OXFORD COLLEGE ARMS | New Cover

 

November 18, 2020—This is the new cover for Oxford College Arms. It is uploaded today and will appear on copies soon, as current inventory is depleted.

Thank you for ordering copies for your friends— https://amzn.to/2UCVpq6!

CORONATION | Elizabeth I, November 17, 1558

Elizabeth I (regnat 1558-1603)

 November 17, 2020—This day in 1558, 25-year-old Queen Elizabeth I,  the Virgin Queen, ascended to the English throne after the death of her half-sister, Mary I (Mary Tudor or "Bloody" Mary although she wasn't as bloody as her father Henry VIII). 

Elizabeth 2 was a year older than Elizabeth I when she became Queen in 1952. (I was in England then and vividly remember watching the coronation on a tiny television.) Elizabeth II has stayed in the throne for 68 years, the only British monarch to have lived this long and to have held the crown for this long.

The Crown went to Elizabeth I at a time when England was debt-ridden because of Henry VIII’s spending, despite his having seized and sold so many monastic lands. 

The country was deeply divided because of Henry VIII’s break with Rome, and then Mary I's attempt to restore Catholicism. A new problem was emerging with a dissenters disagreeing with the doctrines and example of both the Catholic Church and the Church of England. It would be 62 years from Elizabeth I’s ascension to the throne, and in the reign of James I of England (also titled James VI of Scotland), that the Pilgrims gave up on both England and Holland and set off to create the Plymouth colony in the New World. (Spoiler: The new regime in Massachusetts got to look a lot like the theocracy they left behind.)

Elizabeth I coat of arms

She inspired her subjects with walking tours and encouraged portraits of herself in gorgeous regal attire and flattering songs about her. She started England's empire by chartering companies like the East India Company to colonize areas around the world.  She was the first monarch to allow theaters to operate legally, opening up careers for dramatic writers of whom we are most grateful for William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. 

Compared with James I and the ill-fated Charles I, who provoked Parliament with the doctrine of the Monarch’s Divine Right to Rule (until dissenters in Parliament raised an army, chased Charles down in Oxford University, and made clear how much they disagreed with this idea...), Elizabeth I was wise and tolerant. She was the head of the Church of England, but she gave Catholics freedom to worship. She was not a war hawk, but when she learned that Spain had sent an Armada of warships to England, she rode out to rally the troops and England prevailed.

BIRTHDAYS | Oxonians, September 2018

Oxford Alumni Weekend (2018)
Oxford Black Alumni (2017)
Famed Oxford Alumni by College (2015)

September
07 | Peter Darrow (Trinity) 1950
14 | Oxford Open Day, for potential applicants to Oxford
15-16 | Oxford Alumni Weekend

October 
02 | Graham Greene, 1904
23 | Denis Woodfield (Lincoln) 1933
November
09 | Noel Godfrey Chavasse (Trinity) 1884
09 | Francis Chavasse (Trinity and St. Peter's) 1884
15 | William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham* (Trinity) 1708
21 | Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, "Q" (Trinity) 1863
29 | C. S. Lewis* (Univ.) 1898
December
18 | Charles Wesley (Ch.Ch.) 1707
22 | James Oglethorpe* (Corpus), 1st Gov. of Georgia 1696
January
03 | J.R.R. Tolkien, CBE (Exeter) 1892
27 | Charles Dodgson, "Lewis Carroll" (Ch.Ch.) 1832
February
13 | Anna Watkins (rower for Cambridge against Oxford), 1983
21 | John Henry Cardinal Newman (Trinity) 1801
21 | W. H. Auden
March
01 The Oxbridge Pursuivant (Trinity) 1942 😏

