, borne or taken by any p’son or p’sons within the p’vince contary to the due order of the laws of armes, and the same to rev’se, put downe or otherwise deface at his discrecon as well in coote armors, helmes, standerd, pennons and hatchmets of tents and pavilions, as also in plate jewells, pap’, parchement, windowes, gravestones and monuments, or elsewhere wheresoev’ they be sett or placed, whether they be in shelde, schoocheon, lozenge, square, rundell or otherwise howsoev’ contarie to the autentiq’ and auncient lawes, customes, rules, privilege and orders of armes.” (emphasis added)

In short, the shape of the shield doesn't matter; if it looks like heraldry, and it's used like heraldry, well, then, it's heraldry.

In any event, you can see more about this controversy, some of the commentary, and how the school is dealing with it, on the web page of the Express at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/960312/primary-pupils-school-craigie-primary-school-crest-lord-lyon-battle; and at The Courier at; https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-kinross/655625/perth-pupils-told-to-raise-almost-2000-for-school-crest-following-legal-dispute/

Well, all of the discussion and waiting and arguing and hypothesizing is finally over. (Yes, I've pretty much stayed out of the discussion to this point. I knew that it was all in vain until the College of Arms did its work. That's why you've not seen any discussion of the possible coat of arms for Meghan Markle, the newly-married Duchess of Sussex.)

Kensington Palace announced this morning the new coat of arms which has been assigned to HRH the Duchess of Sussex.

Adopted: 25 May 2018

Coronet: Coronet of a child of the Heir Apparent

Escutcheon:
Quarterly 1st and 4th Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langed Azure (England), 2nd Or a lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure within a double tressure flory counterflory of the second (Scotland), 3rd Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (Ireland), the whole differenced differenced by a Label of five points Argent, the first, third and fifth points charged with an Escallop Gules (Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex); Impaled with a shield Azure a Feather bendwise Argent quilled between two Bendlets Or all between two like Feathers Argent quilled Or (Duchess of Sussex).

Supporters:
To the dexter the Lion as borne and used as a Supporter by the Duke of Sussex and to the sinister a Songbird Argent unguled and gorged with a Coronet of a grandson of the Sovereign. The songbird is white (argent) and and has about its neck (is gorged with) the Duke of Sussex's coronet. Both the claws and coronet are gold (Or).

Compartment:
Of grass proper growing therefrom golden poppies and wintersweet both flowering proper.

Symbolism:
The blue backgrounds of the shield represents the Pacific Ocean off the California coast, while the two golden rays across the shield are symbolic of the sunshine of The Duchess's home state. The three quills represent communication and the power of words. Beneath the shield on the grass sits a collection of golden poppies, California's state flower, and wintersweet, which grows at Kensington Palace. The songbird with wings elevated as if flying and an open beak, which with the quill represents the power of communication.

Mr. Thomas Woodcock, Garter King of Arms said: "The Duchess of Sussex took a great interest in the design. Good heraldic design is nearly always simple and the Arms of The Duchess of Sussex stand well beside the historic beauty of the quartered British Royal Arms."

You can see more at such sites as: https://www.royal.uk/her-royal-highness-duchess-sussex-coat-arms and https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pacific-ocean-features-in-new-royal-markles-coat-of-arms/ar-AAxNcZj?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz, among others.

Mount Stuart is a beautiful home on the Isle of Bute, but I have discovered that even just posting about the heraldry in it, as I have been doing these several weeks, can put my brain into the same kind of "heraldry overload" that I was in while on our tour of the house.

Is there more heraldry there that I have photographed and could research to tell you about? Yes. And i have the photographs to prove it.

But like I said, I'm into heraldry overload once again, and frankly, there's not a whole lot that you will have missed out on by my ending my posts about Mount Stuart here.

So for my final post about this house, I'll simply share the armorial stained glass windows in one of the main stairwells, containing a number of coats of arms that you've seen before in some of my earlier posts about the heraldry in Mount Stuart, and next time we'll move on to something else.

But I must say before I do: Wouldn't you love to have some windows like these in your own homes to help light your way up and down the stairs?

Following our visit to the Isle of Bute on the final day of our three-day heraldic tour around Glasgow and environs, we stopped for a final dinner in Greenock, Scotland.

As the bus pulled up to the small restaurant, I saw a house a few doors down with some heraldry on its facade. So naturally, while everyone else was getting off the bus and walking to the restaurant, I trotted down the street to grab a couple of quick photographs before joining them.

