House of Plantagenet

The one with the Cross on his back ~ Crouchback (1245–1296)

Arms of England; overall, a label Azure of three points, each charged with three fleurs-de-lis Or in pale.

Arms interpreted as follows: the mouth of the shield is semicircular (round); the field enamelled in a flat tint of Gules; the label and figures illuminated in Or and Azure and outlined in Sable; and the whole finished with a watercolour effect.

He was the second son of King Henry III of England, and took part in the Ninth Crusade, hence the epithet «Cross on the back».

In 1253 he was appointed Earl of Chester, holding dominion, among others, over the county of Cheshire, but the following year Pope Innocent IV granted him the crown of Sicily, so he ceded his earldom to his elder brother Edward I of England, however, he never came to occupy the throne of Sicily.

The label is an honourable ordinary and also «a kind of mark of cadency, and the most noble of all those used to differentiate the Arms of the younger sons of a House» [Avilés, J.; 1725a; page 248] and it can likewise be used by the eldest son while his father's arms are still in use, ceasing to bear the label when he inherits his father’s coat. When both the eldest and the second son bear a label, the latter’s label then has more points or is charged with figures to distinguish it.

The label is constructed with «a fillet, which is one-ninth of the width of the chief, with three pendants in the form of carpentry wedges or ill-shaped triangles, joined to it without any line of separation, falling twice as far as the fillet is wide, two placed at the ends and one in the middle, its usual position being in the centre of the chief’s length, without reaching the edges of the shield» [Avilés, J.; 1725a; page 248].

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, Or, Azure, Three, Leopard, Armed, Langued, In pale, Surmounted, Overall (deprecated), Label, Suspended, Charged and Fleur de lis.

Style keywords: Semi-circular, Illuminated, Outlined in sable and Watercolor.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms, House of Plantagenet and Kingdom of England.

Bearer: Edmund Plantagenet.

First Prince of Wales from 1301 to 1307, King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 to 1327.

Gules, three lions, passant, guardant, in pale Or, armed and langued Azure.

Escudo de gules, tres leopardos en palo de oro, armados y lampasados de azur.

Coat of arms interpreted as follows: the mouth rounded; the field illuminated Gules; the figures illuminated in Or and Azure, outlined in Sable, and the third leopard slightly smaller; and the whole finished with a plastered effect.

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, Or, Azure, Three, Leopard, Armed, Langued and In pale.

Style keywords: Rounded, Illuminated, Outlined in sable and Gesso.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms, House of Plantagenet and Kingdom of England.

Bearer: Edward II of England.

King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307.

Gules, three lions, passant, guardant, in pale Or, armed and langued Azure.

Escudo de gules, tres leopardos en palo de oro, armados y lampasados de azur.

Coat of arms interpreted with the following features: the mouth is semicircular (round); the field enamelled in a flat tint of Gules; the three leopards illuminated in the metal Or and the colour Azure, outlined in Sable, and the leopard closest to the base has a different shape and size; and the whole finished with a fabric-like texture.

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, Or, Azure, Three, Leopard, Armed, Langued and In pale.

Style keywords: Semi-circular, Illuminated, Outlined in sable and Fabric.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms, House of Plantagenet and Kingdom of England.

Bearer: Edward I of England.

And Count of Touraine and Maine, Duke of Normandy, and founder of the Plantagenet dynasty.

Azure, six lions rampant Or, 3, 2 and 1.

Escudo de azur, seis leones rampantes de oro, 3, 2 y 1.

Existing armories interpreted by me as follows: the shield's shape is pointed; the field has been enameled in flat azure; the 6 lions are illuminated; and the entire composition has a watercolor finish.

When blazoning these 6 lions, considering that in heraldry the natural arrangement of elements is from more in chief to fewer in base, it would suffice to specify nothing more than «or and rampant». However, adding their arrangement «3, 2, and 1» can aid the reader, as done by [Avilés, J.; 1725b; page 124] and [Avilés, J.; 1780b; page 142] when blazoning the arms of Alfonso Enrique de Vick, writing «sable, and six bezants or, three, two, and one», meaning 6 ordered elements. In these sequences of number arrangements, I prefer to write Arabic numerals rather than words because, at times, the sequences can be long.

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Azure, Six, Lion, Or, Rampant and Three, two and one.

Style keywords: Pointed, Illuminated, Outlined in the field tincture and Watercolor.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms and House of Plantagenet.

Bearer: Godfrey V, Count of Anjou.

Henry II Plantagenet, King of England, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, and Count of Nantes.

Gules, a lion rampant Or.

Escudo de gules, un león rampante de oro.

Existing arms interpreted by me as follows: the shield's shape is pointed; the field has been enamelled in flat Gules; the lion in Or has been outlined in Sable; and the whole composition has a rough texture finish.

It is believed that Henry I was the first King of England to have a coat of arms, featuring a single lion rampant, but no documentary evidence has yet been found [Rabbow, A.; 1999; paragraph 8].

[Ailes, A.; 1982; page 62] argues that Henry II may have used three different versions of his arms featuring a) a single lion rampant, b) two leopards, and c) three leopards. However, it remains unclear whether these versions were used sequentially over time or concurrently. For this interpretation, I have chosen the version with the lion rampant.

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, One, Lion, Or and Rampant.

