What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms? Part 1

My house is a very, very, very nice house,
With my heraldry in my yard ....

And one of the ways that we have seen many times as a way for people to use their coats of arms is to mark the exterior of their homes.

Now, this can vary because, frankly, not everyone has a classical pediment on their abode which would support a display of heraldry like this one:

Or even perhaps something a little less ostentatious:

Or

Still, there are some more contemporary embellishments that can be added to the exterior without spending a fortune on stone carvers. Something like this modern family has done, which certainly nods to tradition while also modernizes the concept:

Or a gateway out by the street:

Next time, we'll look at some more intimate ways of decorating the exterior of your home with your coat of arms.

What Can I Do With My Coat of Arms?

A question that comes up only occasionally, but one that I think ought to be talked about more than it is, is the issue of, once having obtained a coat of arms (whether through inheritance, through a grant from an heraldic authority, through registration with one of the several regional and international registries, or through self-assumption), what can you do with said coat of arms?

A few suggestions crop up on a regular basis: have a banner made, frame the grant or other document and hang it in your home, have a table banner or table shield made, make a bookplate (or bookplates) with the arms, and a few others.

Well, over the years I have run across (and saved images of) many of the ways that people have used their coat of arms, and in these next several posts, I will be sharing them with you.

Now, this is not to say that even this fairly wide selection is comprehensive; indeed, heraldry can be found used in just about any way that someone's imagination can come up with. But I offer the examples I will be sharing here as a springboard for your own imaginations about the possibilities.

But I will begin with just this one:

As an adjunct to what you can do with your coat of arms, I will also remind people here that, specific grant or not, there is always more than one way to depict a coat of arms, depending upon the specific artist's personal style and/or if the owner wants to mimic the heraldic style of a specific time or era (the image below courtesy of Pro Heraldica in Stuttgart, Germany):

Anyway, stayed tuned for next time, when we begin this series on "What can I do with my coat of arms?"

Wining, Dining, and Heraldry

I recently ran across a couple of newspaper articles about a newly-opened restaurant in Manchester, United Kingdom, that is located in the renovated Rochdale Town Hall there. And since the restaurant has a couple of different connections to heraldry, I thought I would mention it here.

The first connection to heraldry is its name and logo; it is called The Martlet Kitchen restaurant, and this is its logo:

The martlet is, of course, a well-known charge in English heraldry, appearing as a cadency mark for the arms of a fourth son, and also as a charge in itself, for example in the canting arms of Arundel.*

The other connection to heraldry lies in the art used to decorate one wall of the restaurant, line drawing artworks that depict various images taken from the town's heraldry.

So you can have a meal in a restaurant named after an heraldic charge while looking at art that takes its inspiration from heraldry! (Well, maybe you can; it may be quite a while before I can get to Manchester. But trust me, if I can make it there, I know exactly where I'm having lunch!)

A couple of articles about the newly-opened The Martlet Kitchen can be found on-line at:

https://themanc.com/boroughs/the-martlet-rochdale-town-hall-new-opening/

https://www.manchesterworld.uk/lifestyle/food-and-drink/the-martlet-review-rochdale-town-hall-4797310

* I know, I know! "Martlet" sounds nothing like "Arundel". But the cant, the pun on the surname, crosses linguistic borders, because in French a swallow, or martlet, is called a hirondelle, which does sound a lot like "Arundel".

The Hidden Heraldic Jewel in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

Please read all the way (or just go) to the end to read the moral of this post.

Tucked away in the vestry of All Saints Church in Kirk Deighton, and thus out of sight to the visiting public, was this heraldic gem.

I recommend that you click on the image above to see the full-size version; there's a lot of detail that you're going to miss just looking at the photo above.

The two central panels contain the Ten Commandments.

Below the panel, and attached to the frame of the door into the Vestry is this:

It reads: “The Panel above was restored in 1957. The Ten Commandments are in a version earlier than 1611. The Arms on the left are of ‘Manners’ and those on the right are of ‘Manners and DeRoos’ [properly, ‘De Ros’]. The castles are in France and were besieged by Henry VIII.”

