The Next Armorial Tombstone in King's Chapel Burying Ground

Continuing from our last post along the fence at the front of King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts, we come to Tomb number 7.

If you click on the image above of this half-buried tombstone, you can see "No." on the top left and "7" on the top right of the stone.

The Heraldic Journal, Vol. II, pp. 19-20, ascribes these arms to John Wheelwright, 1740. The illustration of the arms there hatches the field ermine and the fess or.

Preachers, Patriots & Plain Folks, Boston’s Burying Ground Guide, p. 191, of this tombstone says only “John Wheelwright” and dates the tomb to 1740.

Bolton’s An American Armory cites these arms, with his source being this tombstone: 

Wheelwright. Ermine on a fess or between three wolves’ heads erased three roundels. Crest: A wolf’s head erased.

At top of the slab ‘No. 7’ at bottom ‘John Wheelwright,’ 1740. King’s Chapel Graveyard, Boston, by Tremont Street fence.

Obviously, any inscription at the bottom is no longer visible to us.

The one Wheelwright family listed in Burke’s General Armory bears an entirely different coat of arms from those shown here. Papworth’s Dictionary of British Armorials does not show the arms here; the very closest in the Papworth’s category of “On a fess between three heads,” and the only one with an ermine field, is the arms of Gordon, Ermine on a fess between three boar’s heads erect and erased sable a spear point to dexter argent. So, not that close. Nor are any Wheelwrights listed in Sir James Balfour Paul's An Ordinary of Arms of Scottish arms granted in Scotland. Finally, the name Wheelwright does not appear in Fairbairn’s Crests, though a large number of families bearing A wolf’s head erased do appear there.

So what's the bottom line for me?

I am taking the sources which mention this coat of arms at face value, and allowing both the tinctures of their blazons and the inscription at the bottom of the stone. But in the end, I have no idea where these arms come from. But there they are, literally "carved in stone," so I feel we have to take them as we see them. (Or as we half-see them, given the state of the placement of the stone in the ground here.)

Still, I'd love to know from whence they came and how they came to be here.

Armorial Tombstones in King's Chapel Burying Ground, Boston, Massachusetts

Having finished reviewing the armorial tombstones and headstones that I saw in Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts, we now walk a few blocks to King's Chapel Burying Ground.

If you walk in the front gate of the burying ground and make an immediate left turn, along the front fence you will find three tombstones carved with coats of arms. In today's post, we're going to look at the first of these, Tomb Number 9. In our next two posts, we'll see Tombs Numbers 7 and 6, before moving on to the other armorial tombs and headstones in the burying ground.

Tomb Number 9 is that of Bartholomew Gedney, whose name is carved at the top. (You can click on the image below to go to the full-size photograph, which shows everything in greater detail.)

The arms carved into this headstone is Three eagles displayed (facing to sinister). And the crest, An eagle displayed (facing to sinister).

Burke’s General Armory gives us the colors on the shield: “Gedney (co. Suffolk). Or three eagles displayed sable.”

The crest does not appear in Fairbairn's Crests.

I am not sure why all of the eagles, both on the shield and the crest, face to sinister. The expected default would be to dexter. Is it an error on the part of the stonecarver, or did the Gedney family bear these arms and crest this way? 

The Heraldic Journal, vol. II, p. 20: “The Gedney tomb has these arms [illustration] upon it. This was a branch of the Salem [Massachusetts] family, which commenced with John, who had sons John, Bartholomew, Eleazur [sic], and Eli.”

Preachers, Patriots & Plain Folks, Boston’s Burying Ground Guide, p. 54, gives us some more information about Mr. Gedney: “Bartholomew Gedney (1698-1762) …, A[cient and] H[onorable] A[rtillery] C[ompany]. He was a wharf manager and his gravestone is one of the few heraldic ones here. His uncle Maj. Bartholomew Gedney of Salem was an associate judge at the Salem Witch Trials, May 27-Oct. 29, 1692.”

It is much easier to find information about Bartholomew’s uncle Bartholomew (owing to his relation to the Salem witch trials) than this Bartholomew. A genealogy website gives us only the briefest thumbnail sketch of his life. Bartholomew Gedney was born on 22 March 1698, in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, to Major William and Hannah (Gardner) Gedney. He married Abigail Mason in 1720 in Boston. They were the parents of at least 1 daughter. He died on 16 July 1762, in Boston, at the age of 64, and was buried in Kings Chapel Burying Ground there (thus leading to his inclusion in today's post).

