Royal heraldry

[paulchen]

I thought I would start a thread and carry on a subject I was in the middle of on the old site. Namely, Royal Heraldry.

I have had a search through my reference books and, so far, I can't find where HM King George V, as prince, got assigned a five-point label with a blue anchor. I would imagine it would be when his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, was created Duke of Clarence and Avondale and was assigned a three-point label with a [red] St. George's cross as eldest son of the Prince of Wales. The Princes did things together and served in the Navy together. But it wasn't until after Albert Victor had died and George was created Duke of York that he was assigned the three-point label and [presumably] retained the blue anchor as the eldest-surviving son of the Prince of Wales.

I will keep on looking and raise a few other points about an interesting time in British Royal Heraldry.

[paulchen]

I have done a little research on the labels assigned to the descendants of British monarchs.

Three of HM Queen Victoria's daughters received a 3-pointed label each with a red rose in the middle, flanked by other objects - Victoria, St George's Cross; Alice, ermine spot; Louise, red canton. The other two - Helena and Beatrice - received red roses as the outer symbols, flanking a St George's cross and a red heart, respectively.

Queen Victoria's three younger sons [Her eldest, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales was assigned a plain white label, of course] were assigned 3-pointed labels with a St George's cross in the middle, flanked by blue anchors [Alfred], blue fleurs-de-lys [Arthur] and red hearts [Leopold].

The future Edward VII's three daughters were assigned 5-pointed labels in their Grandmother Queen Victoria's lifetime. However, when she eventually passed away, their father didn't have the labels updated to 3 points as would have been expected. Maybe, as pointed out on the previous site, this wasn't felt necessary as two of the sisters were already married. And also, with all the descendants of Queen Victoria already, the available combinations for 3-pointed labels may have been a bit restricted. Although, it is rather unusual as HM King Edward VII was well-known as a stickler for getting this kind of thing and orders and medals right. He even created his two granddaughters by his eldest daughter, Louise, the Princess Royal, princesses.

Labels seem to become a little haphazard and don't follow any set pattern until we come to the grandchildren of HM King George V where they take on the symbols of their respective father, adding St George's crosses [and, in the case of HRH Princess Alexandra, red hearts as well].

Then we have our present Queen's grandchildren. The pattern [apart from Prince William's label which is traditionally 3-pointed as the eldest son of the Prince of Wales] seems to be to have some allusion to the mother [red escallops [shells] for Prince Harry and bees for Princess Beatrice - also a pun on her name] with the two inner points blank. In the case of Prince Harry, I think this is rather confusing, as his label looks very much like his brother's at a quick glance. I wonder what Princess Eugenie's label will be when she is assigned arms later this year for her 18th Birthday.