The Manners arms on the left are blazoned: Or two bars azure a chief gules, a crescent for difference. (Yes, I am aware that the azure portions of this shield, and the azure portions of the other shield, look more vert. But they are supposed to azure, so that's how I've blazoned them) The crest is: A peacock in his pride proper.

The Manners-DeRos arms on the right are blazoned: Quarterly of sixteen: 1, Or two bars azure a chief quarterly azure and gules in the first and fourth two fleur-de-lis or on the second and third a lion passant guardant or (Manners); 2, Gules three water bougets argent (de Ros); 3, Gules three Catherine wheels argent (Espec); 4, Azure a Catherine wheel or (Belvoir); 5, Gules a fess between six crosses crosslet or (Beauchamp); 6, Checky or and azure a chevron ermine (Bellomonte [Newburgh]*); 7, Gules a chevron between ten crosses patty argent (Berkeley); 8, Or a fess between two chevrons sable (Lisle); 9, Gules a lion passant argent (Fitzgerald [Lynsley]); 10, Gules in pale three lions passant guardant or a bordure argent (Holland, Earl of Kent); 11, Argent a saltire engrailed gules (Tiptoft); 12, Or a lion rampant gules (Charleton, Baron Powys); 13, Argent a fess between two bars gemels gules (Badlesmere); 14, Checky argent and gules (Vaux [Vaux of Gillesland]); 15, Gules an eagle displayed within a bordure argent (Todeni [Albini ancient]); and 16, Or two chevrons within a bordure gules (Albini [Daubeney]).**

The De Ros crest (Fitz-Gerald-De Ros, Baron De Ros) is: [On a chapeau gules turned up ermine] A peacock in his pride proper.

The green (or blue?) triangle things around the crest in each painting is simply a cord from which the shiels "hangs", running through two golden rings at the top and then down to behind the helm.

* Bellomonte is an old or latinized form of Beaumont, and this great family was associated with a lordship in Normandy called ‘le Neubourg’ which was owned by Henry Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick, who was alternatively known as Henry de Newburgh.

** The identification of all of these quarters was assisted by reference to the website of Bottesford Living History, specifically the page on Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland (https://www.bottesfordhistory.org.uk/content/catalogue_item/bottesford-local-history-archive/heraldry-st-mary-virgin-botteford/edward-manners-3rd-earl-rutland), which has a key to all of the quarters on this shield. (That said, I had already been able to identify 11 of the quarters by my own research, but it was nice to have confirmation that I had correctly identified those quarters.)

The change of the chief from gules to quarterly was an honorable augmentation by King Henry VIII to Thomas Manners at the time of his creation as Earl of Rutland, in recognition of his descent in the maternal line from Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, a descendant of King Edward III on both his father’s and his mother’s sides.

And now, the Moral of this post:

Always talk to the people who work in a building that has heraldry on display, in this case, the Rector and his wife. Because they know where some of these "hidden gems" are located, out of the public view, and if you express an interest, they are generally more than happy to share them with you. If I hadn't mentioned, while taking photographs of just about everything in the church interior for my wife, that I personally was interested in the heraldry displayed there, I never would have been offered to see this heraldic Ten Commandments panel. And what a loss for me, and for you, that would have been!

An Armorial Memorial in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

There are several memorials to different individuals on the walls of All Saints Church in the village of Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, but only one of them has a coat of arms on it.

That sole armorial memorial is to the memory of Clement Victor Stillingfleet (1873-1966), Rector of Kirk Deighton 1914-1949) and his wife, Mabel Constance Palethorpe (1870-1963). They married November 22, 1899 in Edgbaston, St Bartholomew, Warwickshire (the marriage record indicates that she was a widow at that time), and the couple had three children: Geoffrey, Edward, and Mabel.

