Heraldic Alphabet 2026

Happy International Heraldry Day, and welcome to my annual batch of 24 lgbt+ coats of arms.

I won’t give an introduction to explain all the rules, terms and formats this time. Last year’s list, and previous ones, may give any information you need. Several things do need to be emphasised:-

1) Arms with a black surround are of people who have passed away in the past 18 months;

2) A diamond next to a letter indicates the arms are of an unmarried or divorced woman, used specifically in English heraldry;

3) Not everyone is aware they may be entitled to a coat of arms.

A) Max Adrian (1903-1973) – real name Guy Bor, Irish actor. Family arms. The Bors originate in the Netherlands and these arms appears on the tomb of Cornelis Bor (d.1561) of Dordrecht. His son moved to Ireland in the 1620s and gained Irish citizenship. His grandson registered these arms with the College of Arms in London on 17th February 1718. They were transferred to the Dublin Record Office on Irish independence. Max’s ancestor Humphrey Bor of Dublin adopted these arms though he had no direct link to Cornelis. The arms are still used by Humphrey’s descendants. The star indicates that Max descends from Humphrey’s third son.

B) Andreas Bruce (1808-1885) – intersex Swedish aristocrat. Family arms. The Swedish Bruce family are of Scottish origin and lairds of Lymlyn, Fifeshire. They bore the red and yellow Bruce arms to which they added a white cross. They moved to Sweden in the 1600s, and in 1668 were given Swedish nationality and created non-titled nobility. Andreas descends from them.

C) Dr. Tonya Chaffee – Professor of Paediatrics, University of California San Francisco. Family arms. The Chaffees originate in Exeter, Devon, England. These arms have been used by the family since the 1570s. One member of the family, Thomas Chaffee, migrated to New England in the 1630s. He used these arms on a seal on legal documents. Dr. Chaffee is one of Thomas’s direct descendants.

D) Maria Dulebianka (1861-1919) – Polish artist and women’s suffrage campaigner. “Clan” arms. Maria’s family coat of arms was adopted by ancient association rather than blood descent and are part of a “herb” (clan). The Dulebianka’s are believed to belong to the Alabanda herb whose arms are illustrated here. The design dates back to emblems used by an Italian bishop who was appointed to what is now Poland in 993 AD. The crescent was added before 1584 when the full design was included in a book on the arms of Polish knights.

E) Michael Ebling (b.1967) – Mayor of Mainz, Germany 2012-22. Arms of office. This is the coat of arms of the city of Mainz. There are several theories about how and when the design originated, ranging from being the emblem of St. Martin, the patron saint of the city, to that of a 10th century archbishop whose father was a wheelwright.

F) Sir John Finch (1625-1682) – English Ambassador to Constantinople 1672. Personal arms. The male line ancestors of the Finches were the FitzHerberts in the 12th century. Their arms of three lions were used by them from the 14th century. After the marriage to the Finch heiress, this branch of the FitzHerberts used both surnames for several centuries. Vincent FitzHerbert/Finch is recorded as the first to use the black and white arms. By the 16th century the family used the Finch name alone though retained the Fitzherbert arms. The crescent indicates that Sir John was the second son of his father.

G) Julian Gibbs (1932-2021) – English financial adviser. Family arms. Older brother of Christopher Gibbs (see Heraldic Alphabet 2025). Like his bother, Julian inherited a couple of cadency marks which would make the shield look cluttered, so they are omitted. Both were sons of a second son – Julian the 3rd son, and Christopher the 5th.

H) Hon. Esmond Harmsworth (1967-2025) – English literary agent. Personal arms as the 2nd son (indicated by the crescent) of the 2nd Viscount Rothermere. Esmond’s grandfather, the 1st Viscount, was a prominent newspaper mogul and pioneer of tabloid journalism. These arms were granted in 1904 when the 1st Viscount was created a baronet (hereditary knight). Although the meaning behind the design is not recorded we can make some guesses. The rolls of paper may represent newspapers, but also legal documents (as they are tied in red tape) because the 1st Viscount’s father was a barrister. The bees are often used in English heraldry to represent industry, reflecting the Harmsworth dynasty’s dominance in early 20th century British press journalist.

