Category Archives: Heraldry

Achievements of arms, and related subjects

Flying Heraldry in Scotland

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After ten months of inactivity, the Lyon Court’s YouTube channel has at last released another video – this is a recording of a virtual lecture by George Way of Plean, the Rothesay herald, on the topic of Scottish heraldic flags.

UPDATE (28th March)

The Court has uploaded another lecture – A Knight’s Tale by Sir Geoff Palmer, documenting his life up to his appointment to the Order of the Thistle. It has little to do with heraldry, but is interesting nonetheless.

UPDATE (12th June)

In sad news, Sir Geoff has died. In happier news, yet another lecture – Heraldic Hearts by Gillian Black.

Notes from Nepal

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The Duke & Duchess of Edinburgh recently conducted a visit to Nepal to attend (among other events) the annual attestation parade for British Gurkhas. The tour doesn’t seem to have been covered much in the press and there are no long videos (just a couple of short reels) so most of what I can piece together is from the royal family’s own report and the photographs from the usual agencies.

As one should expect, the royal couple’s car can be seen flying the Duke’s banner of arms – the royal arms differenced by a label of three points Argent charged on the centre point with a Tudor rose Proper.

Despite her not coming on this tour, the Princess Royal’s banner (on whose label the centre point bears a heart and the outer points a cross Gules) can also be seen hanging behind a bagpiper’s shoulder. The Getty caption does not specify but based on the tartan I would guess the soldiers here pictured must be of the Queen’s Gurkha Signals, of whom Anne is Associated Colonel-in-Chief.

The Duke & Duchess arrived in Nepal separately and in this video she can be seen with a Land Rover Discovery from which the generic ermined-bordered banner is flown.

While on the topic of different variations of the royal arms, it might be worthwhile to return to matter I’ve covered before – the use of the British royal arms on communications from Buckingham Palace.

On the royal website itself these communications (variously categories as statements, messages or announcements) tend to be purely textual, with the only insignia being that built into the website’s background. In recent years the Palace has gotten into the habit of Tweeting these messages as images, with the arms painted faintly in the background. This can be a little strange when His Majesty is addressing other Realms, presumably in his capacities as monarch of those countries. I have collated a list of some examples in the past few years:

UPDATE (15th February)

See this concept discussed by Elijah Z Granet in relation to a statement about the anniversary of the Canadian flag.

A Look at the Briefing Room

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Having established that Downing Street Flickr photographs are free to use, let us look closely at a few of them:

There was a storm of press indignation in 2021 when it emerged that Boris Johnson had spent £2.6m on the outfitting of a dedicated press briefing room in Number 9 Downing Street, after nearly a year of doing daily COVID updates from what was supposed to be the state dining room.

The room was mainly wood-paneled, but with large blue blocks on the backdrop. The middle such block had a faint monochrome outline of the lesser royal arms printed on it.

Following last year’s general election, Sir Keir Starmer reverted to using the state dining room for a few months while the conference room underwent a minor remodeling. In its new guise the blue drapes (deemed too partisan) have been removed and the carpet changed to a neutral grey one. If future premiers also tinker with the design here, perhaps Britain will have some counterpart to the Oval Office after all, though I wouldn’t bet on it as the recent tradition of each incumbent getting a different lectern took over a decade for the press (let alone the public) to notice.

The lesser arms are still displayed behind the Prime Minister, now in white on a black oval. The recent illustration is used, showing the Tudor crown. It still appears that Elizabeth II’s lesser arms have not entirely been phased out though, since on a recent visit to Auschwitz a wreath was left with a condolence note on government stationery, the old version of the arms still clearly in view.

January Heraldic News

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Nearly one month into the new year a few updates on the state of British heraldry have emerged.

Yesterday the College of Arms published the 77th edition of its newsletter. As usual most of the contents were things already made known through other sources some months ago (though an official confirmation is welcome), such as the new rendering of the British royal achievement and the revised Australian royal banner.

Three new grants of arms to private citizens from last year were revealed. The only one with a Wikipedia page was Randolph Marshall Bell, an American diplomat. The list of appearances by heralds included the Georgian Group, whose journals will be added to my large backlog of reading material. Description was given of the transfer of arms from the long-defunct Borough of Berkamsted to its successor parish.

On a similar note, progress is being made on plans by the Greater London Authority to acquire the arms of its quasi-predecessor, the Greater London Council, which fell into disuse when that body was dissolved in 1986. The present authority, established at the turn of the millennium, has so far been non-armigerous. I wonder if there will also be a push to adopt a new civil flag for the London region, as for the past few decades that role has been unofficially filled by the banner of the defunct council’s abeyant arms, in a manner which may no longer be permissible once said arms return to official use.

