Category Archives: Heraldry

Early Summer Heraldic News

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10th June is International Heraldry Day. It’s not a widely-known occasion, of course, and I don’t have any particular way of celebrating it, but it felt like the occasion to post some updates.

Humphrey Lyttelton

Over the last few months I have been listening obsessively to the archives of the classic panel show I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue (which, incidentally, is back for a new series this week). Among the hundreds of hours of babble and bickering, I picked up on a couple of heraldic references in Humphrey Lyttelton’s introductory monologues:

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, was born in broad street where WH Smith stands, which is evidenced by the Laud family crest of a crossed pen and pencil set Argent topped by readers’ wives rampant.

(S37E1, 28th May 2001)

 

The story of Darlington’s history is neatly encompassed in its coat of arms. The Cross of St Cuthbert represents the town’s resistance to Viking raids, a bull’s head signifies the local breeding of fine cattle, and white chevrons with black lines indicate no overtaking on an urban freeway.

(S41E1, 26th May 2003)

If I manage to find enough of these, I could create a new armorial page called Humph’s Heraldry or I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Crest.

Humph himself would be no stranger to heraldry, coming as he did from the aristocratic Lyttelton family. Humph was the only son of Hon. George William Lyttelton, himself the second son of Charles George Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham. He was too far removed from the peerage to gain any style or honorific from it, but he still would have been an esquire by some of the traditional definitions, and of course that would make him an armiger too.

Lord Cobham’s arms were Argent a chevron between three escallops Sable and his crest was a Moor’s head in profile couped at the shoulders Proper wreathed about the temples Argent and Sable. Humph would have presumably displayed these with a crescent for difference, if following the rules of cadency.

The mention of William Laud prompted me to look for his actual heraldic bearings. The blazon I uncovered for his shield was Sable on a chevron between three estoiles Or three crosses pattee fitchy Gules. I cannot find the blazon for his crest, though as a clergyman he obviously would not have used one. That means I cannot explicitly disprove Humph’s suggestion, though as Laud died over a century before the establishment of the WH Smith company I suspect a direct homage is unlikely.

Anglican Archbishops

I was surprised to find that Laud’s personal arms, and those of several other Anglican bishops, were listed on Heraldry of the World, which normally only carries corporate arms. I then went about adding as many blazons as were available to their owners’ Wikipedia pages. When I got to William Temple I discovered that the arms were already cited, and the link was to the book The Blazon of Episcopacy by William Bedford, 1897. I don’t know how I missed this before. I have long been frustrated by the fact that Burke’s and Debrett’s only list the Lords Spiritual by the corporate arms of their sees instead of the personal arms of the incumbents, so this book was a revelation, if you’ll pardon the pun. This has given the the opportunity to start illustrating arms en masse again, having run low on material in the last few years. It also pushed my edit count past 24000, allowing me to upgrade my user rank to Senior Editor or Labutnum.

I have now set about creating an Armorial of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and after that will probably do so for all the other bishoprics in Bedford’s book too. Five years ago I created one for the Bishops of Chester because there was already a website which collated them, but did not have the necessary resources to go any further.

Articles on Other Sites

Yesterday The Atlantic published an article by British journalist Helen Lewis about the phenomenon of Americans applying to the College of Arms in London for honorary grants. Despite the timing, no mention is made of IHD and the article is clearly intended more as part of the commemorations for the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It includes snippets of interviews from several American armigers, as well as Dominic Ingram (Chester Herald) and an account of Lewis’s own visit to the College’s headquarters. Ingram makes a comment about his heart sinking when a client asks for lions due to their overuse. David White, now Garter, made the same comment a while back.

On 1st April the retired rector Ian Gomersall posted about receiving his letters patent, and even included some photographs of the artistic process. Four days ago Ian Leslie posted a long article which included a paragraph about William Shakespeare’s quest for heraldry, something which I have also discussed before.

Miscellaneous

In less exciting news, it has now been an entire year since the College posted a new edition of its own newsletter. The message in the sidebar still insists that the letter is produced every three months, but that has not been true for quite a while now.