02 Dr Seuss (Lincoln), 1904

11 Rupert Murdoch, 1931
14 Stephen Hawking (Univ), death, 2018 (born in April)
24 William Morris (Exeter), 1834

26 Robert Frost, 1926
26 A. E. Housman, 1859

April
01 Rachel Maddow (Lincoln), 1973
03 Jane Goodall, 1934

April 23. St George's
Day

05 NYC Boat Race Dinner, University Club
13 Frederick Lord North (Trinity), 1732
13 Christopher Hitchens, 1949
14 Michael Maclagan (Ch.Ch. and Trinity), 1914
15 Emma Watson, 1990
15 Joseph Lister, 1827
19 Dudley Moore, 1935
23 St George's Day
28 Harper Lee, 1926
28 Elena Kagan, 1960
May
10 | James Viscount Bryce (Trinity) 1838
20 | Melvin "Dinghy" Young (Trinity), DFC & Bar 1915
29 | Sir Basil "Gaffer" Blackwell (Merton) 1889
June 
04 | Dan Topolski (New) 1945
05 | James Smithson (Pembroke) 1765
16 | Adam Smith (Balliol) 1723
17 | John Wesley (Ch.Ch.) 1703
July
09 | Oliver Sacks (Queen's), 1933
10 | E. Clerihew Bentley* (Merton) 1875
22 | William A. Spooner (Warden, New College) 1844
27 | Hilaire Belloc, 1870
28 | Senator Bill Bradley (Worcester) 1943
August
08 | Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (Trinity) 1605
10 | George Goodman, "Adam Smith" (BNC) 1930
11 | Lawrence Binyon (Trinity)
16 | T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) (Jesus) 1888
19 | President Bill Clinton (Univ.)

*Clerihews for Oxonians

OXFORD COLLEGE ARMS | Oxford Talk, 15 September, 12:30 pm

NEW YORK, N.Y., 30 August 2018–The Oxbridge Pursuivant just published a book on the coats of arms of the 44 Oxford colleges and halls.

He will speak on the topic on Saturday, 15 September, at 12:30 pm at Trinity College, Oxford, as part of the Oxford Alumni Weekend.

-----
The book is sold at Blackwell's and on Amazon (https://amzn.to/2oShnWq).
------

The talk with slides will cover the coats of arms of both the Oxford and Cambridge colleges and halls.

The "charges" (objects) common to several Oxford college arms will be compared with their use in Cambridge colleges.

For example, the Oxford and Cambridge University arms both feature the Bible and royal patronage.

The Bible signifies both learning and piety, i.e., knowledge balanced by the fear of the Almighty.

The Oxford crowns and Cambridge lions and ermine signify the protection of the English Monarch.

Oxford was protected by Henry II from competition from the University of Paris. Both Henry IV and Henry VIII exempted Oxford colleges from costly visitations by heralds.

Later, both Oxford and Cambridge were protected by the Crown from creation of any new universities, for nearly 500 years!

Is there significance in the fact that the Oxford Bible is open and in the reading position, while the Cambridge Bible is closed and on its side?

These are the kinds of questions suggested by the study of the coats of arms of Oxford and Cambridge.

Be there... Saturday 15 September, 12:30 pm! 

Friday 14 September is the last Open Day in 2018.  For more about Oxford's Open Day, click here: https://bit.ly/2NZSgMg. (In case you were curious, Cambridge has Open Days as well.)

The author will be talking about the book and signing copies in Flaggs between 11:00 am and 11:30 am on Friday 14 September and Saturday 15 September. 

The book is on sale in Blackwell's.

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.

HERALDRY LINKS | Alphabetical

OXFORD COLLEGES AND PPHS
The following are draft sections of a book, © 2018 by Boissevain Books LLC.

All Souls
Balliol College
Blackfriars Hall
Campion Hall

Harris Manchester

Kellogg College (Updated May 12)~

Lady Margaret Hall (a College) (May 19, 2018)~

Linacre (Updated May 13, 2018)~

Lincoln (Updated May 15, 2018)~

Mansfield College (Updated May 13, 2018)~

Oriel College (Updated May 15, 2018)~

Regent's Park College (a PPH) (Updated May 15, 2018)~

St Antony's College (Updated May 12, 2018)~

St Benet's Hall (a PPH) (Updated May 13, 2018)~

St Catherine's (St Catz, Updated May 14, 2018) ~
St Cross (Updated May 16, 2018) ~
St Edmund Hall (a College) (Updated May 16, 2018)~
St Hilda's (May 19, 2018) ~
St Hugh's (May 19,2018)~
St John's (May 20, 2018)

St Peter's (Updated May 16, 2018)~

Trinity (Updated May 15, 2018)~
Wolfson (May 20, 2018)

HERALDIC TOPICS

Beer, Branding and Paul Walton

Coat of Arms v. Crest, reply to Robert Parker (Trinity 1967)
George Washington's Arms and the Stars and Stripes I, Huffington Post

George Washington's Arms and the Stars and Stripes II (Sulgrave)
GW's Arms – Selby or Trinity, Which Is Older? (2018)
Martlets (2018)
Richmond Herald (2018)
Scotsmen Inspired the Patriots (2018)