Today the Heraldry Society released another blog post, this time by Chartered Information Technology Professional Paul D Jagger, discussing the history of heraldry on the internet as well as the parallels between blazon and programming languages.

Something Forgotten in the State of Denmark

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A stir was caused in the heraldist community a few days ago when it emerged that His Majesty King Frederik X had made some changes to his coat of arms. This actually happened on 20th December but somehow the news did not spread until the new year.

As with the British royal arms, the Danish royal arms are arms of dominion representing both the incumbent monarch in person and the Danish realm as a corporate entity.

The crown, mantling, pavillion, supporters and sundry other elements of the full achievement have remained the same, but there has been a noticeable remarshalling of the escutcheon itself – with the quarterings moved around.

The quarters of the old version were:

  • First and fourth – Or three lions passant in pale Azure crowned and armed Or langued Gules nine hearts Gules – for continental Denmark.
  • Second – Or two lions passant in pale Azure armed Or langued Gules – for the former province of Schleswig.
  • Third – Azure party per fess in base per pale in chief three crowns Or (for the Kalmar Union) in dexter base a ram passant Argent armed and unguled Or (for the Faroe Islands), in sinister base a polar bear rampant Argent (for Greenland).

The shield as a whole is surmounted by a cross Or fimbriated Gules (referencing the Danish flag) on which in turn is placed an inescutcheon Or two bars Gules (for the former Duchy of Oldenburg).

In the new version, the Schleswig arms are moved down from the second quarter to the fourth, with the repetition of continental Denmark being deleted.The Faroe ram is then moved to the second quarter and the Kalmar crowns are deleted as well, leaving the Greenland bear with the third quarter to itself. The cross is also now made pattée, meaning it is flared at the ends.

The new arrangement is considerably simpler on the eye then the old one, with a more equitable distribution of space to each important element. The change is reminiscent of that which happened to Britain’s royal arms in 1801 when, on the coming into force of the unification of the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain, George III’s arms were changed to have England, Scotland and Ireland quartered in the manner which remains to this day while Hanover (not part of the political union) was moved to an inescutcheon and the historic claim to the recently-eliminated French throne was abandoned.

In the Danish case there has been no recent constitutional change to prompt the remarshalling of Greenland, Faroe and the metropole, while the deletion of reference to the Kalmar Union is particularly long-delayed as the union itself ended in 1523. The Oldenburg inescutcheon could have been changed as well since – having inherited the crown through his mother – Frederik is not agnatically a member of that dynasty but rather is of the House of Monpezat. This is represented in the arms of some of the younger sons descended from Margrethe II, but not those directly in line to the throne.

Second Look at Royal Variety

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Three weeks after its recording, the Royal Variety Performance for 2024 has been broadcast. I have also found on the charity’s website some publicity stills from the event along with the official brochure.

The brochure contains a great deal of heraldic illustration, much of which is clearly of Sodacan origin. The artistic schizophrenia is evident even from the front cover, which prominently displays a full-colour Sodacan version of the royal arms with the Tudor crown while also having in the header a monochrome outline (similar to that on royal.uk) of the St Edward crown version as part of the Royal Variety Performance logo. Throughout the brochure the latter is included as part of the page header while the former is repeated many times as a main-body illustration. More curious is that in the borders of several pages another obvious Wikimedia graphic is seen – the coat of arms of the Prince of Wales. Quite why that one was used I am not sure, especially as Charles stopped using it upon his accession and it has yet to be conclusively shown that William now does so. The outline version also appears as the background pattern to some of the pages themselves. To make things even more confusion two more expressions of the royal arms appear in the brochure – in the letterhead of a message from Buckingham Palace on page 7 in the royal warrant part of the advertisement for Mikhail Pietranek Interior Furnishing and Design on page 65.

A quick glance at the brochures for past installments of the performance makes clear – even just from the front covers – that this armorial smorgasbord has been in effect for some time.

As far as the performance itself is concerned, I do not intend to write a detailed review. The one part I deem relevant to the ongoing themes of this blog is the section on the Lord Lloyd-Webber’s famous musical drama Starlight Express:

After the play’s own professional actors had done their carefully-choreographed routine, the night’s host Alan Carr came on for a comedy coda of sorts, wearing a much simpler steam engine costume and clearly much less steady on his feet. Lloyd-Webber himself was on stage at this point. Carr’s entrance was accompanied by the original Thomas & Friends theme tune. I found this amusing for two reasons:

  1. That theme debuted when the series began forty years ago, but then was replaced in Hit Entertainment’s retool of the franchise twenty years ago. Even though the theme has been out of use now for as long as it was in, it still achieves far greater cross-generational recognition than do any of its successors.
  2. Britt Allcroft’s 1984 production was not the first attempt at adapting Awdry’s books for television – Lloyd Webber had approached the vicar a whole decade earlier with his own pitch and had produced a pilot episode for Granada by 1976, but the studio declined to put it into production. This disappointment was the reason he made Starlight Express in the first place!

