Monthly Archives: Oct 2023

Sir David’s Day

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Just over two years have passed since the murder of Sir David Amess, MP for the town (now city) of Southend-on-Sea. It was announced at an intermediate point that he would have his shield of arms fixed to the wall of the Commons chamber, in the manner of other murdered MPs – the most recent example being Jo Cox.

Now, at long last, the shield has been revealed.

Sir David was presumably non-armigerous during his lifetime, with this being a posthumous grant arranged through his widow Julia. So far no news source that I can find (and certainly not the College of Arms) has published the blazon, which I would guess is something like Azure on a chief conjoined to a pale between two talbots rampant Or five roses Gules barbed and seeded Proper. According to press releases the roses represent his five children as well as his gardening hobbies while the talbots represent his animal welfare campaigns and his time at Bournemouth University.

Most intriguing is the motto of His Life Remains, which Julia chose because “wherever I go, I am reminded of him in some way: someone he has helped, a charity he has supported and people whose lives he has touched”. It is unusual for a heraldic motto (unless referring to God, of course) to use third-person language and this decision wouldn’t really make sense except in the concept of a memorial for the deceased.

On an aesthetic level I would rate this achievement higher than Cox’s, due to the superior tincture contrast, although the arrangement of elements is a little unsatisfactory and requires a slightly more rectangular shield shape.

The details of his crest remain unknown.

Everyone on the Same Page

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Minutes of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council usually make for quite dry reading. Despite the speculations of conspiracy theorists, and apart from grand occasions such as the accession of a new king, plenary sessions are mainly filled by the appointments of new officeholders (especially in recent years, as ministerial churn as grown), amendments to charters of public bodies, closures of overcrowded graveyards, and the designs of commemorative coin series.

The formatting is similarly dull, being little but a list of links to PDFs, in which each order in council has its own A4 page with the main text in what I presume is Times New Roman with St Edward’s Crown (surrounded by the national floral badges) in the header. Beginning each document is a contents list typed in a sans serif font (most likely Arial).

Last month, though, a small change was seen – the individual orders in council now have page numbers in their footers (in the sans serif font, and clearly not actually part of the order) while the contents pages now have hyperlinks in their right margins. A new front page has also been added, with the Privy Council Office prominently featured. The PCO’s logo is slightly different to that used by most other government departments – it features the royal shield encircled by the Garter and ensigned by the crown, but without supporters or motto. An interesting thing to note here is that although this stylistic modernisation debuted more than a year into the New Carolean era, the depiction used on the front page and in the orders themselves is still St Edward’s Crown and not the Tudor Crown as the current monarch apparently prefers.

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