This photograph was taken from across the street, and gives you an overview of the view I had from the bus as we were pulling up.

The arms over the doorway are fairly complex: six quarters, with the second one being grand-quartered, with two crests and two mottoes. (You can click on the picture above to see a larger image that shows these arms in greater detail.)

My rough blazon of the arms, based on the visible hatching, is: Quarterly of six: 1, Or a fess checky azure and or overall a lion rampant [Stewart]; 2, Quarterly, i and iv, Gules a fess ermine [or perhaps, on a fess some indeterminate charges?], ii and iii, Azure a chevron between three crosses paty; 3, Gules three covered cups; 4, Or three bird’s heads erased a bordure azure; 5, Or a chevron checky between three martlets; 6, Or a bend sable between a stag’s head and a hunting horn.

The crests on either side of the helmet are: (1) A lion’s head erased; and (2) A demi-wild man affronty wreathed about the loins bearing a club in his dexter hand over his shoulder.

The mottos beneath the supporters are: (1) Spero meliora; and (2) I mean well.

The supporters are: (Dexter) A lion rampant gardant; and (Sinister) A wild man wreathed about the loins.

Below the shield can be seen hanging from a ribbon the badge of a baronet of Nova Scotia, encircled with the motto of that order: Honestæ gloria fax mentis.

Doing some research in the Lyon Ordinary and Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials, I found the following identifications in each of the quarters (in order):

1. We have seen these arms before, at Glasgow Cathedral, about which I posted on September 19, 2016, at https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2016/09/public-memorials-to-old-glasgow-family.html They are the arms of Stewart of Blackhall, Or a fess checky azure and or overall a lion rampant gules.

2. The first and second quarters may be Craufurd of Craufurdland: Gules a fess ermine. (Seen in our posts about Crafurdland Castle, https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2017/08/the-heraldry-of-fine-old-scottish-home.htmland https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2017/08/heraldry-in-craufurdland-castle.html) The second and third quarters are Barclay of Pearston, Azure a chevron between three crosses paty or.

3. Shaw of Greenock: Azure three covered cups or.

4. Stewart-Nicolson of Carnock, Or three falcon’s heads erased gules beaked sable within a bordure azure. (3d quarter)

5. There are two possibilities here: Houstoun of Calderhall, Or a chevron checky sable and argent between three martlets sable; and Houstoun of Johnstone, Or a chevron checky azure and argent between three martlets sable beaked gules.

6. Porterfield of that Ilk. Or a bend between a stag’s head erased and a hunting horn sable garnished gules.

Burke's Peerage gives the arms of Shaw-Stewart of Greenock and Blackhall as quarterly of four: Quarterly: 1 and 4, Or a fess checky azure and argent overall a lion rampant gules (Stewart of Blackhall); 2 and 3, Azure three covered cups or (Shaw of Greenock). Crests: 1, A lion’s head erased gules armed and langued azure; 2, A demi-savage wreathed about the head and middle with laurel and holding a club over his shoulder proper. Supporters: Dexter, A lion rampant gules armed and langued azure gorged with a collar checky argent and azure; Sinister, A savage wreathed round the head and middle with laurel leaves and holding a club over his shoulder all proper. Mottos: Spero meliora (I hope for better things) and I mean well.

The other, less ornate, coat of arms seen on the house, was this one:

Three covered cups. Though not hatched, they are presumably are the pronomial arms of Shaw of Greenock: Azure three covered cups or.

Of the other inscriptions on the plaque, we see: MRSS. and 1886.

MRSS. is the initials of Sir Michael Robert Shaw-Stewart, 7th Baronet ((1826-1903). And I'm guessing that 1886 is the date of the erection of the house, as I didn't see any other significant dates (births, marriages, etc.) in the history of the family given in Burke that matched this year.

Still and all, what a great couple of pieces of heraldic serendipity on which to end three days of touring heraldic Scotland!

Okay, this is starting to get pretty ridiculous.

As I posted on May 25 (https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2018/05/the-waiting-is-over.html), the coat of arms for the new Duchess of Sussex had been announced, ending a lot of speculation about what they would look like and to whom they would be granted. I thought that that announcement would end the speculation and controversy.

Boy, was I wrong!