J) Sir Barry Jackson (1879-1961) – English entrepreneur, founder of Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Personal arms. Sir Barry’s father, George, was granted these arms on 10 February 1917 by the College of Arms. The meaning for the design is unknown, but I guess the jackdaw is a pun on the family name.

K) John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes (1883-1946) – English economist. Personal arms. Granted by the College of Arms in May 1944. The design is a modified version of the arms used by the Keynes family of Winkleigh Keynes, Devon, since the 12th century. John had no known descent from this family so wasn’t allowed to use their arms, but because of the similarity in name he was entitled to modify them. He just added two fleurs-de-lys.

L1) James Lees-Milne (1908-1997) – English author and historian. Marital arms for the duration of this marriage to Alvilde (see L2). They both had same-sex affairs before and during their marriage. The main shield quarters the arms of Lees (the red and white arms) with the Milne arms (yellow and back). The white object in the Milne arms represents the iron brackets around the hole in a mill wheel and is a pun on their name. The Milnes also built and ran several mills. In 1890 the last of the Milnes died childless and left his fortune to his nephew, James Lees-Milne’s grandfather, on condition that he added the Milne arms and name to his own. The Royal Licence which confirmed this is dated 31 May 1890. The small shield is that of Alvilde’s family and is placed there because she was an heiress.

L2) Mrs. Alvilde Lees-Milne (1909-1994) – English landscape garden designer. Marital arms for the duration of her marriage to the 3rd Viscount Chaplin. Alvilde was the only child and heir of Sir Tom Bridges, Governor of South Australia. As the heraldic heir she could place her arms on top of her husband’s. The main shield shows the arms of Viscount Chaplin, which had been used since his ancestor became Lord Mayor of London in 1672. Alvilde was married to the Viscount when she met James Lees-Milne. They divorced and she married James.

M) May Morris (1862-1938) – English designer. Personal arms. May was one of the daughters and coheirs of Victorian artist and designer William Morris. Like Alvilde Lees-Milne (L2 above) that meant she could have placed her arms on a little shield on top of their husband’s (if he had a coat of arms), but before her childless marriage her arms were placed on a diamond lozenge. The arms were granted by the College of Arms to May’s grandfather on 15th April 1843. May spent her last years living with her romantic companion Mary Lobb.

N) Ilmari Nurminen (b.1991) – Mayor of Tampere, Finland, since 2025. Arms of office. The arms were officially approved by the city council of Tampere on 30th March 1960. They are a simplified version of the city’s previous coat of arms. The “T” represents the city’s name and also a blacksmith’s hammer symbolising industry. The caduceus (wing staff with snakes wrapped around it) symbolises commerce. The thick wavy like represents the river Tammerkoski which flows though Tampere.

O) Mark Ogilvie-Grant (1905-1969) – Scottish diplomat. Hypothetical arms (arms of the Earls of Seafield, Mark being a great-grandson of the 6th Earl). Scottish arms are not automatically inherited and must be registered with appropriate differences with the Lord Lyon King of Arms in order for them to be legal. In about 1437, an Ogilvie (whose arms are the red lion) married a Sinclair heiress (the black cross). In 1811 the Grants (three gold crowns) inherited the Seafield title and adopted the Ogilvie name and arms. The arms illustrated would have formed the basic design had Mark chosen to register any arms with Lord Lyon.

P) David Hume Pinsent (1891-1918) – RAF test pilot. Posthumous personal arms. David’s uncle was created a baronet (hereditary knight) in 1938 and was probably granted arms at the same time. As is customary, the arms could be used by descendants of the baronet’s father (i.e. David’s grandfather). Unfortunately, David was killed in an air accident a decade earlier. I show his arms as they would have been in 1938 had he lived. As the eldest son and heir of his father, David would have placed a label (the yellow device) to his arms to indicate this. The birds, by the way, are chaffinches, a much-loved bird in Europe.