Two Confusing Armorial Tombstones in Copp's Hill Burying Ground, Boston

One of the problems in researching armorial headstones and tombstones in colonial American burying grounds is that there are many instances where a burial plot where an armiger has been buried is later sold to an entirely different family, whose deceased members are buried there, though the coat of arms still displayed on the stone does not relate to them.

We saw this in our recent post of December 15, 2025 (http://blog.appletonstudios.com/2025/12/we-start-looking-at-some-armorial.html), where one tombstone displays the arms of and an inscription toWilliam Clark, but also has the name of a later owner, Samuel Winslow, carved into it, though he clearly had no relation to the arms seen there.

Today, we're going to take a brief look at two other armorials tombstones which have the same issue as "the Winslow stone" bearing the arms of Clark. (Again, you can click on any of the images here to see the full-size, and more detailed, photographs.)

The first is the tomb of T[homas] and J. Lewis, but it is decorated with the arms are the Hutchinson family of Boston. These arms appear three times in the Gore Roll of Arms, for Elisha Hutchinson, Eliakim Hutchinson, and for William Hutchinson. 

The arms are blazoned: Per pale gules and azure a lion rampant argent within an orle of crosses crosslet or.

The crest (seen in the close-up above, is: Issuant from a ducal coronet a cockatrice azure combed beaked wattled and the tail barbed gules.

Built in 1711, several members of the well-known Hutchinson family have been buried here, but the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground Guide, p. 15, gives a more detailed description of which Hutchinsons were, and which were not, buried here. At some later date, Thomas Lewis purchased the tomb and inscribed it with the Lewis name.

Even more mysterious is another nearby tomb, whose arms do not appear to be related to either of the two families known to be the tomb's owners.

The arms (without knowing the colors), Three crescents. The crest is: An eagle displayed.

The Copp’s Hill Burying Ground Guide, p. 23 says: “Edward Martyn (1665-1717/8). Tomb 10 is the first one to the right as you enter Copp’s Hill and bears a coat of arms. He was a merchant, living on Hanover near Richmond, and served on many selectmen’s committees. He left 10 pounds to 2nd Church for a ‘piece of plate and 20 pounds to be distributed to the poor of the flock.’ He owned most of the land from Hanover St. to the water. A[ncient &] H[onorable] A[rtillery] C[ompany], 1702.”

However, the Guide, later on p. xx, gives the name Watts, and says: "On the reverse of the stone bearing the inscription No. 1199, to the Rev. Andrew Eliot, will be found the following arms. [Illustration of the arms photographed above.]

    "This however was an honest transaction, as is pointed out in the Heraldic Journal, ii, 119, as the Eliots bought the tomb and paid for altering the stone. The presumption is that the Watts family represented the original owner, and that perhaps the stone came from tomb No. 15. The arms are not inscribed to any family of the name of Watts."

I cannot find these arms of three crescents ascribed to any of the surnames noted in the Guide or in The Heraldic Journal; not to Martyn/Martin, nor Watts, nor Eliot. And looking through the usual ordinaries (Papworth's Dictionary of British Armorials and the more recent The Dictionary of British Arms) gives us way too many potential families of this simple coat of arms to decently research in my "copious free time."

So it's a bit of an heraldic mystery. Most every source seems to agree that it is not the arms of the most recent owner of the tomb, the Eliots, nor does it seem to be the arms of the Watts. And I have no indication of where the author who ascribes this tomb to the Martyns obtained that information.

Still, it's kind of interesting to learn about the purchase and sale of tombs in burying grounds in colonial Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, isn't it?

Wishing You All a Very Happy New Year!

Well, my friends, we have completed another year's orbit around the burning orb we call our Sun.

At this time, I would wish for each of you a very happy and prosperous new year. May 2026 be good to you.

Another Gore Roll Coat of Arms in Copp's Hill Burying Ground, Boston, Massachusetts

Two years before he died, Jonathan Montfort of Boston, Massachusetts, apparently consulted the Gore family about his coat of arms.

Two years later upon his death, and we find those arms (much obscured by the growth of lichen on the tombstone, but still identifiable) in Copp's Hill Burying Ground. This is the Tomb 59 tomb mentioned below.