People are complaining about the coronet around the neck of her songbird supporter. (https://au.be.yahoo.com/disturbing-detail-meghans-coat-arms-005944366.html)

Some are complaining that the arms should have been granted to her father instead. (http://lunaticoutpost.com/post-677771.html)

The Duchess's half-sister complains that the arms "looks like it was drawn by someone in a kindergarten classroom." (https://metro.co.uk/2018/05/29/meghan-markles-sister-says-her-coat-of-arms-looks-like-it-was-drawn-by-a-child-7588356/)

And then there's this article, whose title says, well actually, overstates, it all: "Meghan Markle's coat of arms is the biggest design crime of 2018." https://www.fastcodesign.com/90173823/meghan-markles-coat-of-arms-is-the-biggest-design-crime-of-2018?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com (And to borrow a line from the movie City Slickers, "Year ain't over yet.")

And don't even get me started on some of the comments to be found with some of those articles, and in the on-line groups on some of the social media, like Facebook!

"But couldn't Thomas Markle use his daughter's arms by courtesy, differenced by a label enarched of one point, as described by Sir Thomas Innes of Learney while Lord Lyon?" (Short answer: No. As one commenter put it so well, "what happens in the northern kingdom has no relevance to what happens in Queen Victoria Street." In other words, the College of Arms - on Queen Victoria Street in London - is not bound by the statement of a herald in a different heraldic jurisdiction, in this case, Scotland.)

"Birds as supporters almost always look ridiculous and this, sadly, is no exception."

"The rationale seems a bit underwhelming. 'I value sun rays, Pacific water, and the power of communication' seems like a dating profile. Feels almost civic."

And many discussions about how good/bad/indifferent the official blazon of the arms is.

Do I have my own quibbles with the Duchess's coat of arms? Yes, I do, but they all pretty much relate to the specific depiction as released by Kensington Palace as created by the College of Arms, and I suspect that if the artists had had more time to create the image, all or most of my minor quibbles would have been addressed. And they still could be, in future renditions, as the coat of arms is not a trademarked logo, and so it doesn't have to slavishly match the original depiction every single time.

And finally, as another commenter on a completely different conversation on Facebook noted the other day,

I suggest we move on to something more substantive, like over-interpreting the social and political significance of the Duchess of Sussex's arms.

Good advice, I think.

In a post on May 24 (https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2018/05/heraldic-controversy-in-scotland.html), I'd discussed an issue between the Craigie Primary School in Perth, Scotland, and the office of the Lord Lyon King of Arms. This controversy centered around the armorial badge/logo used by the school:

Well, there have been some new developments, and apparently there has been a lot of exaggeration and hypersensitivity about this school badge vis-a-vis the Lord Lyon (I am shocked, Shocked!, I say, to find that the press has blown this issue all out of proportion), and that now, perhaps, cooler heads will prevail.

In a letter to Pete Wishart, MP for Perth and North Perthshire, the Lord Lyon's office said: "Be it extremely clear to you or to any constituents who are parents, at no time was any enforcement of the law discussed, only information given about what the present situation was. [It is] an exaggerated story which has captured some people's imagination but not based on the reality of how these matters are dealt with within a modern Scotland."

In his letter, he added he will also visit the school himself to explain his role and the heraldic laws to the pupils.

The letter continued: "[Lord Lyon] would be grateful if [Mr Wishart] would pass this on to the parents concerned, that there is no question of me being in any dispute with the school or the pupils of the school, who I hope to visit personally before the summer break to explain my role to them directly. In my view the matter has been dealt with disproportionately in relation to the issue at stake but I am clear that this does not start in my office, but simply has been based on misinformation about what has gone on."

Parents had set up an online petition to the UK Government in response to the heraldic dispute. The petition aims to make primary and small schools exempt from the Lord Lyon King of Arms Act of 1672.

Anyway, at least for the foreseeable future, the school will be able to continue using its badge, and Dr. Morrow, Lord Lyon King of Arms, will visit the school and do a little educating about heraldry and heraldic enforcement in Scotland in the 21st Century.

You can see more about this new development on-line at https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/perth-schools-heraldic-dispute-over-12614894 and https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-kinross/661010/perth-pupils-relief-as-school-badge-spared-might-of-lord-lyon/

That's the question asked by ABC Net Australia News about this image:

Admittedly, most folks wouldn't notice the issue. Do you?

Go ahead, I'll give you a little space to see what you notice.

All done? Did you notice the the supporters of the arms - a kangaroo and an emu - are actually not supporting the arms?

Indeed, they are not even touching the shield.