On a quasi-related note, today would also have been the 105th birthday of the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (he was eighteen days younger than Humph). Recently I inherited a copy of H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: A Portrait by his Valet. The book was curiously undated, but Google Books tells me it was published in 1954. That feels remarkably early to be writing a biography like this, given that he would go on to live until 2021. The use of “Prince” in the title is also interesting, given that this book came out after he relinquished his Greek & Danish princely title but before he was granted his British one. Of course, I will have to get around to actually reading the book before I can make further judgement.

UPDATE (13th June)

The King’s Birthday Honours were published late last night. David Vines White, Garter since 2021, has been appointed a KCVO. This is routine for holders of his office, though it is interesting that he got it at what must be about the halfway point of his tenure, whereas his predecessors Woodcock and Gwynne-Jones didn’t get theirs until very near the end.

UPDATE (16th June)

Birkbeck College has published an interview with Timothy Noad, exploring the creative process behind the creation of the new royal cypher.

New Garter Knights for 2026

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There were no new appointments made to the Order of the Garter in 2025, the most recent addition being the off-cycle appointment of the Emperor of Japan as a Stranger Knight on his state visit in 2024.

Today three new Knights Companion were announced, leaving just one vacancy among the ordinary category: Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, Lord O’Donnell and Lord Burnett of Maldon. All three are crossbench life peers. Actually, all of the non-royal recipients of the Garter so far this reign have been life peers. By contrast, the fifteen still-living members added by Elizabeth II comprise seven life peers, four hereditary peers and four commoners. It may be too early to determine if this represents a significant trend.

O’Donnell was Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2011. From lectures and documentaries I get the sense that he was a particularly-revered holder of that office. It is also notable that he was the last in a long string to be simultaneously Head of the Home Civil Service, Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, after which there was an attempt to split these into three separate roles (though the first two were reunited not long afterwards). His first name is formally Augustine, but in practice is nearly always given as Gus, giving him the initials G.O.D. Ironically, while he is now a Knight of the Garter and has since 2005 been a Knight of the Bath as well, he has not been appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George, which denies him the opportunity to live out this classic joke from Yes, Minister.

Burnett was Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales from 2017 to 2023, his six-year tenure making him the longest-serving LCJ since Geoffrey Lane (1980-1992).

He doesn’t seem to be as famous as O’Donnell, though I note he was part of the divisional court of the Queen’s Bench Division for the Miller 2 case in 2019. After retiring from the English judiciary he became Chief Justice of a commercial court based in Kazakhstan.

Both Burnett and O’Donnell are the sort of people one could expect to receive the Garter based on their offices as the existing membership included Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, though neither office guarantees the award and there are plenty of emeriti from each who have not received it.

Hennessy is the exception here, as although a parliamentarian he does not seem to have held any particular public office, whether governmental, ministerial, diplomatic, judicial or vice-regal. There have been a handful of people like this, like Mary Soames and Edmund Hillary, but they are definitely a rarity. He co-founded the Institute of Contemporary British History in 1986 and has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History since 1992 at QMUL since 1992. He has written at least two-dozen books on history and politics, making him the most (first?) prominent academic to receive the nation’s highest order. Norton must be quietly seething.

I illustrated Hennessy’s shield for Wikimedia Commons in 2022. It is about what one would expect for a man who has worked in academia. I suspect that Rs-nouse will be re-illustrating it in his characteristic style fairly shortly. Neither O’Donnell nor Burnett had arms listed in Debrett’s 2019, so the hanging of their banners in St George’s Chapel will be an exciting revelation.

Garter appointments are traditionally announced on 23rd April because it is St George’s Day, St George of Lydda being the patron saint of the Order of the Garter since its inception in 1348 and of England more generally thereafter. In modern times, today is also the eighth birthday of Prince Louis of Wales. I can’t help wondering if the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge quietly kicked themselves for having already given the name George to their July-born first son, thus missing another chance for poetic alignment.