Rector Stillingfleet was the son of Rev. Henry James William Stillingfleet and his wife, Victorine Agassiz. (Victorine was born in Paris, and was a naturalized British subject.)

These arms are blazoned: Argent on a fess sable between three fleurs-de-lis gules three leopard's faces argent langued gules.

Oddly enough, the York family of Stillington bears the arms: Gules on a fess argent between three leopard's faces or three fleurs-de-lis sable, an interesting rearrangement of the Stillingfleet charges and colors. (It's just that sort of serendipitous finding that keeps me researching in books like Papworth's Dictionary of British Armorials and Burke's General Armory. Because you just never know when you might find exactly this sort of similarity of arms between two families with different but somewhat similar surnames.)

Real Heraldry in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

So last time we looked at some "almost" heraldry in All Saints Church, namely, an anchor, two pelicans in their piety, and a Lamb of God (Agnus Dei).

Well, today we get to find one of those "almost heraldry" charges on a real coat of arms. (Please click on the image below to go to the full-size photograph, where you can see these arms in greater clarity and detail.)

This plaque lists the Rectors of Kirk Deighton from the 13th Century.

And at the top, we see a coat of arms: Argent on a saltire gules two keys in saltire wards upwards or on a chief gules a Holy Lamb (Agnus Dei) proper. The arms are surmounted by a bishop's mitre and fibulae, all in gold.

These are the arms of the Diocese of Ripon (Diocese of Ripon and Leeds from 1999 until 2014), a former Church of England diocese, part of the Province of York. Immediately prior to its dissolution, it covered an area in western and northern Yorkshire (which would include the village of Kirk Deighton), as well as the south Teesdale area administered by County Durham which is traditionally part of Yorkshire.

The arms were granted 3 November 1836.

So, going back to my previous post, in this case we don't even have to go so far afield as the Middle Temple, London, to find a coat of arms with an Agnus Dei as a charge. We can simply look at the arms of the diocese of which All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton, Yorkshire, is a part!

Some More Almost Heraldry in All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

I say "almost" heraldry, because while these next examples do not appear on shields here in the church, they do show up as heraldic emblems and as charges on coats of arms elsewhere.

First, we have a two-light stained glass window:

In the left-hand light, we have a pelican vulning itself (sometimes called a pelican in its piety), a symbol of Christ and the sacrifice He made for mankind, and in the right-hand light, we see a fouled anchor, a symbol of hope and security.

Then, on one wall of the church, in a faux Gothic window, we have a display of the Ten Commandments, and in the quatrefoil opening near the top, there is another pelican vulning itself.

And finally, on the opposite wall from the Ten Commandments, a matching faux window with The Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed, with an Agnus Dei in the quatrefoil space near the top.

As for their use as charges on coats of arms, we have to go no further for examples than, respectively, the well-known arms of the Pelham family (Azure three pelicans argent vulning themselves gules), the arms of the State of Rhode Island, whose state motto is "Hope", (Azure three anchors or), and the arms of the Middle Temple, London (Gules an Agnus Dei proper).So while the charges are not "heraldic" here, they are certainly "heraldry-adjacent", and I think that warrants their inclusion in this post.

Some Almost Heraldry in the Apse of All Saints Church, Kirk Deighton

All Saints Church in Kirk Deighton has, as so many English parish churches do, a beautifully appointed interior that speaks to a long history there.

Around the three sides of the apse is some lovely tilework containing what is almost some heraldry.

Here, on the left-hand side as you are looking up the aisle, are the symbols of two of the four Evangelists, Matthew and Mark, with a Star of David within and conjoined to a voided sex-foil, in the center of which is a trefoil whose slip and leaves form a nearly complete circle.

And on the right-hand side:

We find the emblems of the other two Evangelists, Luke and John, along with the Star of David motif we saw on the other side, as well as what may be best described heraldically as Azure a saltire between four crowns rims to center argent.

On both sides these emblems are surrounded by borders of six-petalled white roses, and to the right in the bottom photo (and to the left, out of frame, in the top one), a panel with sets of four five-petalled white roses.