Not that non-supporting supporters are necessarily a new thing; witness the following examples of supporters not supporting the shield, all from England drawn in the late 1700s:

So, as I say, it's not necessarily a new thing, although in none of these earlier examples do we have both supporters not even touching the shield at all.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting article, containing some interesting history and some just as interesting opinions, and thought I should share!

You can find the full article, with more pictures of other examples of the Australian arms and its supporters, on-line at http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/curious-canberra/2018-06-04/coat-of-arms-on-high-court-canberra/9826570

Enjoy!

You know how it is, you are just going along and living your life and getting stuff done and making progress on some of your to-do projects, and then something happens that throws you completely off track, and by the time you're back on your feet you've completely forgotten about where you were and what you were going to do, and so you've skipped entirely something? And a few years later, you run across the fact that you have completely spaced on something and now you have to go back and begin again?

Yeah, that's never happened to me, either.

Well, maybe once.

Way back in March 2015, I had posted that I was going to be taking a short leave of absence from posting owing to breaking my ankle in the yard here ("I fought the yard, and the yard won") because, among other things, it had become very difficult to get upstairs and sit at my computer. (See my post of March 27, 2015 at https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2015/03/a-short-i-hope-hiatus-from-posting.html for more details on this "incident" which has had such an effect as to blot from my mind some of the posts I was going to create back then.)

In any case, that hiatus interrupted a somewhat slapdash series I had been doing on the heraldry I had photographed in and around London, England in the fall of 2014. And in the process of doing another big project (I've decided to try to organize many of my photos of heraldry taken over the years into a single folder on my computer that amounts in essence to an armorial of coats of arms that I have seen and photographed), I discovered that I had, in fact, failed to continue that series of posts of heraldry found in and around London.

So here I am, three years later, finally taking up pen (keyboard?) in hand and writing about some of the coats of arms that I can identify (and then adding them to my folder of "heraldry I have seen").

So to begin anew:

We started out early one morning to visit a specific church in the City of Westminster.

The arms of the City of Westminster in London are not to be confused with the arms of Westminster Abbey, which is located in the City of Westminster, which latter can be found on a sign outside the Abbey:

No, the arms of the City of Westminster, though they also contain "on a chief [an x] between two roses" are, as you can see, quite different:

Here (above) they are as depicted on the wall of the City Archives ...

And here, drawn in a very modern rendering on a temporary wall around a construction site. (I have cropped out the words "Welcome to Westminster" that were also on the sign.)

And, frankly, it is examples like these two depictions, classic and modern, that I like to use when I see people arguing to replace an "outdated" coat of arms with a modern logo, as a way to demonstrate how heraldry is not a static art, and that a coat of arms can be updated to appeal to new tastes without tossing the arms into the dustbin of history to be replaced by something completely different, which itself may have a short shelf-life and itself need to be replaced in just a very few years.

Anyway, "Welcome to Westminster!" I hope that you will enjoy the next several posts of some of the heraldry to be found there.

On the other side of the street behind the Houses of Parliament in London, and standing next to Westminster Abbey, is the (comparatively) little chapel of St. Margaret's.

You can often see St. Margaret's in flyover pictures of the Houses of Parliament with the Elizabeth Tower, which houses the bell known as Big Ben, and of Westminster Abbey. In the photograph here, St. Margaret's is the white building with the attached tower right next to the two red double-decker buses. So you can see how it can often be overlooked, as people generally are much more interested in the two major landmarks between which it is sandwiched and by which it is dwarfed.

We were there (putting off our visit to the Abbey for earlier another day, when the line to get in was shorter) because it happens that I have a familial relation to St. Margaret's. A couple of my 11th great-grandparents (John Bray and Margaret Haslonde) were married and buried at St. Margaret's, and their daughter (Mary Bray) was baptized, married, and she and her husband Thomas Whitney (my 10th great-grandparents) were buried there. So you can see that I had a Very Good Reason™ for visiting.

St. Margaret's Chapel was founded not too long after the establishment of the Abbey next door because, as the website of the Chapel notes, "as the monks of the newly-founded monastery of St. Peter in Westminster were disturbed by the people of Westminster who came to hear Mass. So the monks set about building a smaller church next to the Abbey where the local people could receive all the sacraments and ministrations of the Church, thus leaving the monks in the Abbey undisturbed. The church was dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch about whom little is known, though her cult was extremely popular in the middle ages."

