Thursday, March 22, 2018

Speaking of Genealogical Displays of Heraldry


Though not quite as involved as the heraldic family tree ceiling in our last post, one of the staircases in Mount Stuart has some very impressive stained glass windows which describe some of the marriages within the family over the years.

Most noticeable are the arms of the Stuarts (Or a fess checky azure and argent within a double tressure flory counter-flory gules) and the Herberts (Per pale azure and gules three lions rampant argent), but you'll see a number of other families represented here as well.

(You may recognize the Herbert arms from the BBC television series Downton Abbey, which was filmed at Highclere Castle, the home of Herbert, Lord Carnarvon. The main gallery in the castle, which appeared throughout the series, has a number of shields around the first floor [second floor, to my American readers] balcony with the arms of Herbert, often impaling the arms of one or another of the women who married into the family. But I digress.)



Notice how they have continued the literal family "tree" motif here.

It's a remarkably impressive display of heraldry and family alliances.

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