R) John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647-1690) – English courtier poet, and blatant Libertine. Personal arms. Lord Rochester’s family arms (Wilmot) is the main white shield with the eagle’s heads and shells. His wife, Elizabeth Malet, was an heiress and, like Alvilde Lees-Milne (above L2) could place her family arms on a smaller shield on top of her husband’s. The Malets have used their coat of arms since the 1300s.

S1) Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) – English writer. Personal arms. The Strachey arms (red cross and little eagles) was granted to William Strachey of Saffron Walden, Essex, on 4 July 1587. His great-grandson and heir married the daughter and coheir of George Hodges of Somerset, thus enabling their descendants, including Lytton, to bear both arms in quarters. The Hodges have used their arms (yellow and black) since before 1610. Lytton was his father’s 4th son so could add a martlet (bird without feet) to his arms as a cadency mark.

S2) Tori Settle (née Hon. Victoria Leach) (b.1966) – British psychotherapist; Gay Games and EuroGames dance sport champion (with wife Yvonne Settle). Marital arms. Since 2014 female same-sex married couples in England and Wales have been entitled to place their arms on a shield. The main shield shows the arms Tori inherits from her father, Baron Leach of Fairford (a life peer, a non hereditary title). Tori’s wife Yvonne has no known family arms, so a plain lozenge is placed on her wife’s.

T) Christopher Tunnard (1910-1979) – Canadian landscape architect, garden designer and city planner. Personal arms. These arms were granted to Christopher’s great-great-grandfather, also called Christopher, by the College of Arms in 1810. The landscape gardener was the eldest son of another Christopher, who was a second son, which is indicated by the crescent.

U) Michael Unett (b.1997) – Mayor of Alsager, Cheshire, England, 2021-2, 2025-6. Arms of office. Michael is an elected mayor (by fellow council members) rather than appointed by length of service as a councillor. These are the arms of the Alsager town council which feature of the mayoral chain of office.

V) Most Rev. Cherry Vann (b.1958) – 15th Archbishop of (the Anglican Church in) Wales since 2025. Arms of office. Bishop Vann appeared in my 2020 Heraldic Alphabet when she was Bishop of Monmouth. By being promoted to archbishop this means that of the 3 Anglican archbishops in the England (Canterbury, York, and Wales) only York is male and Vann is a lesbian. These arms are of the archdiocese of Wales, granted by the College of Arms on 9 December 1954, replacing an earlier design that had been used unofficially since about 1939.

W) Thomas Cuthbert Worsley (1907-1977) – English writer, theatre critic, and schoolmaster. Family arms. The Worsleys are said to be descended from an 11th century Norman baron called Elias de Workesley. Thomas is descended from several generations of younger sons from Thomas Worsley (1686-1750), which would clutter up his arms with so many different cadency marks that it would look as much of a jumble as the Progress Pride flag.

Y) Harriot Yorke (1842-1930) – partner of Octavia Hill, co-founder of the National Trust. Family arms. Harriot was a great-great-grand-daughter of the 1st Earl of Hardwicke. I’m not sure how long the Yorke’s have had this coat of arms, but the Earl quartered it with the arms of his mother, an heiress of the Gibbon family. He could not have done this before 1727 when his mother died.

Vexed in the Islands

Today is VexiDay, or World Vexillology Day, a day to celebrate flags of all types (vexillology is the study of flags). With the Paris Olympics and Paralympics still floating around in our memory I thought it would be appropriate to look at a couple of national flags designed by lgbt people.

A quick word about national flags. National flags do not necessarily represent an independent nation. The term has also come to be used for any flag adopted by a constituent nation, dependent territory or autonomous region that is recognised and used by them nationally and internationally. Wales, Guam and Hong Kong have national flags, even though none of them are independent.

Long-time readers may remember that I wrote about Prince George of Greece and Denmark (1869-1957) and his involvement with the first modern Olympics in 1896. I also mentioned how he became the High Commissioner and Governor General of Crete in 1898. In fact, he was often just referred to as the Prince of Crete.