Louis & George in June 2023

On another note, we are approaching the tenth anniversary of the EU Referendum, and with it the tenth anniversary of when Theresa May succeeded David Cameron as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It is also the year that he turns sixty and she seventy. Both have been ennobled relatively recently but neither has received any British order of chivalry. I had thought that this would be a good occasion for one of them to receive the Garter, but evidently that will have to wait for some time yet.

The Tudor Crown in the Indian Ocean

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The British Indian Ocean Territory, the entity governing the group of islands known collectively as the Chagos Archipelago, was formally created on 8th November 1965, but the territory’s flag and heraldic achievement were not granted until 1990. The flag technically was intended only to represent the office of Commissioner rather than be a civil flag in the normal way, as the Territory has no resident civilian population, instead existing mainly to house a joint United Kingdom-United States military facility.

The field of the flag is Argent charged with six bars wavy Azure. In the principal quarter is the Union Flag, and in the right half is a palm tree erect Proper charged on the trunk with the Imperial crown Or. Originally the depiction of the crown was, of course, St Edward’s Crown, but very recently it has joined the trend of changing to the Tudor Crown, in line with the preferences of the present sovereign. Checking the BIOT government website on the Wayback Machine shows the old illustration still on the homepage as late as 25th February, with the new version in its place by 22nd March. The entire flag has been redrawn in a different artistic style, probably created digitally this time instead of drawn on paper then scanned.

The flag as it appeared before.

The new image was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons earlier today. The territory’s heraldic achievement, which features a crown on the escutcheon as well as replicating the flag in the crest, is still using St Edward’s.

While I have blogged many times since 2022 about the transition between crown types, this one is particularly significant because of its political implications: Until recently, the British government had been planning to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to the Republic of Mauritius. This would likely have resulted in the BIOT ceasing to exist as a political entity with the effect that both flag and arms would be defunct.

The treaty is highly controversial and it has been challenged many times, including by the community of displaced Chagossians themselves who have appropriated the territory’s flag as a symbol of their protest movement. Last week it was announced that, due to a loss of support from the President of the United States, the ratification of the treaty had been indefinitely postponed.

The change to the Tudor Crown is therefore indicative of a change in mindset: It wouldn’t have been worth redrawing unless the polity was expected to continue to exist for an appreciable time to come.

Charles III and Artemis II

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At time of writing, the world is eagerly awaiting the launch of the Artemis II mission, a planned flight around the moon and back. As is so often the case in astronomy, the facts of this excursion ruin one’s sense of perspective: Although humans landed on the moon itself all the way back in 1969, all of the great many manned flights, both state and commercial, since 1972 have only been as far as Low Earth Orbit. This mission, if successful, will take its crew further away from this planet than any human has ever previously ventured. Though this is a great achievement for humanity as a whole, and although it makes the Earth (with all the various human-made satellites surrounding it) look pathetically small, there is still a nationalist element to be considered here: While lots of countries have a space programme of some description, only the United States of America has ever achieved manned flights of these distances, and every human thus far to travel beyond LEO has been American.

That will change with Artemis II, as one of the crew is Canadian: Colonel Jeremy Hansen, part of the Canadian Space Agency since 2009 and a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force. He appeared as flag-bearer as part of the Canadian delegation at the coronation in 2023 and was subsequently awarded the British version of that year’s coronation medal.

Yesterday His Majesty sent an open letter to Hansen specifically concerning the upcoming launch. I have not seen any photograph of a paper version, but the text has been uploaded to the Royal Family website, as well as the Firm’s Twitter account and that of the Canadian Space Agency. The letter says that “as the first Canadian to venture to the Moon, [Hansen] carr[ies] not only the hopes of [his] fellow Canadians and the Commonwealth, but also the aspirations of humanity itself” and also makes references to the Astra Carta programme. It should be clear that Charles here is writing principally in his capacity as King of Canada (as emphasised by the fact that it’s in French as well as English), and indeed the CSA’s Tweeted version explicitly credits him as such, yet as I have remarked before (posts passim ad nauseam) both images show the new illustrations of the British royal arms with the Tudor crown.

