Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings, as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch of heraldry, concerns the design and transmission of the heraldic achievement. The achievement, or armorial bearings usually includes a coat of arms on a shield, helmet and crest, together with any accompanying devices, such as supporters, badges, heraldic banners and mottoes.
The royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, or the royal arms for short, is the arms of dominion of the British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II. These arms are used by the Queen in her official capacity as monarch of the United Kingdom. Variants of the royal arms are used by other members of the British royal family, by the British Government in connection with the administration and government of the country, and some courts and legislatures in a number of Commonwealth realms. A Scottish version of the royal arms is used in and for Scotland. The arms in banner form serve as basis for the monarch's official flag, the Royal Standard.
A wyvern is a legendary dragon that has two legs.
The royal arms of England are the arms first adopted in a fixed form at the start of the age of heraldry as personal arms by the Plantagenet kings who ruled England from 1154. In the popular mind they have come to symbolise the nation of England, although according to heraldic usage nations do not bear arms, only persons and corporations do. The blazon of the arms of Plantagenet is: Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale or armed and langued azure, signifying three identical gold lions with blue tongues and claws, walking past but facing the observer, arranged in a column on a red background. Although the tincture azure of tongue and claws is not cited in many blazons, they are historically a distinguishing feature of the arms of England. This coat, designed in the High Middle Ages, has been variously combined with those of the Kings of France, Scotland, a symbol of Ireland, the House of Nassau and the Kingdom of Hanover, according to dynastic and other political changes occurring in England, but has not altered since it took a fixed form in the reign of Richard I of England (1189–1199), the second Plantagenet king.
The coat of arms of Manitoba is the heraldic symbol representing the Canadian province of Manitoba. The arms contains symbols reflecting Manitoba's British heritage along with local symbols. At the upper part of the shield is the red cross of St. George, representing England. On the left, the unicorn represents Scotland. The lower portion of the shield features a bison standing atop a rock on a green background.
The coat of arms of Victoria is the official heraldic symbol of the Australian state of Victoria. Victoria was the second state of Australia to gain arms, granted on 6 June 1910 by royal warrant of King George V. The state had been named in 1851 after his grandmother, who was in reign at the time. The final version of the arms was granted 28 March 1978 in the royal warrant issued by Queen Elizabeth II.
The Prince of Wales's feathers is the dexter British monarchy heraldic badge of the Prince of Wales. It consists of three white ostrich feathers encircled by a gold coronet with a ribbon below bearing the German motto "Ich dien".
A Royal Badge for Wales was approved in May 2008. It is based on the arms borne by the thirteenth-century Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great, with the addition of St Edward's Crown atop a continuous scroll which, together with a wreath consisting of the plant emblems of the four countries of the United Kingdom, surrounds the shield. The motto which appears on the scroll, PLEIDIOL WYF I'M GWLAD, is taken from the National Anthem of Wales and is also found on the Welsh designs for £1 coins minted from 1985 until 2000. The badge formerly appeared on the covers of Assembly Measures; since the 2011 referendum, it now appears on the cover of Acts passed by the Senedd and its escutcheon, ribbon and motto are depicted on the Welsh Seal.
The coat of arms of New South Wales is the official coat of arms of the Australian state of New South Wales. It was granted by royal warrant of King Edward VII dated 11 October 1906.
Heraldry in Scotland, while broadly similar to that practised in England and elsewhere in western Europe, has its own distinctive features. Its heraldic executive is separate from that of the rest of the United Kingdom.
The lion is a common charge in heraldry. It traditionally symbolises courage, nobility, royalty, strength, stateliness and valour, because historically the lion has been regarded as the "king of beasts". The lion also carries Judeo-Christian symbolism. The Lion of Judah stands in the coat of arms of Jerusalem. Similar-looking lions can be found elsewhere, such as in the coat of arms of the Swedish royal House of Bjelbo, from there in turn derived into the coat of arms of Finland, formerly belonging to Sweden.
The London County Council was granted a coat of arms in 1914 and a heraldic badge in 1956. The coat of arms can still be seen on buildings constructed by the council before its abolition in 1965.
The royal standards of England were narrow, tapering swallow-tailed heraldic flags, of considerable length, used mainly for mustering troops in battle, in pageants and at funerals, by the monarchs of England. In high favour during the Tudor period, the Royal English Standard was a flag that was of a separate design and purpose to the Royal Banner. It featured St George's Cross at its head, followed by a number of heraldic devices, a supporter, badges or crests, with a motto—but it did not bear a coat of arms. The Royal Standard changed its composition frequently from reign to reign, but retained the motto Dieu et mon droit, meaning God and my right; which was divided into two bands: Dieu et mon and Droyt.
English heraldry is the form of coats of arms and other heraldic bearings and insignia used in England. It lies within the so-called Gallo-British tradition. Coats of arms in England are regulated and granted to individuals by the English kings of arms of the College of Arms. An individual's arms may also be borne ‘by courtesy' by members of the holder's nuclear family, subject to a system of cadency marks, to differentiate those displays from the arms of the original holder. The English heraldic style is exemplified in the arms of British royalty, and is reflected in the civic arms of cities and towns, as well as the noble arms of individuals in England. Royal orders in England, such as the Order of the Garter, also maintain notable heraldic bearings.
The coat of arms of the City of London is the official coat of arms of the City of London, which is one of a number of cities and boroughs in Greater London.
A national coat of arms is a symbol which denotes an independent state in the form of a heraldic achievement. While a national flag is usually used by the population at large and is flown outside and on ships, a national coat of arms is normally considered a symbol of the government or the head of state personally and tends to be used in print, on armorial ware, and as a wall decoration in official buildings. The royal arms of a monarchy, which may be identical to the national arms, are sometimes described as arms of dominion or arms of sovereignty.
The coat of arms of the Prince of Wales is the official heraldic insignia of the Prince of Wales, a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, formerly the Kingdom of Great Britain and before that the Kingdom of England.
The armorial of British universities is the collection of coats of arms of universities in the United Kingdom. Modern arms of universities began appearing in England around the middle of the 15th century, with Oxford's being possibly the oldest university arms in the world, being adopted around the end of the 14th century. The earliest granting of university arms was to King's College Cambridge by Henry VIII in 1449. Arms are still granted by the College of Arms to universities today, with new universities continuing to register arms, which has been seen as an attempt to appear more traditional or legitimate. As corporations, older university arms have historically been granted without a crest, however newer institutions use crests with mantling, including new colleges at older universities. The first crest granted to a university was to Leeds in 1905 while the first British university to be granted supporters was Sussex in 1962, although both Oxford and Cambridge have used angels as supporters and Cambridge has used the 'alma mater' emblem as a crest without these components being officially granted.
The coat of arms of the University of Sheffield is the official heraldic emblem of the University of Sheffield. It was granted by the College of Arms on 28 June 1905, one month after the university's royal charter was sealed. The coat of arms was registered as a trademark by the University of Sheffield in 1992. In 2005, the university designed a logo consisting of a simplified version of the arms; the logo, however, does not supersede the heraldic symbol.
Railways in Great Britain have a spotted history with heraldry. Though there are some examples of railway companies acquiring legitimate grants of arms from either the College or the Lyon Court, the majority of emblems simply copied the existing arms of the municipalities between which their routes ran, or used haphazard collections of quasi-heraldic imagery. Many encircled their insignia with buckles resembling those of orders of chivalry, but with the company names in place of those orders' mottoes. Earlier railway companies frequently employed circular pictorial seals which occasionally included shields, crests or other elements from civic arms.