The Copp’s Hill Burying Ground Guide, p. 24, tells us: “Mountfort Family. Tomb 17, built in 1711 on Hull Street for John Mountfort (Loc. W-13) and Tomb 59 for Jonathan (J-3a), built in 1724, represent the Mountforts, long a prominent North End family. They were sons of Edward Mountfort who fled political troubles in London in 1656. John (1670-1711), a cooper or barrel maker, later owned Mountfort’s Wharf and lived on Prince St[reet]. [John was a Member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company (Boston, MA)], 1696. Jonathan was a wealthy but eccentric doctor,* owned a pharmacy, and was a founder and treasurer of the New Brick Church. It is highly probable that Joseph Mountfort of the Boston Tea party and later a cooper is buried in another Mountfort tomb located at J3a.”

Here is the non-armorial marker at Tomb 17 for John Mountfort and his son Benjamin Mountfort.

The Mountforts of Boston and of Portland all descend from Edmund Mountfort, a London merchant, who settled in Boston in 1656. The tombstone of his son John is in Copp's Hill churchyard Boston (1724) and bears the arms Bendy of ten Or and Azure [I believe that statement is incorrect; I could only find the Mountfort arms on the tomb of Jonathan], which arms belong to the Mountforts of Beanhurst Hall, Staffordshire and claiming descent from Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. (Vermont, America Heraldica, p. 107)

There seems to be some confusion among the sources about which Mountfort is buried where in the burying ground, but a closer look at the marker for Tomb 59 clearly (well, as clear as anything else on the marker, given the overgrowth) shows the name "Jonathan Mountfort".

These arms are blazoned Or four bendlets Azure, and the crest shown in the Gore Roll, but impossible to make out here, is A lion's head Azure.

Burke’s General Armory notes a number of variants of these arms:

Montford: Azure four bendlets or.

Montfort, Baron Montfort, descended from Thurstan de Montfort, of Beldesert Castle, county Warwick, temp. Henry II: Bendy of ten or and azure.

Mountford of Radwinter, county Stafford and county Warwick: Bendy of ten or and azure, with the crest A lion's head couped azure.

Mountford of county Sussex: Or four bendlets azure.

Mountford of Willoughby-upon-Wold, Risley, and Wollaton, county Notts, noted in the Visitation of Notts, 1614, Bendy of eight or and azure, quartering Willoughby.

Mountfort of Beamhurst Hall, county Stafford, claiming descent from Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, Bendy or and azure, with the crest A plume of five feathers.

Wagner, Aspilogia II: Rolls of Arms of Henry III, p. 137, notes the arms in Glover's Roll of pers de Mountfort, bende d'or et d'azur. Piers de Montfort of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, succeeded his father Thurstan in 1216. He died at Evesham in 1265, and was succeeded by his son, Piers, who died in 1287.

Brault, Aspilogia III: The Rolls of Arms of Edward I, vol. II, pp. 298-299, notes the arms of: John de Montfort of Preston and Uppingham, d. 1296, blazoned in different rolls as Azure, four bends or (Collins' Roll, 1296), Azure, three bends or (Guillim's Roll, 1295-1305), and Bendy or and azure (Sir William le Neve's Roll, temp. Edward I); and John's father Piers de Montfort, blazoned as Bendy or and azure (in several rolls), and Azure, four bends or (Dering Roll, ca. 1280). He also states that he family name derives from Montfort-sur-Risle, southwest of Rouen in France.

I must say, that for such a comparatively simple coat of arms, that's a lot of minor variations! But sometimes, that is part of the fun of researching heraldry!

* There's got to be a good story there, but I haven't been able to find it. A Rootsweb page about Copp's Hill Burying Ground says: "Jonathan Mountfort was a wealthy physician and apothecary, his shop being long known as 'Mountfort's Corner,' and was of a decidedly eccentric temperament. He was one of the seceders from the New North Church in 1719, and helped build the 'New Brick' or 'Weathercock' Church, of which he was chosen treasurer." So we are told that he was eccentic, but not what behavior of his branded him so. Too bad; as I said, there's got to be a good story there.

Wishing You All a Very Happy Christmas!

In the spirit of the season, and to help wish you and yours a very happy Christmas, here are some of the attributed arms of Santa Claus/St. Nicholas I have seen over the years, as well as two versions of the attributed arms of the original Christmas gift givers, the three magi, or wise men.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Two Coats of Arms on Copp's Hill _Not_ Found in the Gore Roll

We've been looking at some of the armorial headstones and tombstones in the historic Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts. The ones we've looked at so far bore arms which are also found in the Gore Roll of Arms, so today, we're going to make a change, and look at two memorials which bear arms that do not appear in the Gore Roll.

The first is the table tomb of the Rev. Francis W.P. Greenwood, the rector of King’s Chapel (just a few blocks away, and which we will be visiting in time to see the armorial memorials erected in that building) in the early 1800s.

