 | |
| Use |   |
|---|---|
| Adopted | 1952 |
| Relinquished | 2021 |
 | |
| Use | |
| Adopted | 1951 |
| Relinquished | 1952 |
The standard of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was the personal flag used by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. It displays his coat of arms and can thus be considered a banner of arms. [1]
In November 1951, King George VI authorised Philip to use a personal standard consisting of his arms impaled with the arms of his wife, Princess Elizabeth. He did so until Elizabeth ascended to the throne as queen in 1952, after which his standard bore his arms alone. [2] [3] [4]
Philip's standard after 1952 was divided into quarters, each alluding to a component of his ancestry or title. The top-left quarter featured three blue crowned lions on a yellow background with red hearts, derived from the coat of arms of Denmark, [5] while the top-right quarter was blue with a white cross, representing the coat of arms of Greece and the country's flag at the time. Both of these represented his former status as a prince of Denmark and of Greece. [5] [6] The bottom-left quarter had five vertical black and white stripes, representing the House of Mountbatten, Philip's maternal family, and the bottom-right quarter bore a heraldic representation of Edinburgh Castle, taken from the city's coat of arms, [1] to symbolise his title as Duke of Edinburgh. [6] [7] The whole design was blazoned by the College of Arms as follows: [8]
Quarterly: first or, semée of hearts gules, three lions passant in pale azure ducally crowned or; second azure, a cross argent; third argent, two pallets sable; fourth argent, upon a rock proper a castle triple towered sable masoned argent windows port turret-caps and vanes gules.
The flag was flown above buildings and on cars to indicate Philip's presence. [9] It was flown except when the Queen was present as well; then the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom was used instead. [10] As he was a Knight of the Order of the Garter, his standard was hung in the form of a banner in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle until his death in 2021, when it was removed in accordance with the order's tradition. [11] At Philip's funeral in St George's Chapel, his coffin was draped with his standard. [12]
The coat of arms of the United Kingdom are the arms of dominion of the British monarch. They are both the personal arms of the monarch, currently King Charles III, and the arms of the state. In addition to the monarch, the arms are used by state institutions including the Government of the United Kingdom, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the British judiciary. Differenced versions of the arms are used by members of the British royal family. The monarch's official flag, the Royal Standard, is the coat of arms in flag form.
Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, most recently as a royal dukedom for the fourth son of King George V. Since 1942, the title has been held by Prince Edward, Queen Elizabeth II's cousin.
The Royal Standards of the United Kingdom presently refer to either of two similar flags used by King Charles III in his capacity as Sovereign of the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies, and the British Overseas Territories. Two versions of the flag exist, one for use within Scotland and the other for use elsewhere.
Duke of Fife is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom that has been created twice, in both cases for Alexander Duff, 1st Earl of Fife. In 1889, Lord Fife married Princess Louise, the eldest daughter of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
The coat of arms or national seal of Benin, originally introduced in 1964, was readopted in 1990 after being replaced in 1975.
The national flag of Spain, as it is defined in the Constitution of 1978, consists of three horizontal stripes: red, yellow and red, the yellow stripe being twice the height of each red stripe. Traditionally, the middle stripe was defined by the more archaic term of gualda, and hence the popular name la Rojigualda (red-weld).
The royal standards of Canada are a set of personal flags used by members of the Canadian royal family to denote the presence of the bearer within any vehicle, building, or area within Canada or when representing Canada abroad. All are based on a banner of the coat of arms of Canada.
In heraldry, cadency is any systematic way to distinguish arms displayed by descendants of the holder of a coat of arms when those family members have not been granted arms in their own right. Cadency is necessary in heraldic systems in which a given design may be owned by only one person at any time, generally the head of the senior line of a particular family.
In heraldry, an ordinary is one of the two main types of charges, beside the mobile charges. An ordinary is a simple geometrical figure, bounded by straight lines and running from side to side or top to bottom of the shield. There are also some geometric charges known as subordinaries, which have been given lesser status by some heraldic writers, though most have been in use as long as the traditional ordinaries. Diminutives of ordinaries and some subordinaries are charges of the same shape, though thinner. Most of the ordinaries are theoretically said to occupy one-third of the shield; but this is rarely observed in practice, except when the ordinary is the only charge.