Arms of the Canadian Space Agency, granted in 1991

All the photographs of Hansen in his space suit show St Edward’s crown featured prominently on his name badge, suggesting that the “Trudea crown” has not yet been rolled out to that extent. This flight could therefore represent the furthest that anyone wearing an official representation of said crown has ever travelled, which ought to be a good story for the heraldic record book.

UPDATE (2nd April)

The Canadian Armed Forces Cyber Command has unveiled its new heraldic badge, which does indeed use the Trudeau crown.

The Use of Academic Dress in Heraldry

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This was a virtual lecture put on by The Heraldry Society. It was presented by Duncan Sutherland, with an introduction by David Phillips, the latter being actually present this time. Sutherland said that he was connecting from Albania. When he started researching heraldry he came across academic dress a few times and managed to record about twenty examples.

Academic gowns in corporate arms usually reference the founder of the organisation. Academic robes date to the middle ages when most if not all students were there to train for the holy orders. The medieval university tunic was the forerunner of both the academic robe and the clerical cassock. Hoods were included because at the time they were common across all classes. When they fell out of general usage they were supplanted with skullcaps, which then evolved into a wide variety of specialised hats.

British academic styles reflected the influences of the Reformation, Republican and Restoration periods.

Sutherland then went through his examples, both personal and corporate. I have looked up free-licence images and the textual blazons wherever I can.

The Earls of Aberdeen

Dexter an Earl  and sinister a Doctor of Laws both habited in their robes Proper.

The earliest known grant of supporters to include academic robes was to the 1st Earl in 1683, with both dressed as doctors. The 4th Earl swapped them for the Hamilton antelopes. The 7th Earl was granted the present supporters. He was later elevated to Marquess but the dexter supporter was not changed to match.

William Thompson, 1st Baron Kelvin (g.1892)

On the dexter side a student of the University of Glasgow habited holding in his dexter hand a marine voltmeter all Proper. On the sinister side a sailor habited holding in the dexter hand a coil the rope passing through the sinister, and suspended therefrom a sinker of a sounding machine also all Proper.

Kelvin was the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. He served as Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow for fifty-three years and was an important contributor to the Transatlantic Telegraph Project. His supporters were granted by the College of Arms in 1892 but the arms themselves had been granted by the Lyon Court.

Leonard Courtney, 1st Baron Courtney of Penwith (g.1906)

On either side a doctor of civil law of the University of Cambridge, vested in his robes, the dexter holding in his right hand an open book, the sinister in the right hand a pen, in the left hand a scroll all Proper.

Courtney was Second Wrangler at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett (g.1928)

Dexter a Doctor of Science of the University of Oxford holding in the exterior hand a chemical measure glass sinister a labourer holding in the exterior hand a pick resting on the shoulder all Proper.

Melchett’s arms were granted in 1910 and revised in 1928. He studied at St John’s College, Cambridge and later was Chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries.

Sir Alfred Keogh

Keogh was Director-General of the Army Medical Services. His supporters were a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse and a doctor in gown.

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes (g.1944)

Keynes was a scholar at both Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge. (CA Ms Grants 107/253)

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (g.1944)

Dexter a soldier of the Black Watch in field service uniform supporting with his exterior hand a rifle sinister a Scholar of Winchester College in his gown holding in his exterior hand a closed book all Proper.

Wavell was himself a scholar of Winchester College. He had his first army commission in the Black Watch in 1901. He was Colonel of the Regiment from 1946 to 1950.

He had protracted correspondence with Garter over the correct illustration of the academic dress. They are displayed at Winchester Cathedral.

Alfred Webb-Johnson, 1st Baron Webb-Johnson (g.1948)

I cannot find a blazon for them, but Sutherland said they were displayed in the King’s Chapel of the Savoy as well as the Fitzrovia Chapel.