The tomb has a Latin cross carved into its top, and a coat of arms (though the stone it is carved into is broken) on the "head" end of the tomb.

The arms show "A fess between three mullets of six points pierced and three ducks." And the crest: "A mullet of six points pierced within a pair of wings conjoined." Burke’s General Armory gives us: “Greenwood (Norwich and co. York, 1594). Argent a fess between three mullets in chief and as many ducks in base all sable. Crest—A mullet between a pair of duck’s wings expanded sable. Motto—Ut prosim.”

So now we know the colors of the arms and crest, having them here "in black and white," as it were.

(Sorry, not sorry. I couldn't resist the temptation of saying "in black and white" for a coat of arms whose colors are, oh, yeah, white and black.

The other non-Gore Roll arms today are on the memorial to "Isaac Dupee, heir to Goodridge." The inscription running around the four sides of the base of the obelisk is: "Erected by Isaac Dupee / Grandson to G. / Aged LXXV / August 31. A.D. 1846"

The Copp's Hill Burying Ground Guide, p. 13, informs us that this monument is "the most elaborate monument in the burying ground," and "demands a level of religious undterstanding few of us have today. It was erected by Isaac Dupee in 1846 and tells little about him or about the Dupee Family. Some were involved with early Boston education and later generations owned mill at Lowell [Massachusetts] and started copper mines in Upper Michigan."

The Heraldic Journal, Vol. II, pp. 81-83, gives the family descent of Walter Gutridge or Goodridge,* naming him as "undoubtedly" the owner of this tomb, and demonstrating that Isaac Dupee was the grandson of Walter through his daughter Mary, who married Elias Dupee.

In addition to the large Latin cross and letter "God Is Love", the four sides of the obelisk each have a Bible verse reference, and those verses were then used to form two couplets. But as the Guide notes, "From our viewpoint today, it is difficult to see how the couplets could be made from the verses cited."

But, of course, it was the heraldry on the front face of the base that is the reason for its being reviewed here.

The arms (untinctured here, obviously) show "a fess and in chief three patriarchal crosses fitchy at the foot." The crest is a bird. Burke’s General Armory cites: “Goodridge (Totness, co. Devon; Walter Goodridge, of that place. Visit. 1620). Argent a fess sable in chief three crosses crosslet fitchie of the last. Crest—A blackbird proper.” So here, too, we now know the colors "in black and white." (Hey, there's no point in using a marginally funny joke if you can't run it right into the ground, right? Right?)

* Spelling was a lot more flexible back then. In working on my own family tree, I have found spellings of the surname now normally spelled "Bigelow" running the gamut from the very short "Biglo" to the very much longer "Biggalough". People wrote what they heard, and spelled it to match. Which is how the good old Scottish surname "Forbes" (which would have been pronounced with two syllables: For-bess) became, upon hearing someone pronounce it with their highlands brogue, "Farrabas". Ain't orthography fun?

Another Armorial Headstone in Copp's Hill Burying Ground, Boston, Massachusetts

Our next armorial headstone in Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston is another coat of arm also found in the Gore Roll of Arms, that of Gee, where they are impaled with Thacher or Thatcher.

I recommend that you click on the image above to go to the full-size version, where the shield and its charges are a little easier to make out. They were less obscured when we last visited Boston in 2008, as you can see from this image taken then.

Of the bearer of these arms, the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground Guide, p 22, says: "Joshua Gee, wealthy shipbuilder, whose son [also Joshua] was pastor of 2nd Church 1742-48, once had the only privately owned family plot in the burying ground. His wife 'wanted to be laid away from the multitude,' instead of the helter-skelter way the other graves were arranged."

Joshua Gee of Boston was a freeman in 1675. He married (1st) Elizabeth Harris, 25 Sept. 1688, by whom he had several children besides Rev. Joshua Gee, a colleague of Rev. Cotton Mather.** He married (2nd) Elizabeth, daughter of Judah Thacher, December 7, 1704. (Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692)

The arms are blazoned: Azure on a chevron Argent between three leopard’s faces Or three fleurs-de-lis Gules. The crest is difficult to make out here, being more than somewhat obscured by the growth of lichens on the tombstone, but is given in the Gore Roll as A wolf statant reguardant Ermine.