The coat of arms of Scotland, colloquially called the Lion Rampant, is the coat of arms historically used as arms of dominion by the monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland, and later by monarchs of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. The coat of arms, or elements from it, are also used in heraldry to symbolise Scotland in general. The arms consist of a red lion surrounded by a red double border decorated with fleurs-de-lis, all on a gold background. The blazon, or heraldic description, is: Or a lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure within a double tressure flory-counter-flory of the second.
The Royal Banner of the Royal Arms of Scotland, also known as the Royal Banner of Scotland, or more commonly the Lion Rampant of Scotland, and historically as the Royal Standard of Scotland, or Banner of the King of Scots, is the royal banner of Scotland, and historically, the royal standard of the Kingdom of Scotland. Used historically by the Scottish monarchs, the banner differs from Scotland's national flag, the Saltire, in that its official use is restricted by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland to only a few Great Officers of State who officially represent the Monarchy in Scotland. It is also used in an official capacity at royal residences in Scotland when the Head of State is not present.
The coat of arms of Denmark has a lesser and a greater version.
The coat of arms of the King of Spain is the heraldic symbol representing the monarch of Spain. The current version of the monarch's coat of arms was adopted in 2014 but is of much older origin. The arms marshal the arms of the former monarchs of Castile, León, Aragon, and Navarre.
The Royal Standard of Spain is the official flag of the King of Spain. It comprises a crimson square, traditional colour of both Castilian and Spanish monarchs, with the coat of arms of the King in the center. It is raised over the official royal residence in Madrid, the Palacio de la Zarzuela and other Spanish royal sites, when the monarch is in residence and displayed on his official car as small flag. The current flag was adopted when Felipe VI acceded the throne as King of Spain on 19 June 2014. The Royal Standard is regulated by Rule 2 of Royal Decree 527/2014, 20 June, an amendment to Title II of Spanish Royal Decree 1511/1977 adopting Flags, Standards, Guidons, Insignia and Emblems Regulation.
St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is a Royal Peculiar, and the Chapel of the Order of the Garter. St George's Chapel was founded in the 14th century by King Edward III and extensively enlarged in the late 15th century. It is located in the Lower Ward of the castle.
A number of cross symbols were developed for the purpose of the emerging system of heraldry, which appeared in Western Europe in about 1200. This tradition is partly in the use of the Christian cross an emblem from the 11th century, and increasingly during the age of the Crusades. Many cross variants were developed in the classical tradition of heraldry during the late medieval and early modern periods. Heraldic crosses are inherited in modern iconographic traditions and are used in numerous national flags.
The Coat of arms of the Prince of Spain was set out in the Spanish Decree 814 of 22 April 1971, by which the Rules for Flags, Standards, Guidons, Banners, and Badges were adopted.
Elizabeth II was Queen of Mauritius as well as its head of state from 1968 to 1992 when Mauritius was an independent sovereign state and a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth of Nations. She was also the monarch of other Commonwealth realms, including the United Kingdom. Her constitutional roles in Mauritius were delegated to a governor-general. Mauritius became a republic in 1992.
The coat of arms of Castile was the heraldic emblem of its monarchs. Historian Michel Pastoureau says that the original purpose of heraldic emblems and seals was to facilitate the exercise of power and the identification of the ruler, due to what they offered for achieving these aims. These symbols were associated with the kingdom, and eventually also represented the intangible nature of the national sentiment or sense of belonging to a territory.
On 6 February 1952, George VI, King of the United Kingdom, died at the age of 56, at Sandringham House, after battling with a prolonged cancer. His state funeral took place on 15 February 1952. A period of national mourning commenced and his eldest daughter and successor, Queen Elizabeth II was proclaimed the new monarch by the Accession Council. George VI's coffin lay in St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham until 11 February when it was carried, in procession, to the nearby Wolferton railway station. The coffin was carried by train to London King's Cross railway station where another formal procession carried it to Westminster Hall where the king lay in state for three days. Some 304,000 people passed through Westminster Hall with queues up to 4 miles (6.4 km) forming.