Simple Heraldry Is Fun

Sinister Questions

Stars in the Oxford College Arms

The Arms of Douglas, Moray and de Vere,

U.S. Arms | The American College of Heraldry (2018)
Visit to the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh (2018)

What's Your Blazon?, article in Oxford Today, 2015
What's Your Blazon? Oxford Heraldry Society Likes

OTHER OXFORD TOPICS
Oxford Birthdays | April
Oxford Birthdays | May
Oxford–The First Seven Centuries (May 16, 2018)
Oxford's Rapid Expansion
Oxford Arms Superlinks . Heraldry Links (Alphabetical)

COATS OF ARMS | Talk to OUS London on April 16, 2018

THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY SOCIETY

LONDON BRANCH

Coats of Arms of the Oxford Colleges

by

John Tepper Marlin

on

Monday 16^th April 2018

at

The Oxford and Cambridge Club, Pall Mall

--------
Postscript: Report on the talk is here

--------
Dear OUS-London member,   

  

JT Marlin’s fascination with coats of arms started when he was sent to Ampleforth College and took his meals in a Yorkshire castle dining room surrounded by marvellous stained-glass windows featuring these curious shields with stylized symbols and fantastical creatures. It has remained a life-long interest.

John has been in the business of writing since a student at Harvard, where in 1961 he wrote and edited the first edition of The Let's Go Guide to Europe. He read PPE at Trinity, Oxford, and whilst earning a Ph.D. in economics in the US, he served as a Federal Government economist in Washington, D.C. and then was appointed Chief Economist for the New York City Comptroller. Heading the Council on Municipal Performance for 20 years, he wrote eight books comparing U.S. and international cities. He is now a full-time writer on historical subjects.

In 2015, John wrote an article on coats of arms for the alumni publication Oxford Today which attracted valuable comment and insight from readers. Based on the feedback and further research, he commenced work on a new book investigating, explaining and illustrating college coats of arms. 

This evening John will delve into the coats of arms of our Oxford colleges, drawing comparisons between paired coats of arms, highlighting examples of shared heritage, some interesting curiosities and the key to understanding their symbolism and conventions.  

We very much hope that you will be able to join us in the suitably august and stately surrounds of the Oxford and Cambridge Club. Following the talk, drinks and canapés will be served providing the customary OUS-London opportunity to meet with fellow alumni and guests. Your non-Oxonian friends and family are welcome.

Coats of Arms of the Oxford Colleges

Monday 16^th April 2018

Tickets : £35      6:30pm : Arrival  7:00pm : Talk followed by Reception  Dress : Lounge Suit

PLEASE NOTE    1) In the event that your application is unsuccessful, please enclose a S.A.E. IF YOU REQUIRE NOTIFICATION that you will NOT be receiving tickets, and for return of your cheque (otherwise cheques will be destroyed).

2) Sorry, refunds cannot be made after the closing date (April 9).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLEASE COMPLETE  &  RETURN THE BELOW APPLICATION FORM c/o Cheryl-Lisa Hearne-McGuiness,  PO Box 44137, London,  SW6 4WH. ( Tel : 07976 706152 )

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLEASE NOTE : E-TICKETS will be E-mailed by the 10^th April 2018

** CLOSING DATE for APPLICATIONS  -  MONDAY 9^th April  **

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name   ________________________   College ______________________Year _________

E-mail  ___________________________________________________________  

Address  _________________________________________________________________________

Telephone No  ___________________________  (please provide in case of ticket emergencies!)

Please send me …………….…. tickets at £35 each for Oxford Colleges - Coats of Arms on 16^th April 2018

I enclose a cheque for £……, made payable to   “Oxford University Society – London Branch”.

My guest(s) will be : (use below/ separate sheet for additional guest details)

First Name …………… Last Name ……...….........…..  [College …….……..… Year …..…... ]                

First Name …………..... Last Name …….….....…...… [College …….……...... Year …..….... ] 

For a taste of the issues: Heraldry, Oxford Superlink.     

TOLKIEN: Feb. 11–Heirs Sue for $150 mil. in 2008

J. R. R. Tolkien

Feb. 11, 2017–This day in 2008, a law suit was initiated relating to the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, written by South African-born J. R. R. Tolkien.

Tolkien was thoroughly Oxonian–attending Exeter College as an undergraduate and returning first to Pembroke College and, after World War 2, to Merton College as a fellow.