Jack Simon, Baron Simon of Glaisdale (g.1977)

Dexter a man habited in the robes of a Doctor of Civil Law in the University of Cambridge Proper and holding in his dexter hand a book Or sinister a man habited in the robes of the President of the Probate Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court Proper. (Debrett’s 2003, P1476)

Simon was President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division from 1962 to 1971. He studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, before his call to the bar.

Stewart Sutherland, Baron Sutherland of Houndwood (g.2004)

Dexter a male figure in the attire of the Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh University sinister a male figure in the attire of an honorary graduate of Aberdeen University and wearing the hat appropriate to an honorary doctor of the University of Uppsala.

Sutherland was himself Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh. He also had a Master of Arts degree from Aberdeen and an honorary doctorate from Uppsala, both in theology.

Jocelyne Roy-Vienneau (g.2015)

In this case the academic references are in the crest rather than the supporters.

Two blue jays each holding in its beak a sprig of balsam fir and standing on a bed of daylilies and purple violets Proper.

The Public Register explains the symbolism: The mortar and diploma symbolize Ms. Roy Vienneau’s career in post-secondary education, particularly as assistant deputy minister with New Brunswick’s Department of Education and as dean, department head, professor, manager and director general of the community college in Bathurst. They also symbolize her husband’s career as a teacher in public schools.

Worshipful Company of Framwork Knitters (g. 1933)

On the dexter side a student of the University of Cambridge in academical costume of the seventeenth century Proper and on the sinister side a female figure also in seventeenth century costume habited Azure cuffs cap neckerchief and apron Argent holding in the dexter hand a knitting needle Proper and in the sinister hand a piece of worsted knit Gules.

Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers (g.1956)

On the dexter side a figure representing Michael Faraday habited in a festal gown of a Doctor of Civil Law of the University of Oxford and holding in the exterior hand a representation of his coil Proper and on the sinister side a figure representing Sir Isaac Newton habited in a gown of a Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge and holding in the exterior hand his telescope also Proper.

Royal College of Anaesthetists (g.1991)

The supporters are representations of John Snow and Joseph Thomas Clover.

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (g.1999)

Blazon missing.

University of Ballarat (g.1997)

I can’t find the blazon for this one.

New College, University of Edinburgh (g.2021)

Two human figures representing diversity one dressed in the academic gown and hood of a Master of Divinity and one dressed in the academic gown and hood of a Master of Arts (Religious Studies) both from the University of Edinburgh all Proper.

Liverpool John Mores University (g.1989)

Dexter a peregrine falcon and sinister a raven each statant on a doctoral hat upon a compartment comprising a grassy mount all Proper.

Worshipful Company of Educators (g.2014)

On the dexter a dragon wings elevated and addorsed Argent holding in the dexter foreclaws an abacus Azure the beads Gules and on the sinister a barn owl wings elevated and addorsed proper the wings charged with an escallop Azure charged with two swords in saltire proper hilts and pommels Or and holding in the beak by the tail a mouse Sable each statant upon a book Or bound Gules.

University College of Cape Breton (g.1995)

Here again the reference is in the crest.

Rising from a wreath of mayflowers Proper a Canterbury cap Gules.

Newsletters and New Lectures

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Long-time readers may recall that in late 2024 I submitted some Freedom of Information requests to various state bodies concerning the award of certain British orders of chivalry. One of the questions I asked was how many people currently hold each grade of each order, if such statistics even existed. I was advised that the Central Chancery of the Order of Knighthood might hold such information, but cautioned that they were not subject to FOI requests.

The website of the Chancery was, for its first few years, ridiculously amateur in appearance. Thankfully sometime between May and September 2023 it underwent a revamp and now looks far more respectable. Between 15th February and 26th March last year the site finally got around to using the new Noad illustration of the royal arms instead of the old Sodacan one (although I’d rather not start talking about that topic again). It was only recently that I noticed (although in retrospect I see it was there for sometime) the presence of Annual Reports for both the Royal Victorian Order and the Order of St Michael & St George (sadly not the Bath or the British Empire though). These PDFs include recitations of the histories of the orders, a list of events related to them that had happened over the past year and a rundown of the order’s financial accounts, mostly relating to the upkeep of their respective chapels. Most importantly for my purposes, they also answer the question of membership totals by including an annual register: That for St Michael & St George says that as of 11th July 2025 there were 71 Knights & Dames Grand Cross, 224 Knights & Dames Commander and 935 Companions. The limits for those grades are, respectively, 125, 375 and 1750. That means the ranks are a long way from being saturated. The Royal Victorian Order does not have formal quotas on appointments at any grade, and its much glossier newsletters do not contain that information.