While we were there, soaking up the atmosphere of this church where some of my ancestors were baptized, married, and were buried, I (naturally enough) noticed a lot of heraldic memorials in the chapel, and over the next few posts, I will share some of these with you. (Not all of them, by any means. I had photographed less than half of the building when I was asked to stop photographing memorials, and it was only then that I saw the small sign that requested people not take pictures. I don't think it is strictly enforced; there were a lot of cell phones and cameras taking pictures. I think I probably just exceeded their limit. So when I was asked to stop, I stopped. But since I wasn't asked to delete the ones I had already taken, I feel that I can share them with you here in this non-commercial setting.)

So, to begin, let's start with a couple of brass memorials. Here's the first one:

In Memory of

Thomas John Estall,

son of Thomas and Sophia Estall,

died April 7th 1816, aged 15 months,

Sophia Estall, mother of the above,

died January 9th 1831, aged 38 years,

Alfred Charles Estall,

died March the 30th 1835 aged 9 years,

and Thomas Estall, husband of the above,

who died December 10th 1835, aged 47 years.

The arms are hatched, so a blazon would be: Azure three estoiles or on a chief gules a lion passant argent. The crest is: A lion passant argent maintaining in his dexter forepaw an estoile [or]. The motto beneath the shield is: Vi et arte (By strength and art).

I was entirely unable to find these arms in Burke's General Armory, or in Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials, nor have I found the crest in Fairbairn's Crests, and the motto cited in Fairbairn's is attributed only to Chisholm, Ferguson, and Stevens. No Estall.

However, after bit more research, I found the following in the Armorial général des registres de la noblesse de France by d'Hozier (1867): "D'Estelle, en Provence. Jean-Baptiste-André d'Estelle, écuyer, justifie sa filiation depuis. Nobel Jean-André d'Estelle, commissaire d'artillerie (1531). Seigneurie de la Plage d'Aren." The blazon given there for the arms would be translated as: Azure three estoiles or on a chief azure a lion passant argent.

So I think it's safe to say that the family was originally French, though I cannot do more than speculate as to how they came to England, or when, or why they are memorialized in St. Margaret's Chapel in the heart of London, England.

The second brass memorial to share from St. Margaret's Chapel in Westminster was this one:

Sacred to the memory of

the Right Honourable

Charles Shaw-Lefevre P.C. G.C.B. D.C.L. L.L.D.

of Heckfield Place in the County of Southampton,

for nearly 18 years Speaker of the House of Commons.

Upon his retirement from the Chair in 1857,

he was elevated to the Peerage by the title

Viscount Eversley.

His Lordship was High Steward of Winchester,

Captain General and Governor of the Isle of Wight,

and A.D.C. to the Queen.

He died Decr 28, 1888, in the ninety fifth year of his age,

when the title became extinct.

These arms are found in Burke's General Armory and are given as follows:

Shaw-Lefevre (Viscount Eversley). Sable a chevron between two trefoils slipped in chief argent and a bezant in base issuant therefrom a cross paty or. (This last charge is more generally, and succinctly, blazoned a mound. Franklyn and Tanner, in their An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Heraldry, give the following: mound: [M.E.] lit. the earth; hence, the regal orb; hence, a representation of this: always equatorially banded with a rising demi-meridian ensigned with a cross paty.) Crest: Six arrows interlaced saltirewise three and three proper with an annulet or. Supporters: On eigher side a talbot, that on the dexter gules on the sinister sable each charged on the shoulder with a mace erect gold. Motto: Sans changer (Without changing).

Charles Shaw-Lefevre, Viscount Eversley, 1794-1888, has an entry amounting to a full page in the Dictionary of National Biography (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Shaw-Lefevre,_Charles_(DNB00)), which discusses his career in some detail, as well as informing us that he married in 1817 Emma Laura Whitbread, the daughter of Samuel Whitbread M.P. for Bedford. She died in 1857. They had six children: three sons, all of whom died young; and three daughters. It was the death of the male heirs which caused the extinction of the title upon the death of Charles in 1888.

On one wall inside St. Margaret's Chapel is found a white marble memorial with a tri-colored mosaic border around it, containing a coat of arms and a short poem by American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes.

