This month came an important stage in the slow roll-out of Timothy Noad’s illustration of the British royal arms: It has started appearing on Acts of Parliament.

The standard version of the British royal heraldic achievement appears on Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Acts of the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and Measures of the General Synod of the Church of England. It is not used on Acts of the devolved Scottish or Welsh Parliaments, the former using the distinct Scottish arrangement of the arms and the latter a the Welsh royal badge. I have previously pondered whether Northern Ireland ought to have its own arrangement of the royal arms, but that’s another story.

More than a year after Noad’s graphic was unveiled, the three aforesaid legislatures were still using the old version with St Edward’s Crown, designed by Reynolds Stone for Elizabeth II in 1955. In the past thirty days all three have switched over.

The Westminster Parliament had a slight gap in legislative output due to the start of the new session. Those acts which received assent at prorogation on 29th April (cs. 15–23) still used the Stone version. The first Act to receive assent in this session was the National Security (State Threats) Act (c. 24) on 8th July, which used the Noad version. The Clergy Conduct Measure (No. 1) also received assent that day and also debuted the Noad version. The Synod’s puts out far fewer Measures per year than Parliament does Acts, so their last use of the Stone image was the Abuse Redress Measure (2025 No. 4) all the way back on 18th December.

Stormont’s output is somewhere in between. By chance they put out two Acts close together which narrow down the changeover point: The Renewable Heat Incentive (Closure of Non-Domestic Scheme) Act (c. 5) on 17th June and the Insolvency (Amendment) Act (c.6) on 24th June. Clearly a week is a long time in politics!

I should note that this only applies to the paper and PDF (King’s Printer) versions. The digital versions on Legislation.Gov.UK have the new coat of arms retroactively applied going back many decades. I presume all pages for UK Acts are coded to use the same image in the header so they all change automatically.

Some other recent royal heraldic news: Two years ago the Prince of Wales was appointed Great Master of the Order of the Bath. Last week Alistair Bruce Tweeted this photograph of his stall plate at Westminster Abbey. At long last we have proof that William does indeed possess the full heraldic achievement of the heir apparent, including crest, compartment and supporters.