The seal of the Order of St Michael & St George, as seen on the cover of its annual reports.

In addition to this, the latest edition of The Dragon, the newsletter for St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle where the Order of the Garter is headquartered, mentioned the Lent Lecture for 2026, and included a link to the Vimeo page. That got me wondering how many other heraldry lectures might have become available online since the last time I looked. Restricting the YouTube search results to the past twelve months got me a surprising bounty. I have put here a list of the videos I found:

  • “Between Two Turks:” Racialization and the Heraldry of Esclabor Le Méconnu (Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, 3rd March)
  • Scottish Heraldry: A (Surprisingly?) Egalitarian Tradition by Prof. Gillian Black (St Mungo Festival, 22nd January)
  • Tolkien Tuesday: Heraldic Overtones (Prancing Pony Podcast, 6th January)
  • Preble Lecture: Flags of Canada (North American Vexillological Association, 10th December)
  • The Simchat Torah Flag: From Biblical Roots to Modern Israeli Icon with Prof. Shalom Sabar (Community Scholar Program, 16th October)
  • Folklore in Heraldry with Samantha Cook (Augustan Society, 9th October)
  • Stitching a Lineage: Embroidered Coats of Arms in Eighteenth-Century Boston (American Ancestors, 22nd August)
  • Heraldic Collections from Medieval Times to the Digital Age by Ralf Hartemink (Genealogical Society of Ireland, 26th May)
  • Aspects of Heraldry in Drogheda and its Vicinity (clahs Louth, 28th March)
  • Webinar – Origin + Meaning of O’Molloy Coat of Arms and Crest (O’Molloy Clan, 21st March)

That’s probably not even a complete list, but it’s more than enough to keep me entertained for a while and I’m glad to see more activity in this field as just a few years ago the offerings were very sparse.

The New Lord Speaker

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Following the slightly-expedited retirement of the Lord McFall of Alcluith, the Lord Forsyth of Drumlean today sat on the woolsack for the first time as Lord Speaker.

Michael Forsyth’s political career began with a five-year stint (beginning 1978) on Westminster City Council, followed by a fourteen year tenure as Member of Parliament for Stirling, where he was unseated in 1997. In the 1990s he served in a rapid succession of Minister of State roles before peaking at Secretary of State for Scotland in 1995.

He spent two years out of Parliament before receiving a life peerage in 1990. He never returned to ministerial office but did serve in a lot of important (if unglamorous) committees. He was declared Lord Speaker-elect on 12th January, having beaten the crossbencher Baroness Bull (former creative director of the Royal Opera House) by 383 votes to 297. His royal confirmation was notified to the chamber by the Lord Chamberlain of the Household, Lord Benyon. A hustings for the election was filmed by the Hansard Society in December.

Now that the office of Lord Speaker is nearing its twentieth anniversary and is on its fifth holder, it may be prudent to review some statistics:

  • The office has been held by two Ladies (Hayman and D’Souza) and three Lords (Fowler, McFall and Forsyth).
  • Three were born and raised in England (Hayman, D’Souza, Fowler) and two in Scotland (McFall, Forsyth).
  • Two came from the Conservative party (Fowler, Forsyth), two from Labour (Hayman, McFall*) and one the Crossbenches (D’Souza).
  • Hayman and Fowler attended Cambridge (Newnham and Trinity Hall respectively), D’Souza UCL and then Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall), McFall Paisley College of Technology, then the Open University, then the University of Strathclyde; Forsyth the University of St Andrews.
  • The five have had varying levels of prior political experience: Fowler spent thirty-one years in the Commons, eleven of them as Secretary of State; Forsyth had fourteen years, of which two as Secretary of State and five as Minister of State; McFall twenty-three years, of which two-and-a-half as a very junior minister then nine as a very senior committee chair; Hayman spent under five years as an MP (all on the backbenches) but then had four years of ministerial experience in the Lords, of which two in cabinet. D’Souza is the only one never to have been a minister nor a member of the Commons.
  • D’Souza was a peer for seven years before becoming Speaker, Hayman ten, McFall eleven, Fowler fifteen, Forsyth twenty-six.
  • Hayman took office aged 57, D’Souza 67, Forsyth 71, McFall 76 and Fowler 78.

As I have mentioned before, no armorial bearings are known for the first four Lord Speakers (despite Hayman having been on Flags & Heraldry group). Forsyth breaks this trend, as I found his blazon on page 470 of Debrett’s Peerage 2015. The illustration below is by Cakelot1.

  • Escutcheon: Argent a chevronnel engrailed Gules between in chief two griffins respectant Azure armed and membered Gules crowned Or and supporting a square block of roughly dressed sandstone Proper with a ring at each end Sable and in base a hurt charged with a mascle Argent.
  • Crest: A griffin sergeant Azure armed and membered Gules crowned Or and charged on the shoulder with a mascle Argent.
  • Supporters: Two griffins Azure armed and membered Sable crowned Or and each charged on the shoulder with a mascle Argent.
  • Motto: Learn From The Past

It is worth noting also that McFall interviewed Forsyth on the Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast in December 2023. Last week, in the final episode before the handover, McFall was himself interviewed by the Baroness Hazarika (incidentally he interviewed her almost exactly a year before).

*Although McFall had left the Labour group and sat as unaffiliated from 2016.

Introducing the Sudrian Armorial

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I realised recently that I had made quite a lot of posts on this blog about heraldry relating to The Railway Series, so much that it almost became a topic in itself. Since this is not a topic which I have seen extensively covered elsewhere, I had the idea of collating all the scattered bits of information into one comprehensive catalogue, which helps me keep track of what I’ve done as well as serving as a template for other fans and researchers, so that we I, and they, do not need to repeatedly crawl through multiple separate articles.

These, by the way, are the posts which are being collated:

This will be a dynamic list as I still expect to find new entries, but updates will continue to be mentioned in blog posts while the page itself will integrate them into what was already there. I’m hoping to eventually cover every example of heraldic description or design in the entirety of both the book and television series, as well as establishing a proper armorial for the Awdry family in real life. Sadly, my research into that particular avenue has not progressed much since my last post on it.

Here it is. I’ve made it as a page rather than a post and elevated it to a direct link in the main menu for ease of visibility. If this works out I may give the same treatment to some of my other projects in the future.

Ongoing Heraldic Stories

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In this post I have new updates on three different heraldry-related stories that I have covered before.

The Greater London Authority

The campaign by the Greater London Authority to acquire the iconic armorial achievement of its predecessor body the Greater London Council has been successful. The King issued a royal warrant on Thursday 13th November authorising the transfer, though frustratingly it the corresponding notice in the London Gazette was not published until yesterday.

British Passports

(I’ve discussed this topic ad nauseam by now so won’t link specific earlier posts.)

It was announced by the Home Office in October that a new British passport design would be coming out which featured Timothy Noad’s illustration of the royal arms with the Tudor crown in place of the previous design favoured by Elizabeth II. Recently the story has been picked up by newspapers as the new passports actually come out.