Tolkien’s heirs (he had three children–Christopher and Priscilla are mentioned in the source above as participating in the lawsuit) joined a group of publishers in filing a $150 million lawsuit against New Line Cinema in Los Angeles, Calif. Superior Court.

New Line, a movie studio owned by Time Warner since 1996, earned critical acclaim with three Lord of the Rings films directed by Peter Jackson: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003).

The lawsuit claimed the three films together grossed more than $6 billion internationally. They were also nominated for a total of 30 Academy Awards and at the 2004 Oscars, The Return of the King won in all 11 categories it was nominated in, tied for the most Academy Awards ever for a film.

Film rights to Tolkien’s books were acquired in 1969 by United Artists, who in turn sold them to the Saul Zaentz Company in 1976. Miramar licensed the rights in 1997 and sold them to New Line the following year.

In the Tolkien lawsuit, the holders of a trust for J.R.R. Tolkien, who died in 1973, stated that they had failed to receive any money from the films, where a 1969 agreement entitled them to 7.5 percent of the gross. Jackson himself settled a bitter and lengthy lawsuit against New Line in December 2007.

The lawsuit by Tolkien's heirs was settled in September 2009 for an undisclosed amount.

VICE-CHANCELLOR: NYC Sep. 8

Vice-Chancellor Louise
Richardson

Oxford alumni are invited to attend a reception for Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson in New York City on Thursday, Sept. 8, 6-8 pm. 

There is no charge for members of the OU Alumni Association of New York. For guests the charge is $15.

Notes on her talk are here.

FREE SPEECH: Bullying by the Left (PS: Yale)

Nat Hentoff
archive

Feb. 6, 2016–The trashing of Cecil Rhodes by anti-racism activists is their right so long as it is limited to speech. Once it gets into bullying and unwillingness to allow other points of view, and especially when it comes to a proposal for removing historic monuments (as in the case of Oriel College, Oxford), where full expression of alternative views is essential, we need to be alert to the value of freedom of speech on both sides.

Belief that we have the moral high ground has always been the motivation for suppressing alternative views. But what we may be on is not the high ground but our high horse.

Restricting free speech is unconstitutional in the United States under the First Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights inherited in a chain that starts with the Magna Carta, whose 800th birthday we celebrated last year. Among Magna Carta’s more important provisions are its requirement that proceedings and prosecutions be according to “the law of the land”–the forerunner of “due process of law”–Article 39 of the Magna Carta–and a ban on the sale or delay of justice. Cromwell's Parliament in 1628 adopted the Petition of Right in response to some of Charles I's actions, condemning unlawful imprisonments and taxation “without common consent of parliament.” The year after William III of Orange was brought in to rule Britain in 1688, Parliament adopted the Bill of Rights, which includes some of the American Amendments such as the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive bail and fines and on cruel and unusual punishment.

There is no law restricting free speech because Congress is forbidden in the First Amendment from passing one:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It may be more convincing to activists when someone who has long been on their side on the issues makes the free speech case. Here is an appeal from Nat Hentoff and his son Nick a few months ago (November 17, 2015), calling for a cooling off of U.S. campus activists. Nat Hentoff is an authority on the American Constitution's Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment. U.S. laws seem more permissive of free speech than British laws, for example on the boundaries of libel, but the same moral philosophy underlies both.