Dr. Harold Bowditch ("The Gore Roll of Arms," Collections 29 (1-4) of the Rhode Island Historical Society),* says: "The 'Gee' arms turn out to be those of Gay, Guy or Gye. Identified through Papworth, they are found in Burke under Guy of Oundle, Northamptonshire, and of Wiltshire, but with this crest: A lion's head azure with a collar partly azure and sable, between two wings gold. Under the name of Gye of the Cellar they appear in Glover's Ordinary, a compilation by Robert Glover, Somerset Herald in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. By giving the name Guy its French pronunciation it is easy to see how it became spelled Gee in England."

I must say, it always gives me a bit of a thrill to see in real life a coat of arms that has appeared in one (or more) of the books that I own.

* We noted two other publications in our previous post where Dr. Bowditch's full review of arms in the rediscovered Gore Roll of Arms can be found, along with additional information.

** Cotton Mather, and his father Increase, and other Mathers, are also buried in Copp's Hill Burying Ground. I make it a point every time I visit Copp's Hill to stop by their table tomb to execrate Cotton, because of the nasty things that he said about my 10th great-grandmother, Susanna (North) Martin, during the Salem witch trials of 1692. Yes, I know that more than 300 years is a long time to carry a grudge, but while she was an old widow with opinions, she was no witch, and Cotton called her a "rampant hag," described her as "one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures in the world," and said that Satan himself had promised her that "she would be the Queen of Hell." So, yeah, I take it a bit personally. We now return you to your regularly scheduled post on heraldry.

We Start Looking at Some Armorial Tombstones in Boston, Massachusetts

I recently made a trip to Massachusetts, where I would be, as I told people, "visiting relatives, living and dead." And along the way, I knew I'd be able to get some pictures of heraldry, too. Because we'd been to Massachusetts before: once in 2008, and again in 2022. On the 2008 trip, we stayed in the Boston area, and I took a lot of photos of the heraldry we saw, but I was using my old 35mm film camera, and took fewer duplicate photos to save film, and couldn't see how the pictures turned out until I got home and had the film developed. As it turned out, a lot of them were either too dark, slightly out of focus, or both.

In 2022, I had a high-quality digital SLR camera that would let me take multiple pictures of each item, so that I would be sure that more of them would come out properly, but we didn't stay in Boston; instead we were down by Cape Cod the whole time, so I wasn't able to get back to the burying grounds in Boston.

I sought to rectify that on this trip, and over the next several posts we're going to review the armorial headstones, tombstones, and memorials found in Copp's Hill Burying Ground, Granary Burying Ground, and King's Chapel Burying Ground, as well as in the interior of King's Chapel. (On this last, I did ask before hauling out my camera. They permit photographs, but not flash, in the interior of the building. "Lucky" for me, I purchased my digital SLR with the ability to take good pictures in low-light situations in mind. I put "lucky" in quotes, because luck had nothing to do with it!)

My first stop was at Copp's Hill Burying Ground, where the first item of business was personal: to find the headstone of my step-8th-great-grandmother, Judith (Itchenor) Copp. (Yes, she was married to my 8th-great-grandfather, William Copp, who owned the land and gave his name to "Copp's Hill." He died in 1670 and was buried here, but has no marker.) But here is his second wife's stone!

Alas, this is probably not the actual place of her burial; in the late 1800s it was decided to rearrange all of the headstones in the burying ground into nice, neat rows, but without regard to the actual burial sites of the individuals so memorialized. Nonetheless, it's her headstone, and I was able to stop by and introduce myself to her.

Having done that, I was able to wander about the rest of the burying ground finding and photographing armorial tombstones. Today, we're going to look at the first two of these, the tombstones of John Clark (died 1728) and his brother, William (died 1743). The brothers are buried next to each other along one wall of the burying ground.

Reliquæ

JOHANNIS CLARKE, Armig:

laudasissime Senatoris et Medicinæ Doctoris;

Probitate Modestia

et Mansuetudine præclaari

Terram reliquit Decem 5, 1728, ætat. 62

Nomen et Pietas manent post Funera.

Here lyes the mortal part of

WILLIAM CLARK Esqr

An Eminent Merchant of this Town, and

An Honorable Counsellor for

the Province:

Who Distinguished Himself as a Faithful and Affectionate

Friend, a Fair and generous Trader,

Loyal To His Prince,

Yet always Zealous for the Freedom of his

Countrey. A Despiser of

Sorry Persons

and little Actions, An Enemy to Priestcraft and

Enthusiasm, Ready to relieve and help the Wretched.

A Lober of good Men

of Various Denominations, and a

Reverent Worshipper

Of the Deity.