To the dear Memory of

Cyril Lytton Farrar

born at Harrow march 19th 1869

Died at Peking February 2nd 1891

Afar he sleeps whose name is graven here

where loving hearts his early doom deplore

youth, promise, virtue, all that made him dear

Heaven sent, earth borrowed, sorrowing

to restore. O.W. Holmes

Cyril Lytton Farrar was the son of the Revd. William Frederic Farrar, Rector at St. Margaret's from 1876 until he became Dean of Canterbury. More information about father and son can be found on-line at https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/frederic-and-cyril-farrar/

The beautifully simple arms of Farrar are: Argent on a bend engrailed sable three horseshoes argent.

A beautiful memorial to a son who died young (age 22) in a far and distant land.

There are, naturally enough, a number of carved stone armorial memorials in St. Margaret's Chapel, Westminster.

For example:

The inscription reads:

M^rs. IUDITH CARY

departed y^eLife of

y^eSmall Pox March

y^e 11^th1714/5 in y^e 23^d Year

of Her Age: and lies

Interr’d near y^s Place

by Her Father y^e

REU^D. EDWARD

CARY of Clovelly

in the County of

DEUON.

Erected to Her memo^y

by Her Friend

DAME

ANNE CHESSHYRE

And, of course, I probably wouldn't have included this memorial here if it didn't have a coat of arms on it:

The arms of Cary are found in Burke's General Armory: Argent on a bend sable three roses argent (sometimes barbed and seeded proper). The Visitations of the County of Devon blazon the arms of Cary of Clovelly as: Argent on a bend sable three roses argent, a martlet for difference.

(Yes, I know that it looks like someone has at one time or another colored the field here as or, and the coat is so blazoned in The History of the Parish Church of Saint Margaret, in Westminster. Still, I have shared other coats of arms which have been miscolored before now, most notably this one: https://blog.appletonstudios.com/2009/02/youd-think-historians-would-do-better.html. Given that example, don't give me any static about this one!)

In case you are wondering, Clovelly, Devon, is in the west of southern England on the southern shore of Barnstaple or Bideford Bay, about one-third of the way between Hartland Point to the west and the city of Bideford to the east.

Edward Cary and his daughter Judith appear in The Visitations of the County of Devon Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1565, and 1620, with additions by Lieutenant-Colonel J.L. Vivian, with these entries:

Edward Cary, 4 son [of George Cary and Anne, née Handcock), named in the wills of his uncle [Sir Robert Cary] and father, a minor 1679, Rector of Silverton and Sub-Dean of Exeter at 26 years of age, d. 28 Dec. 1695, buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster.

Edward Cary married a daughter of Thomas Pointington of Penecot.

Judith [Cary], only child, d. 11 Mar. 1714-15, aged 23, of small pox, bur. in St. Margaret's, Westminster.

It is so sad to see a life taken so young.

I have managed to find (and download) a .pdf copy of The History of the Parish Church of Saint Margaret, in Westminster by Rev. Mackenzie Edward Charles Walcott, published in 1847, which, among other things, gives a brief (very brief!) description many of the memorials and monuments in St. Margaret's Chapel. This is going to save me ever so much time in tracking down exactly who is being memorialized and how their coats of arms are blazoned. (It is by no means a panacea, but still, some of the basic research is already encapsulated in this little volume, and I hope that we all will gain something from that.)

Continuing my "amble" through the ambulatory of the chapel, I ran across this particularly nice carved marble memorial.

Underneath

Lieth Interred the Body of

JOHN CHURCHILL

Late of this Parish, Esquire

Who departed this life

the Twenty eighth Day of

November 1715.

Aged 49 years.

His coat of arms, carved in relief and painted, are blazoned in the book above as: Party per pale. Sable; a lion rampant argent debruised with a bendlet gules. 2. Sable; on a cross or, four pellets between four fleurs-de-lys argent.

I would change the blazon a little to better conform with current practices: Per pale: 1, Sable a lion rampant argent debruised by a bendlet gules; 2, Sable on a cross or between four fleurs-de-lys argent five roundels sable.

Someone has clearly painted the lion and the fleurs-de-lys as gold since 1847! But they really should be argent (or white).

The Churchill arms (to dexter, on the viewer's left) are given in Burke's General Armory as: Sable a lion rampant argent debruised with a bendlet gules.

The arms on the sinister side of the shield (to the viewer's right) are given by Papworth's Ordinary of British Armorials as Banks (London, baronetcy 1661-99), Sable on a cross or between four fleurs-de-lys argent five ogresses.

I have not been able to find John Churchill, d. 1715, in the Dictionary of National Biography or any of the usual on-line sources. (There is a plethora of information about John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, but though a contemporary, he is not the John Churchill we're looking for here.)