Public shaming on campus: Out of control, Nat and Nick Hentoff
Hostility to the exercise of free speech on American college campuses is nothing new. But what happened at Yale University, the University of Missouri and other colleges over the past two weeks is something new and frightening. The suppression of speech in academia has begun to spiral out of control.
Nicholas Christakis is a professor at Yale who lives with his wife in a student residence hall on campus. An internationally renowned physician and sociologist, Dr. Christakis was surrounded by dozens of angry students who showered him with curses and threats. Dr. Christakis’ offense? He refused to publicly apologize for his wife’s email that defended free speech and urged tolerance of offensive Halloween costumes. [See Postscript below.]
Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), was on the Yale campus to attend a free-speech symposium and witnessed the incident. In the video Lukianoff posted on FIRE’s website, Christakis appears on the verge of being physically assaulted.
“Nicholas addressed the crowd for more than an hour, even after it became clear that nothing short of begging for forgiveness would satisfy them,” Lukianoff wrote in the Washington Post. “I’ve witnessed some intense campus disputes during my 14 years fighting for free speech, but nothing like this.”
The next evening – at a William F. Buckley Jr. Program conference on free speech that had been planned months in advance – Greg Lukianoff’s speech was interrupted by a student who rushed the podium, shouting, before he was dragged out of the building by campus police. Attendees then braved a gauntlet of angry Yale students who cursed and ridiculed them. The Yale Daily News reported that “several attendees were spat on as they left.”
At the University of Missouri, a student photographer freelancing for ESPN was confronted by a mob of angry anti-racism protesters who tried to eject him from the public commons area where they had gathered. After he refused to leave, the students begin a coordinated effort to both psychologically and physically intimidate the reporter into leaving.
The protesters subjected him to intense ridicule, sometimes chanting in unison, as they gradually forced him backwards. They then began to falsely accuse the reporter of the very conduct they themselves were directing against him.
MU’s student body vice president later tried to justify the students’ self-imposed restrictions on the press during an interview on MSNBC. She suggested that the First Amendment “creates a hostile and unsafe learning environment.”
Later that same week, a Christian street preacher, speaking within the campus “free speech circle,” was physically assaulted and had his microphone appropriated by an anti-racism protester.
At Amherst College, a student group called Amherst Uprising issued a list of demands to administrators that included individual public apologies for what they claimed was a hostile environment of ethnocentric racism on campus. The list also included a demand for a written statement from administrators acknowledging that students who distribute leaflets defending free-speech rights are subject to disciplinary action for being “racially insensitive,” and that any students disciplined for such an offense must “attend extensive training for racial and cultural competency.”
At Cornell, a well-meaning white student was forced to issue a public apology after he scheduled his own anti-racism protest without first getting the approval of the Black Student Union. He was accused, in multiple social media posts, of mocking the efforts of the BSU.
One commentator put him on notice that “if you are to be in (sic) ally, you have to acknowledge what you’ve done to hurt us.” Within hours of scheduling the event, the offending student canceled the protest and issued a public apology thanking his critics “for calling me out on my ignorance.”
These are not isolated incidents, but represent the organized adoption of mass public shaming tactics. Mass public shaming – traditionally used by autocratic regimes to silence their critics – is a particularly insidious form of censorship. It is designed to chill future speech by humiliating the speaker. Psychological manipulation and intimidation are used to impose forced speech as a means of social control.
Universities in the United States should not tolerate or appease such public shaming techniques. In his March 20, 2015, New York Times op-ed, “China’s Tradition of Public Shaming Thrives,” author Murong Xuecun writes that “cases of public shaming show us how in the name of some great cause, individual rights, dignity and privacy can all be sacrificed.”
President Obama recently offered some advice to students and faculty who feel that the First Amendment creates a hostile and unsafe learning environment.
“You don’t have to be fearful of somebody spouting bad ideas.” Obama said during an interview last Sunday on ABC News. “Just out-argue them. Beat ’em. Make the case as to why they’re wrong. Win over adherents. That’s how things work in a democracy."

Postscript on the Yale Halloween Incident

Feb. 7, 2016–I posted the above yesterday. This morning The New York Times has a story on the Yale Halloween incident. It is described as a turning point–since then, public shaming has being redirected at student activists who in the interest of their causes are violating the higher value of free speech. In the new world where alumni are being asked to make up the shortfall in government funding of higher education, they may also have some influence on campus priorities.

RHODES: Oriel to Keep Statue

The Colossus of Rhodes (Punch)

Last month on Christmas Day I posted something on the campaign calling for Oriel College to remove both a plaque and a statue of Cecil Rhodes. My headline was "Monument-Trashing at Oxford," which gives the flavor of where I came down on the question.

Oriel's listening period on the subject of Cecil Rhodes seems to be over. I speculate it might have something to do with Oxford's new vice chancellor, Louise Richardson.

She has the moral authority to take a strong position about colonial repression, coming as she does from Ireland, which arguably suffered as much under Oliver Cromwell–with unarguably fewer benefits–as South Africa did under Rhodes. She said the discussion was

a distraction from the much bigger issues. What’s positive about this whole "Rhodes Must Fall" movement is that it’s drawing attention to our history. We need to confront our history.

The Empire-wistful Telegraph has been covering the subject intensively. It argues that the Provost has been dithering over making a decision, while alumni donors have been withdrawing their support for the college.

Meanwhile, what about the plaque?