The white rose, of however many petals, is, of course, a well-known symbol of York and Yorkshire.

The _Real_ Reason We Were Visiting York

So the real reason we were visiting York was because Jo wanted to see the church where some of her Armistead ancestors had been baptized some 400 years ago, in the little parish church of All Saints in Kirk Deighton, Wetherby, about 15 miles west of York.

I could hardly deny her, especially given the number of times that she'd gone with me as I visited the places where some of my ancestors had lived and worshipped: Heiliggeistkirche and Peterskirche in Heidelberg, Germany; St. Martin's and St. Paul's Without the Walls in Canterbury, England; St. Peter's in Sandwich, England; and even King's Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts; not to mention the many cemeteries where various family members are buried.

So when she said she wanted to visit Kirk Deighton, the local church of the three Armistead brothers who emigrated to Virginia, and one of whom is her umpty-great-grandfather, of course I had to say yes!

Besides, it's an English parish church, so you know there's going to be some heraldry to see in it.

So early Sunday morning we took a taxi from our hotel in York to attend that day's service in the little church of All Saints in Kirk Deighton.

One of the first things you see upon entering the church is the baptismal font:

With its carved wooden cover:

You can see three shields on the body of the font, only one of which may be heraldic: on the left, we see the words “One Lord” with a cross formy in base; in the center, a shield with a Latin cross (it may be within some kind of border, but that is very hard to make out); and on the right, I cannot make out the two words, with a cross formy in base.

This baptismal font is not the one in use in the late 1500s/early 1600s when Jo's ancestors worshipped here. That would bethe much older baptismal font, plainer and broken at some point, which is now outside in the churchyard, but which was in all likelihood the one in which Jo Ann’s ancestors were baptized more than 400 years ago.

But while today we're only looking at what is very likely only quasi-heraldry on the "new" baptismal font, there was indeed, as I had both suspected and hoped, heraldry in All Saints Church. Not as much as I might have hoped, but probably more than I had any right to expect from such a small if long-lived parish church.

We'll see some more next time.

The Arms of a Very Popular Saint at York Minster

We've now come to the last of our pictures of heraldry in York Minster, and I'm going to end our journey here with a couple of depictions of a saint who seems to be very popular here, given how many times we have seen his attributed coat of arms in the cathedral: Saint Peter.

Those arms are blazoned: Gules two keys in saltire wards to chief or.

First, we find these arms in yet another stained glass window:

This window dates way back; in the lower right panel there are three dates (presumably those of its installation and when it has been repaired/replaced): circa 1310, 1789, and 1950!

And in the lower left panel of the window, we find the attributed arms of St. Peter:

And in another part of the cathedral, we find, within one photograph, two depictions of these same arms:

The shield at the base of the ironwork decoration is easy to see here, but if you look closely (and you can click on the image above to go to the full-size photograph), there is another shield on the ceiling behind the ironwork, above and a little to the right of the shield in front, bearing these same arms. (Because of the bright light illuminating the ceiling, the red of the shield looks a little washed out here. The camera I use can only compensate so much, you see.)

And here's a close-up of the arms of St. Peter on the ironwork:

And so, with these examples of the attributed arms of St. Peter, we end our travels both in the City of York and in York Minster. I hope that you have enjoyed seeing all of these examples of the heraldry to be found there!

More Arms to Identify With Some Difficulty

In the last of this series of three windows in York Minster, some of whose coats of arms have been somewhat difficult to conclusively identify, well, we continue with the same problems.

Depending entirely upon your own confidence in identifying heraldry (and I have learned over the years not to be overconfident of my own), there are either six or seven coats of arms here.

Near the top of these windows, placed in roundels, we have in the left and right lights the arms of St. Paul, Gules two swords in saltire points downwards proper.