The Prince & Princess of Wales

I and other heraldists have been waiting for some time to see evidence of William & Catherine updating their personal heraldry to reflect the former’s status as heir apparent. While searching for news stories about the GLA I found articles in Hello!, People, Marie Claire and The News International (though curiously none of the more mainstream outlets) reported that when the couple attended the Royal Variety Performance last month, their invitation printed by the charity featured their conjugal coat of arms in the updated format. The style is very clearly Sodacan, and it looks as if the particular image was created on 12th April 2023 by user Mangwanani but not actually used in any articles until 22nd November this year, presumably for lack of evidence of real-life usage. Whoever found the image for the invitation must have dug rather deeply into Wikimedia Commons to find it. Reports in the aforesaid magazines that the Prince & Princess have made this change themselves seem a little misguided as it would not have been their own office in charge of producing the image, and recent evidence of their own correspondence still shows their old-style cyphers in use (not the lack of an arch on the coronet). This is thus yet another example of Wikipedians not just getting ahead of real life, but actually pushing it along a little, however inadvertently.

The new programme can be contrasted with this one from 2023, which still uses their conjugal arms as Duke & Duchess of Cambridge (or rather as son & daughter-in-law of the heir apparent), even though the new graphic image had already existed for seven months and William had held the status of heir apparent for more than a year. The old graphic still showed Catherine’s shield with a cordelière around it to balance William’s Garter circlet, even though she had been made a GCVO in 2019. Note too that the great many depictions of the main royal arms still alternate between old and new variants.

Belize, Paddington and Royal Variety

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The Royal Variety Performance for 2025 was held last night, though it won’t be broadcast until next month. This time the Prince & Princess of Wales attended, as they have done in every odd-numbered year since 2015. I mentioned last year that the Royal Variety Charity was extensively using Sodacan’s Wikipedia illustration of Elizabeth II’s British heraldic achievement. Looking at this year’s photographs it appears nothing has changed.

I mentioned last week the oddity of having the Prince of Wales and his aunt the Princess Royal both undertaking prominent overseas diplomatic visits to different places at the same time. This week the Firm leaned further into this by having a married couple, the Duke & Duchess of Edinburgh, simultaneously touring different continents.

The Duke flew to Nigeria to meet with the President and attend a meeting of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award programme, founded by and named after his father Prince Philip.

The Duchess went on a tour of South and Central America. She visited the Republics of Peru, Panama and Guatemala, finishing in Belize. The first three were standard-fare bilateral diplomatic visits on behalf of Britain, with the Palace news page explicitly saying they were requested by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (specifically the Foreign part in this instance). In some of the photographs we can see her meeting the host president with a Union Flag prominently displayed beside that of the host state.

The visit to Belize is the more interesting one as, unlike the others, this is a Commonwealth Realm, and indeed this is highlighted multiple times in the press releases, with the Palace Twitter feed even calling it “the Realm of Belize” despite the country having no official long name. By strict Commonwealth constitutional logic Sophie should have been there in her capacity as sister-in-law to the King of Belize, acting on the advice of the Belizean government. Despite this, many of the official reports mentioned bilateral ties between Belize and the United Kingdom, which suggests a deliberate straddling of both thrones. I can’t see any royal standard flown by the Duchess on the other visits, but in Belize she was clearly photographed flying the generic ermine-bordured version. As I have lamented before, royals other than the sovereign himself do not have dedicated heraldic flags for each specific realm save Canada so must default to their British arms even where this causes constitutional confusion.

It is also worth remembering that recently there have been reports of Guatemalan military personal making illegal incursions onto Belizean territory, which was condemned by the Commonwealth. It is a little strange, therefore, that a senior royal should visit both countries in such rapid succession without the incident being brought up.

On a final note, two of the aforementioned stories featured appearances by Paddington Bear: The Duchess of Edinburgh posed with a plush toy of him at the British Embassy in Lima (Peru of course being the character’s country of origin), then the Prince & Princess of Wales greeted an actor in costume at the Royal Albert Hall. Paddington Bear has long been an international icon of British culture. Since his appearance in a video for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022, he has been particularly associated with the royal family. Some have criticised an apparent cult forming around him. This year Spitting Image created a parody of him to appear alongside the Duke of Sussex in a spoof podcast, which at time of writing is the subject of a lawsuit by Studio Canal.

EXTERNAL LINKS

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Duchess of Edinburgh

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