BIRTHDAY: Oct. 28–Evelyn Waugh (Updated Feb. 18, 2017)

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)

This day in 1903 was born Evelyn Waugh in London, England. A latter-day Oscar Wilde, he was a witty novel-writer who shone between the two world wars.

His was the son of Arthur Waugh, director of a publisher with the rights to Charles Dickens' novels, for which Waugh did not care. Both Evelyn and his elder brother Alec became well-known novelists.

Evelyn wrote his first fiction at 7, called 'The Curse of the Horse Race," of which he was proud. He  told a Paris Review interviewer: "It was vivid and full of action." His poem "The World to Come" was written in the meter of Hiawatha.

Waugh was close to his mother Catherine but envied the bond between his father and older brother. Due to a homosexual scandal involving his brother at the Sherborne School, Waugh was required to attend a less-prestigious religious institution called Lancing. Nonetheless Waugh earned a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford, which he loved. He rode a bicycle and smoked a pipe and "drank for Hertford" while constantly thinking of clever things to say or write. He neglected his academics trying to be an artist and writer.

Of his contemporary Graham Greene, who suffered from depression while at Oxford and kept to himself, Waugh reported that Greene

looked down on us (and perhaps all undergraduates) as childish and ostentatious. He certainly shared in none of our revelry.

A Balliol man, Greene graduated in 1925 with average honors in history. Waugh left Oxford without a degree.

After going down, Waugh took a series of low-paying teaching jobs while trying to be an artist. A friend, Anthony Powell, an editor at Duckworth, got Waugh a commission to write a biography of artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. However, Waugh was displeased with his book. Still in debt, Waugh attempted suicide by drowning himself, but was stung by a jellyfish so he ran back out.

Pulling himself together, Waugh then wrote his famed first novel Decline and Fall (1928), about a schoolteacher named Paul Pennyfeather whose name betrays a lightweight character. Pennyfeather is sent down from Oxford for running across campus pantless. Then the only job he can find is at a school where other teachers are pedophiles or noisy drunks or both. About to marry the mother of one of his students, he finds that her income comes from South American brothels.

Waugh had a series of military appointments, travels and an unhappy marriage, all of which he used as material for his writing. Besides novels, he wrote travelogs and short stories. In 1930, Waugh covered Haile Selassie I's coronation as Ethiopia's emperor, calling it "an elaborate propaganda effort" to cover up the emperor's brutality.

Waugh based some later novels on his World War II service. His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was semi-autobiographical. It became a famed 12-hour PBS television series (1982) and then a well-regarded two-hour movie. Here is a greatly abbreviated description from Amazon:

Brideshead Revisited: Directed by Julian Jarrold, adapted by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock. Evelyn Waugh's 1945 text follows artist-turned-soldier Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) as he enters Oxford and meets Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), black sheep of the Catholic Marchmains. Ryder falls for Flyte's sister, Julia (Hayley Attwell), though indomitable Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson) disapproves of his atheism. Sebastian wants Charles and his drinking accelerates when Ryder shows preference for Julia. Goode is as deft as Jeremy Irons in the TV series, but in both cases the shows lose steam when focus shifts from Sebastian to Julia.

Waugh died in Somerset, England, in 1966.

HERALDRY: "What's Your Blazon?" in "Oxford Today" (Updated Mar 8, 2017)

Cover of The Michaelmas 2015 Oxford Today.

Sent to a quarter-million Oxonians: The Michaelmas 2015 issue of Oxford Today.

On p. 66, note the fine obit of Dan Topolski, about whose life and death I have posted.

My article, "What's Your Blazon?" is on pages 45-50. I am grateful to Ian Senior, who emails out a  newsletter about Oxford, for alerting his readers to what he calls a "very interesting" article.

Special thanks to Windsor Herald, William George Hunt, TD, BA (Southampton, UK), FCA, for giving me a tour of the College of Arms in London when I visited in February. I add more acknowledgments at the end of this post.

The College of Arms is, especially for an American, an amazing institution. The traditions go back to Edward III and 1364, 651 years ago. It is the ancient predecessor of something most Americans think they invented – brands and trademarks.

To show my gratitude to the College of Arms for keeping alive the heraldic traditions, I made a contribution to their U.S. foundation and I urge other Americans to do the same. The College has managed to survive for six-and-a-half centuries, mostly from fees and contributions from private sources. But in inflation-adjusted money its revenues have not been keeping pace. Americans can make gifts deductible from taxable income to support the College of Arms through the College of Arms Foundation, administered by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.

