HERALDRY | Anglo-American Royal Arms–Vivez les Différences!

Arms of Meghan Markley, now
Duchess of Sussex.

June 4, 2018–The latest recorded initiation of a royal coat of arms was a gift to Meghan Markley of California upon her accession to the title of Duchess of Sussex, after her marriage to Prince Harry.

The Duchess of Sussex Arms

The blue (azure) background of the sinister side of the dimidiated shield represents the Pacific Ocean, which bounds the Californian coast.

The two golden (or) rays across the shield symbolize the sunshine of The Duchess’s home state that she has sacrificed, in exchange for the chance to spend time in Windsor Castle and other royal residences.

The three quills represent communication, which the Duchess of Sussex is good at (she was an actress). Beneath the shield on the grass are flowers, including golden poppies, California’s state flower. The sinister supporter is a songbird with open mouth, indicating again the beauty and power of words.

Arms of Geoffrey of Anjou.

The First International Royal Arms

The earliest recorded initiation of a royal coat of arms was on June 10, 1128, when Geoffrey Plantagenet was presented by his father-in-law, King Henry I of England in Rouen, France with a blue shield bearing six gold (or) lions rampant (see shield at left).

The occasion was of international significance. Geoffrey was French. He was knighted by King Henry I, the English father of his bride Matilda. Their son became Henry II of England.

Matilda was the daughter of Edith of Scotland and the widow of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. Thus three royal lines were united with England – Scotland, France and the Holy Roman Empire.

This is the oldest record of an initiation of international royal arms, although coats of arms are recorded in the Bayeux tapestry after the invasion of William I of England, and royal arms are attributed posthumously to Edward the Confessor (a blue field with golden martlets around a golden cross).

Geoffrey of Anjou is considered the first person known to have been given arms in an armigerous royal family. For this reason, June 10 is registered on the International Day Calendar by Kathy McClurg as International Heraldry Day. She is a member of the IAAH, the International Association of Amateur Heralds.

The French Royal Succession

My friend Paul Walton has just sent me a family tree of the French Capet-Valois-Bourbon royal succession (Anjou became a cadet branch.) The tree shows how difficult it can get to differentiate royals when they have a big family. Some of the differences are discretely ingenious, some seem to obliterate the shield. The Duchess of Sussex has a more meaningfully designed coat of arms.

Heraldic Differencing of the French Royal Family in the 18th and 19th centuries.

BRANDING | The Master Goes Back to His Roots

My photo of Paul Walton on one of his frequent visits
to New York. He resides in Oxford.

June 3, 2018 – Paul Walton has an international following as a branding expert. He matriculated at Brasenose, Oxford in 1974, 12 years after I went up at Trinity. (In a tribute to Trinity, he named one of the craft beers at his Shotover Brewery after the college.) He read History, and then went into advertising, and did well at it.

He understands the thread of Identity Display (ID), from the ancient symbols on the battlefield by which friends and foes identified one another, to the exotic heraldic emblems by which jousting knights played at warfare before their fans, a kind of voluntary Gladiators tournament.

The closest modern equivalent to jousting, other than reenacted jousting tournaments themselves in places like Canada and New Zealand (don't watch this YouTube clip if you are squeamish), would be one-on-one contact sports like boxing. But the knights had a regional following the way football teams do so the collective spirit around the lists might be more akin to an international football game.

Paul has recently gone back to his roots to write a book last year about the school he attended, St Mary's in Wales. It is called Marians on the Mawddach, Marians being the name for students at his school, and the Mawddach being the nearby river, oops, estuary. The History faculty at Oxford recently posted an interview with Paul here:
https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/the-uselessness-of-history-historian-engineer-brand-man. A worthy tribute to a scholarly gentleman who hit some home runs in the branding business.