Nor have I found a likely identification for his wife, who seems not to be either of the daughters of Sir John Banks, baronet. Mary Banks married John Seville, and her sister Elizabeth Banks married Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Aylesford.

Still, though, it's a beautiful monument, with its little "garden" of flowers beneath the shield.

There is quite a range of heraldic memorials in St. Margaret's Chapel, Westminster, from those just about a hundred years old to those much older. This next memorial is one of the latter, in addition to being one of the more ornate memorials there.

This is the memorial to Blanche Parry, daughter of Henry Parry of New-Court, Hereford, who died February 12, 1589, aged 82. She was Chief Gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth's Most Honourable Privy Chamber and Keeper of Her Majesty's Jewels.

That death date makes her a contemporary of my 11th great-grandmother, Margaret (Haslonde) Bray, who was buried at St. Margaret's on March 28, 1588, and of my 10th great-grandparents, Thomas and Mary (Bray) Whitney, who were married at St. Margaret's on May 12, 1583, and who were both buried there (in 1637 and 1629, respectively). It is entirely possible that Thomas and Mary Whitney watched this memorial being erected in 1595. How cool is that?

Anyway, it was, of course, that great coat of arms at the top which really caught my eye.

The arms are blazoned in The History of the Parish Church of Saint Margaret, Westminster, as: Quarterly: 1 and 8, Argent a fess between three lozenges azure; 2, Argent a lion rampant azure; Gules; 4, Azure three hands couped or; 5, Gules a fess azure between three escallops or; 6, Sable a fess gules between three pellets; 7, Gules a bend or between six crosses crosslet sable.

Obviously, there are several discrepancies between that blazon and what we see on the shield above.

Burke's General Armory lists two slightly different coats of arms for Parry of Hereford: Argent a fess between three lozenges sable and Argent a fess between three lozenges within a bordure azure. The lion in the second quarter appears to be langued and crowned gules. The gules of the third quarter is carved and painted here as Gules three bars paly argent and (sable/azure). The "fesses" in quarters five and six are pretty clearly carved as chevrons, and that in the sixth quarter is charged with a crescent (which here may be be the mark of a second son). The bend in the seventh quarter is painted as cotised, and the crosses crosslet fitchy are painted or rather than sable.

In a complete turnabout from the usual situation (finding a reasonable amount of information on the father, but much, much less on his daughter), I've been having a hard time tracking down Henry Parry of New-Court (or New Court), Hereford. The family does not appear in the Visitation of Hereford of 1569, nor in that of London of 1568. Most of the references on-line to him relate to his daughter Blanche (she apparently died a very well-regarded, and wealthy, woman! See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Parry, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-42805908, and https://books.google.com/books?id=BXOSaJMcymcC&pg=PT339&lpg=PT339&dq=blanche+%22henry+parry%22&source=bl&ots=SELP089y6y&sig=d_yycyPAshhPzFuCGq8RalhasU4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWjcinp_TbAhURR6wKHXw1BpMQ6AEIVDAG#v=onepage&q=blanche%20%22henry%20parry%22&f=false, among others), and I've not found his coat of arms anywhere, so it is very hard to discover how many of these discrepancies are due to mistaken overpainting in the centuries since the monument was erected and how many to other factors.

Still and all, it's a beautiful monument to a woman who spent much of her life serving her Queen, and who died in service to that monarch.

Slightly Understated Heraldry at Mount Stuart

Meanwhile, Back on the Ground Floor at Mount Stuart

Another Pair of Shields Over the Doorway

Non-Personal Heraldry Displayed at Mount Stuart

Two Pieces of Jacobite Heraldry

A Successful Hunt for a Blazon

Heraldic Controversy in Scotland

The Waiting Is Over!

A Final Post About Mount Stuart

A Final Post from Our Trip Through Scotland

It Seems That The Internet Will Just Not Shut Up About This

Heraldic Controversy in Scotland: A Follow-Up

Why Is the Coat of Arms on the High Court in Canberra, Australia, Incorrect?

Wow! I Hadn't Realized I Had Missed Sharing These.

Some Heraldry in St. Margaret's Chapel, Westminster, London

A Brass Memorial to a Peer

A Monument to a Deceased Son

A Carved Marble Armorial Memorial

Another Carved Marble Heraldic Memorial

An Ornate Memorial With Complex Heraldry