The rich topic of the Oxford and Cambridge college coats of arms is ripe for greater enjoyment. Heraldry is too much fun to be restricted to specialists, although I am determined to keep learning as much as I can. We don't want to go to the other extreme either, of the mass-produced "family" coats of arms.

Anyone with greater expertise or imagination, please share comments with me here and I promise to email back my appreciation for any feedback, any further required contrition and of course I will correct anything I have posted online that needs to be corrected.

Last month I spent a day at the Society of Genealogists (SOG) in London (they have an excellent heraldry section in their library) and I have become a member.

On Monday in New York City I will be going to the next heraldry committee meeting of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (NYGBS), which I have joined and where Windsor Herald will be speaking.

Exonerating anyone else from any shortcomings as a heraldry expert, I would like to acknowledge the help of a number of sources, for which there is little space in Oxford Today articles. The heraldry holdings of the British Library and New York Public Library were helpful (although I wish more of the NYPL holdings were open-stack, as they are at the British Library), as well as genealogical societies in New York (NYGBS) and London (SOG). The library at the College of Arms was under reconstruction when I visited, so I wasn't able to use it much. The new Weston Library of the Bodleian in Oxford has a small but helpful open-stack collection.

Several people read drafts of my article. My wife Alice Tepper Marlin, of course, read it at an important juncture. Marlene Rehkamp, with whom I worked in the New York City Comptroller's Office, kindly gave it a thorough read and as usual came up with excellent suggestions.  The Editor of Oxford Today, Richard Lofthouse, saw the potential for the article at an early stage and deserves huge credit for turning Oxford Today into a forum for general discussion among alumni around the world, both in print and online. I think we are increasingly finding out that print and cyberspace have a lot to offer each other.

Other Posts on the Arms of Oxford Colleges and PPHs: Original Article in Oxford Today . Heraldry as Branding . Heraldry as Fun .  Coat of Arms vs. Crest . Sinister Questions . Visit to the College of Arms . Windsor Herald Talks to New Yorkers . Shaming of Harvard Law Crest :: Rapid Expansion of Oxford's Colleges and Halls . Oxford Stars . Links to Heraldry, Oxford, GW . Harris Manchester College . Linacre College . St Catherine's . St Cross College . St Edmund Hall . Trinity College :: Regent's Park College . St Benet's Hall . 

REUNION: New College, Oxford Concert, 2015

The Keble College chapel is one of the largest at Oxford.

Sept. 22, 2015 – The New College Choir, with a contingent of young choristers from the New College School, sang in a concert on Sunday at the Keble College chapel.

This was the last public event of the Oxford Alumni Weekend.

The choir is one of the best at Oxford and has been continuously singing since the 14th century, when William of Wykeham created a foundation within New College to support the choir.

It was a great combination of a superb choir with one of the great college chapels, a grade 1 listed building and one of the finest examples of Victorian architecture.

The Keble College chapel has fine acoustics and a superlative new organ.

I discretely recorded snippets of the singing on my iPhone, in the second row.

Unfortunately, only one of my snippets is short enough (25 seconds) to post on a Google blog.

The program was as follows:

1. Francisco Guerrero (1528-99), Duo Seraphim Clamabant (Two Seraphim Cried Out).

2. Henry Purcell (1659-95), I was glad (Psalm 121).

3. Thomas Tallis (c 1505-85), Three tunes from Archbishop Matthew Parker's Psalter. Psalms 2, 42, 67 as translated by Archbishop Parker.

4. Thomas Tallis, Suscipe quaeso Domine, by St. Isidore of Seville.

This is the new organ.

5. Organ solo, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47), Variations on the Lord's Prayer, from Sonata in D Minor, Op. 65 no. 6.

6. Kenneth Leighton (1929-88), God's Grandeur, Gerald Manley Hopkins.

7. Matthew Martin (b. 1976), In the Year that King Uzziah Died, Isaiah 6.

8. Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), O Clap Your Hands Together, Psalm 47.

A glorious concert. Timothy Wakerell was the organist and Robert Quinney (one-time Organ Scholar at King's College, Cambridge) was the conductor. Quinney is also the Organist of New College.

OXFORD: Alumni Weekend 2015, Sept. 18-20

The annual Oxford Alumni Weekend is on September 18-20. 

I plan to be there.