The Copp’s Hill Burying Ground Guide, p 18, tells us: “Wm. Clark, the wealthiest of Boston’s ship owners. During the French & Indian War (1744-1749), he lost 40 ships and that hastened his death shortly afterward. Adjoining it is the tomb of his brother, Dr. John Clark, physician and its inscription is in Latin. Seven succeeding generations all produced doctors with the same name. This tomb is called ‘the Winslow Tomb,’ because Samuel Winslow, sexton of 1st Baptist Church, took it over and carved his name as rightful owner.”

These arms are found in the Gore Roll of Arms, an 18th Century roll of arms made in colonial Boston, in the second and third quarters of the inescutcheon of pretense on the arms of McAdams. They are blazoned: Argent a ragged staff bendwise between three roundels sable. The crest on the tombstones is: A goose crowned, gorged and chained maintaining in its dexter foot a roundel.

In his review of the arms found in the then-newly-rediscovered Gore Roll, Harold Bowditch, in "The Gore Roll of Arms," Collections 29 (1-4) of the Rhode Island Historical Society,* noted: "The coat here given for Clarke and previously used on the stones at Copp's Hill has not been found under this name in Edmondson or Burke; it appears to be a variant of a well known Clark coat: Silver a bend gules between three roundles sable on the bend three swans silver. So far as I know no valid claim to this coat exists on the part of any American Clark family. Papworth['s Ordinary of British Armorials] gives a bend raguly between three or six roundles for Walworth, a bend embattled between six roundles for Burnell, and a ragged staff in bend between seven roundles for Sayre."

In looking elsewhere for other possible sources for this coat of arms, I found the Dictionary of British Arms gives us Clerk/Clerke/Clark and cites several individuals bearing "On a bend between three roundels three birds" and "Argent on a bend gules between three roundels sable three swans or."

So, interesting armorial tombstones, but are they also additional evidence that even 300 years ago, in 18th Century Boston, Massachusetts, people were being sold their "family crest" by what we now call "bucket shop heralds"?

* This is where I first saw Dr. Bowditch's review of the arms in the Gore Roll. His review of all of these arms can also be found in a 2006 book, The Gore Roll, written and published by myself (http://www.appletonstudios.com/BooksandGames.htm), and more recently in 2024 in a facsimile edition, The Gore Roll: The Earliest Known Roll of Arms in America, published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (https://shop.americanancestors.org/collections/heraldry/products/the-gore-roll?pass-through=true).

Some Real Heraldry in This Movie

So there I was, watching the 1957 film Witness for the Prosecution, a courtroom drama set in London, England.

I will say, it's a great little movie! Directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, and Laughton's real-life wife, Elsa Lanchester, it's based on a story by Agatha Christie. And I have to admit, the ending was a twist that I had not seen coming. At all!

Anyway, there are, naturally, a number of scenes inside the courtroom, and it was in those scenes that I was both pleased and somewhat confused to see the heraldry therein. Because while it was set in criminal court in London, nowhere did I see the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom. Not in any scene, not at any angle. And in any court in the United Kingdom, not just a criminal court, one would normally expect to see those arms prominently displayed, as a symbol of the Sovereign's authority as the "source and fountain of justice."

But despite that lack, the chairs upon which sat the judges and the barristers did bear a coat of arms:

As you can see pretty clearly (and you can click on the image above to go to the full-size screenshot I took during the movie), what we have on the backs of each of these chairs is the coat of arms of the City of London!

Here are two of the many examples of London's arms which I found when we were last there.

The arms of London themselves are remarkably simple: Argent a cross and in dexter chief a sword gules. (Yes, it's a sword and not a dagger. The arms combine the emblems of St. George and St. Paul. There is a story that the "sword" represents the dagger used by the Lord Mayor of London to kill Wat Tyler, the leader of the Peasants' Revolt in June 1381, but these arms were brought into use in April of that year, and thus pre-date Tyler's death.)

In the image from the movie and in the street sign, the arms of London are supported by two white dragons, their wings charged with a red cross. The crest is A dragon's sinister wing argent charged with a cross gules, and the motto underneath the arms is Domine dirige nos (God guide us).

Now, this is not to say that I take issue with the use of the arms of London on chairbacks. Indeed, I have seen exactly such a usage with the arms of the Royal Burgh of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute:

So I have no quibble with the arms of London on the chairs in the courtroom; I just didn't see a representation of the Royal Arms in the courtroom scenes where I would have expected them.

Anyway, it's always nice to see actual heraldry used in the movies, even when it really doesn't play a big role in the plotline.