Style keywords: Pointed, Plain tincture, Outlined in sable and Rough.

Classification: Interpreted, Coat of arms, Personal, House of Plantagenet and Kingdom of England.

Bearer: Henry II of England.

King of England, Lord of Ireland and Duke of Aquitaine from the year 1216 to the year 1272

Gules, three lions, passant, guardant, in pale Or, armed and langued Azure.

Escudo de gules, tres leopardos en palo de oro, armados y lampasados de azur.

Coat of arms interpreted as follows: the mouth of the shield is semicircular (round); its field has been enamelled in a flat tint of Gules; its leopards are illuminated in Or and Azure and outlined in Sable; and the whole has a finish of aged parchment.

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, Or, Azure, Three, Leopard, Armed, Langued and In pale.

Style keywords: Semi-circular, Illuminated, Outlined in sable and Old parchment.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms, House of Plantagenet and Kingdom of England.

Bearer: Henry III of England.

King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1199 to 1216.

Gules, three lions, passant, guardant, in pale Or, armed and langued Azure.

Escudo de gules, tres leopardos en palo de oro, armados y lampasados de azur.

Arms of King John interpreted with: a rounded (semicircular) base; the field enamelled with a flat tint of Gules; the leopards illuminated in Or and Azure, outlined in Sable, all three of the same size; and the whole finished with a crystalline effect.

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, Or, Azure, Three, Leopard, Armed, Langued and In pale.

Style keywords: Rounded, Illuminated, Outlined in sable and Crystalline.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms, House of Plantagenet and Kingdom of England.

Bearer: John I of England.

Gules, three lions, passant, guardant, in pale Or, armed and langued Azure.

Escudo de gules, tres leopardos en palo de oro, armados y lampasados de azur.

Existing armorial bearings interpreted as follows: the shape of the shield is pointed and rounded; the field has been enamelled in flat Gules; the three leopards are outlined in Sable and illuminated in metal Or with details in Azure; and the whole composition has a watercolor finish..

In [Humphery-Smith, C.; 1983; paragraph 2] the coat of arms of Eleanor Plantagenet, Queen Consort of Castile, is described, as part of an analysis on the origin of the three leopards in the coat of arms of England. However, in this description, an error is made by replacing the V with an X in the numeral of her husband and king, thus naming Alfonso VIII of Castile as if he were King Alfonso XIII: «Eleanor who married Alfonso XIII, King of Castile and Leon, has depicted on her tomb in the Huelgas monastery of the Cistercian nuns at Burgos, a thirteenth-century shield depicting three crowned leopards (lions passant guardant) gold on red».

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, Or, Azure, Three, Leopard, Armed, Langued and In pale.

Style keywords: Ogee, Illuminated, Outlined in sable and Watercolor.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms, House of Plantagenet, Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Castile.

Bearer: Leonor Plantagenet.

Lionheart ~ Corazón de León ~ Cœur de Lion.

Escudo de gules, dos leones de oro, afrontados, armados y lampasados de azur.

Coat of arms interpreted as follows: the mouth drawn as a semicircular (round) base; the field enamelled in a flat tint of Gules; the two lions outlined in the colour of the field and illuminated in Or and Azure; and the whole finished with a watercolour effect.

He was born in 1157, being the third of eight children of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, elder brother of Eleanor Plantagenet. He was king of England between 1189 and 1199, although he spent much of his life far from it; in fact, during his ten-year reign, he was on English soil only twice, which together did not amount even to six months. He died in 1199 in Normandy.

In 1198, during the Battle of Gisors, he supposedly used, as watchword or as motto, the expression «Dieu et mon Droit ~ God and my right». This phrase refers to his refusal to bow before Emperor Henry VI, since by his rank Richard acknowledged only God as superior. Later, Henry V of England adopted it as his motto, and since then it has been used by the British monarchy.

According to [Humphery-Smith, C.; 1983], Richard the Lionheart was the first English king who can be proved to have borne arms, although some of his predecessors may also have had them. He bases his statement on the existence of two seals of Richard I: on one, Richard bears a shield with a rampant lion, and on the other there already appear the three lions that are the forerunners of the arms of England. The use of this second seal does not imply that he stopped using the first.

In contrast, there are also British authors who maintain that his shield actually bore two affronted lions; this hypothesis is based on the lion on his first seal facing to sinister. That latter hypothesis is the one interpreted in this shield, remaining a purely artistic interpretation and without my entering into a complex and open discussion about how, when, and why the three leopards, «leones pasantes ~ lions passant» for the English, appeared —a discussion in which there are various alternatives— ranging from the combination of his hereditary arms to the wish to have more lions than his younger brother, who would later be King John I of England, to possible influences from other European realms.

This version of Richard I’s shield is similar to the imaginary shield of Hector of Troy, Gules with two lions Or affronté, which is a term used when «two things are placed facing each other, like two Lions, two Dogs, or other animals that look at one another» [Avilés, J.; 1725a; page 32].

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Blazon keywords: Without divisions, Gules, Lion, Or, Combatant, Armed, Langued and Azure.

Style keywords: Semi-circular, Illuminated, Outlined in sable and Freehand.

Classification: Interpreted, Personal, Coat of arms, House of Plantagenet and Kingdom of England.

Bearer: Richard I of England.