In the center roundel, John Toy in his A Guide and Index to the Windows of York Minster, says “?shield with green field". For myself, I do not see a shield there. I see a green field with what may be a human figure or even a farmer in white with what may be some wheat in gold to the left of his feet, but I don't see a shield or coat of arms there. Please feel free to click on the image above to go to the full-size photograph, and the zoom in on the central roundel here. If you see anything different from me, please let me know in the comments below.

In the row of three shields in the center of each of the three lights, going from left to right:

Toy says this first shield is Ingram, which should be Azure a chevron between three lions passant or (as we have seen elsewhere in the Minster), instead of the argent field here. The whole arms are difficult to make out because of what appears to be the breakage of the glass at some time with new leading to repair it. However, it is possible to make out the charges on the shield (even if the color of the field is incorrect), and though it is difficult to make out a helmet above the shield, the mantling (gules turned argent) is pretty clear, as is the Ingram crest of A cock or.

For the center shield, Toy says Ingram impaling Greville, which ought to be: Azure a chevron between three lions passant or, impaling Sable on a cross engrailed or five roundels sable. Here, too, there are errors: the azure field of Ingram is white here, as it is in the shield on the left; and the Greville arms are shown only as a dark (dirty?) gold. Here, too, I suspect that the window was damaged at some time, and this is how it got repaired.

And for the shield on the right, Toy says Greville, which should be Sable on a cross engrailed or five roundels sable, but here the roundels are painted as annulets.

And finally, at the bottom center of the window, we have the arms of St. Peter, Gules two keys in saltire wards to chief the one or and the other argent, being supported by an angel. Looking closely at the shield, I wonder if this shield was originally the arms of the See of York, as it appears the bishop's mitre above the keys may have been removed the way it was in that other window that we saw just a few days ago. If you click on the image above and zoom in, you can see for yourself where it looks like something shaped like a mitre may have been removed and replaced with plain red glass.

Next time, we may finish up our visit to York Minster.

More Arms Identified, and More Arms Not Identified

Our next window in York Minster has four coats of arms, some of which give us the same kinds of issues of identification as some of those in the previous window did.

There are three shields across the upper part of the three lights, and another at the bottom of the central light.

To review the three in the upper part of the windows:

For the arms on the left, John Toy in A Guide and Index to the Windows of York Minster says that this coat is that of the Prince of Wales, without specifying which one which one. Nonetheless, the shield does appear to be Gules three lions passant guardant in pale or overall a label of three tags argent (although the white label is significantly darker than the white portions in the rest of the window. Has it become badly discolored, or is it meant to be some other color?).

Of the arms in the central light, Vert a cross gules, I could only find the attributed arms of Galicia. Toy says that this is the arms of Greenfield. However, in Burke's General Armory, Greenfield is blazoned as Vert on a cross argent five torteaux. The Dictionary of British Arms has no entries for Vert a cross gules.

The third shield is definitely that of Archbishop Walter Giffard (Archbishop of York 1266-1279), Gules three lions passant in pale argent.

And now the shield at the bottom of the window:

I would blazon these arms as: Azure on a chevron cotised between three lions rampant argent three escallops sable. Toy says that the arms here, without identifying any name associated with them, are Argent a lion rampant on a chief gules three escallops or, which is clearly a different coat of arms from what appears in the window now. I believe these arms are too recent for them to appear in any of my armorials or ordinaries.

So there you have it! A three-light window with four coats of arms, one definitely identifiable, one with a "maybe" identification suspect only because of the white portions may be badly discolored, and two with no firm identification at all.

But that is often "life in the heraldic fast lane", I suppose.

More Armorial Windows in York Minster

I will admit it; there are a lot of armorial stained glass windows in York Minster.

But we are now fast approaching the end of our journey in the Minster, and I'll have to find you something else heraldic to look at before very long.

But until then ...

This window, identified in John Toy's A Guide and Index to the Windows of York Minster as s31, and by Browne in A Description of the Representations and Arms on the Glass in the Windows of York Minster as the third window in the south aisle of the Nave, give us a few problems in accurately identifying the heraldry contained herein.