 

An addendum to the Qatari state visit

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A week after the event, the royal YouTube channel has uploaded a seventeen-minute video of the state banquet given at Buckingham Palace. The footage itself is the same as found on commercial news channels, but what catches my attention is the little animation at the end – the title card shows the line drawing of the royal arms that appears on the header of royal.uk, including St Edward’s Crown. I am a little perplexed that this is still being used for these purposes given that a new illustration with the Tudor crown now appears for the channel’s logo. This little animation does not appear at the ends of earlier videos, making it an innovation that only debuted after the artwork itself had already become obsolete.

Notes on the Qatari state visit

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Today and yesterday the United Kingdom hosted Sheikh & Sheikha Tamin & Jawaher bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir & Consort of the State of Qatar.

The visit included a speech by the Emir to the British Parliament and a state banquet at Buckingham Palace – likely the last for some years as the building is soon to be closed for a major renovation project. He also gave a speech at Mansion House and received a tour of Westminster Abbey.

As is typical, the visit involved an exchange of honours. The King appointed the Emir as an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. This is consistent with his father who was given the same honour in 2010, but it feels like a category error as normally royal heads of state are made Stranger Knights of the Order of the Garter while the Bath is given to elected presidents – the most recent being last year with Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, who coincidentally is also back in the news today. The Emir in his red sash stuck out a little next to all the British royals wearing blue ones.

Charles had already been awarded the Collar of the Qatari Order of Merit in 1986. Yesterday he was presented with the Sword of the Founder Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani.

The recent state visit also saw growth in the Royal Family Order of Charles III: The Queen having appeared as the founder member at the Japanese state visit earlier this year, the order is now also seen sported by the Princess Royal, as well as the Duchesses of Edinburgh and Gloucester.

I notice a discrepancy in the spelling of the visitor’s title – the royal and parliamentary sources say “Amir” but the newspapers and Wikipedia say “Emir”. Getty is inconsistent, even sometimes within the same photograph caption.

First Look at Royal Variety

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It won’t actually be broadcast for a few weeks, but 2024’s iteration of the Royal Variety Performance was recorded last night at the Royal Albert Hall. His Majesty was in attendance for the first time in his reign, having last attended (virtually) in the somewhat abnormal edition arranged for 2020. The Queen was supposed to attend with him (having also done so in 2013 and 2016) but dropped out at the last minute due to the relapse of a recent chest infection (which also stopped her attending the annual Festival of Remembrance at the same venue).

No photographs or film of the performances themselves have yet been seen, but publicity shots of the cast and attendees are available through commercial photographers, and they show the logo of the Royal Variety Performance printed on the wallpaper of the backdrop. It very obviously uses Sodacan’s illustration of Elizabeth II’s royal arms with St Edward’s Crown instead of the Tudor one. The charity’s website is much the same – the background has a monochrome outline of the full heraldic achievement similar to that on royal.uk and a smaller representation of the same appears in the footer. When you hover the cursor over it, the outline changes to a full-colour copy of Sodacan’s graphic. I wonder how long that will take to update?

Ironically the royal box inside the hall features a textile version of the royal arms with the Tudor crown, which was evidently erected there before Elizabeth II’s accession and left there throughout her reign without update until it eventually came back into style. All fashions are cyclical, one supposes, even if this particular rotation took a very, very, long time to complete.

Bluemantle? No, Blumenthal!

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Just over a month ago there was an exciting announcement in the world of heraldry – The Heraldry Society was launching its own blog. This is important because most of the output of the society – and of heraldic societies more generally – tends to be in the form of lectures and academic papers. If these are available online at all (and not behind a paywall) they tend to become so on a very slow timescale. While there are also plenty of heraldry blogs and some of them are updated regularly, these tend to be the work of enthusiastic amateurs looking in from outside rather than vice versa. This looks as if it will move at a somewhat faster pace while also giving authoritative insights.

So far there have been three articles published on the blog and it does not yet appear that a theme has been settled on. The first is an interview with Professor Gillian Black, the Carrick Pursuivant of Arms. The second is by Jean-Eudes Pierra talking about the history of bees in heraldry and the third is by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal recounting the process by which his coat of arms was granted. Happily this one also includes photographs of his letters patent in quality high enough to be legible. Blumenthal’s shield was one of my earliest illustrations for Wikimedia Commons, being published in the summer of 2018.