Scandal, Sensation, or Breaking New?

Well, given the date of the manuscript, I don't think it can be truly called "breaking news." Just sayin'.

We all are, or at least, ought to be, familiar with the coat of arms of the City of London:

Usually blazoned Argent a cross and in the first quarter a sword gules.

But someone recently posted in The Heraldry Society Facebook page some images of the Stowe MS 733, where these arms are given as the arms of London, but also showing the "Auncient Armes of London," as seen in "our Lady Church in Audmary", where in place of the sword there is "an ould Romayn L" in the first quarter:

That page goes on to state that John Stowe had seen it in an old seal, and affirmed that it was the sword of St. Paul and not, as some stories say, a reward for the Lord Mayor of London, William Walworth, defending with his sword King Richard II from Peasant's Revolt leader Wat Tyler.

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting development. I haven't seen anything before that has suggested that the charge in the first quarter of the arms of the City of London was anything but a sword. But here we are, looking at an old manuscript that says that once upon a time it was an old Roman "L" (or was it an old Roman "fifty", which is also an "L"?).

As Artie Johnson used to say on the old TV show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, "Verrry interesting."

* I'm probably dating myself with this reference. Yeah, I'm old. Get over it.