Beginning at the top of the window, in the center light we have:

Toy identifies this shield as that of Edmund of Woodstock, that is to say, England with a bordure argent. Browne says it is Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester.

Moving down to the center of the windows vertically, in the left and right lights we see:

On the left, Browne does not identify this coat of arms. Toy says this is the coat of FitzAlan of Bedale, Barry gules and argent a bordure azure. 

Of the arms on the right, Browne identifies it as Toy says this shield is that of John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, England with a bordure of France. (At this scale, the stained glass of the bordure is simply alternating panes of azure and or, rather than azure with fleurs-de-lis or. I expect that most visitors to the Minster wouldn't even notice the difference.) However, and adding to the confusion, Browne identifies this coat as the Earl of Huntingdon, which would make the family name here Holland. (The second and third Holland Earls of Huntingdon of the fourth creation bore England with a bordure of France.) But Holland, with a different shield, also appears lower in the window. Frankly, one of the Holland Earls seems more likely than an Earl of Cornwall, but who am I to say?

And down at the base of the window, we come to:

On the left, Browne once again does not identify this shield, which I would blazon as Azure three chevronels braced argent a chief checky argent and azure. Toy says this is the arms of FitzHugh, but FitzHugh, which we have seen elsewhere in the Minster, is Azure three chevronels braced a chief or. So I have been unable to confirm Toy's identification of this shield.

On the right, however, we have the arms of Holland, Azure semy-de-lis a lion rampant argent.

So you can see that some of the armorial identifications here are a bit muddled, to say the least.

Three Windows, Six Coats of Arms

Continuing (but coming near to the end of) our perambulation around York Minster, we come to a set of three windows which contain two coats of arms each.

You will probably recognize each of these arms, as we have seen them elsewhere in the cathedral.

In the first window we see the arms of FitzAlan, Barry of eight or and gules (the one black bar has apparently replaced a red one); and Latimer, Gules a cross patonce or.

In the next window we see the arms of Ros or de Ros, Gules three water bougets argent; and de Clare, Or three chevrons gules.

And in the third window, the arms of Warenne or de Warenne, Checky or and azure; and Percy ancient, Azure a fess of five fusils or.

On a genealogical note, it was Henry, 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick, who changed his arms from Percy ancient (as appear in this window) to Percy modern (which we have also see elsewhere in the Minster), Or a lion rampant azure. John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, was Henry, 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick’s maternal grandfather. So now you know the family connection between these two coats of arms!

More Saints and "Just Plain Folks"

In our next two windows in York Minster we find some more saints along with the arms of some regular (if wealthy) people.

In this window, we have an image of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child.

Above her, we find the arms of Bryan, Azure three piles or.

And beneath her, we see the arms of Sir Charles Hayward or Heyward, Or on a chief azure a fret debruised by a heart or between two bees volant proper. You can learn a lot more about Sir Charles by way of his entry in Wikipedia at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_William_Hayward

The central figure in our next window is labeled as St. Oswald.

That said, the banner he is holding with his right hand bears the attributed arms associated with St. Edwin. (I would note, too, that Azure three crowns or is also attributed to King Arthur. That's the wonderful thing about attributing coats of arms to figures who lived before heraldry; you can invent just about anything you like for them!)

The arms above the figure of St. Oswald are in memory of Guy Cuthbert Dawnay, a Conservative politician and the fourth son of William Dawnay, 7th Viscount Downe. The arms are blazoned Argent on a bend cotised sable three annulets argent, but lack a martlet, the usual cadency difference for a fourth son. Guy Dawnay, who was killed at the age of 40 by a wounded buffalo in 1889 near Mombassa in East Africa, is also commemorated in the inscription at the bottom right corner of this window. He also has his own Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Dawnay_(politician), although that entry does not mention this memorial window in York Minster.

Once again, please take the time to really look at and appreciate the stained glass painter's skill in creating these two windows, in addition to the heraldry contained in them.