During the years of fighting between Cretan Christians and Ottoman Turks over control of the island several flags flew over Crete, all claiming to be its national flag. Crete was part of the Ottoman Empire, so the Turks supported the flying of the Ottoman flag. Conversely, the Cretan Christians who wanted to become part of Greece supported the Greek national flag. There were also several other flags used by both sides.

The Ottoman Empire had reluctantly agreed to let Crete by governed by the Great Powers (UK, France, Russia and Italy) as a sort of peace-keeping force. As such they didn’t support the use of any of the flags. The Great Powers flew their own national flags over the areas where they had particular control, like Berlin after World War II partitioned in 1945 between UK, USA, France and the Soviet Union.

After the Great Powers appointed Prince George as High Commissioner the race was on to design a new national flag to be raised on his arrival to take up his position. The main concern was to choose a design that did not upset any of the ethnic or religious communities.

Prince George designed his own flag (labelled A below). Almost immediately, his design came under criticism, primarily because it contained a common symbol of Greek nationalism – a Greek Orthodox Christian cross. In fact, it had 2 of them. The white cross on a blue background was also used on flags by Cretan Christian groups attacking Muslims and Turks. There seemed to be an obvious bias by Prince George to promote Crete joining Greece.

The Russians proposed flag B above, but this went the other way – the crescent, red and green are Muslim and Ottoman symbols. With just 3 days before Prince George arrived on Crete the Great Powers decided on flag C, a variation of Prince George’s idea. Red and the star were intended to represent the Ottoman Turks and Cretan Muslims. They refused to fly it. However, the design stayed and was used on Cretan banknotes right up to the day Crete eventually fulfilled its desire to become part of Greece in 1913.

The flag of Crete was never displayed at an Olympic Games, but in 1906 the so-called Intercalated Olympic Games (which until 1949 the IOC regarded as official) took place. Although Crete was still officially part of the Ottoman Empire, 8 athletes were listed as competing for Crete, though in the official report they were counted as part of the Greek team.

Even if Prince George didn’t see his flag fly at the Olympics, one lgbt artist did, and it was there again in Paris 2024.

From a vexillo-historical point of view the national flag of the United Kingdom is the one that has appeared at the most Olympics due to its inclusion in so many past and present other flags of its colonies and territories. Though the UK’s flag wasn’t designed by someone in the lgbt community (as far as anyone knows), the original design which excluded the red diagonal cross was chosen by King James of England and Scotland, who certainly was.

The biggest increase in the creation of distinctive national flags came in the 1950s and 1960s as many current nations were attaining their independence from colonial powers (plus one or two nations, like Canada, who decided to change theirs).

The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago gained independence in 1962. Prior to that they were British colonies who used the flag illustrated below left, showing their coat of arms. This is the flag used by Trinidad and Tobago at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games up till then.

In May 1962, only 3 months before independence, Trinidad and Tobago decided to adopt a brand new flag and coat of arms. The Independence Committee appointed 7 people to form a flag and arms sub-committee. These people included museum directors, politicians and one designer.

The designer was Carlisle Chang (1921-2001), a gay artist born in Trinidad of Chinese immigrant parents. Today Chang is regarded as the father of Trinidadian Art. He designed carnival costumes, painted murals, and was an interior designer.

Chang was also no stranger to the world of flags and heraldry. In 1957 he was a member of the committee that designed the flag and coat of arms of the short-lived West Indies Federation (1958-1962). Although the design of the Federation flag is credited to Edna Manley, it is believed that the coat of arms (below left) was primarily Chang’s work.

As far as Trinidad and Tobago is concerned, both the coat of arms (above, next to the West Indies Federation coat of arms) and the familiar diagonally striped flag (above right) are Chang’s work. Official sources claim that several designs were submitted to the Independence Committee, but there is not record of anything but Chang’s design. The sources also claim that it was the sub-committee who designed the flag but, as the interview with Chang below makes clear, he was the only one truly dedicated to the project and the contribution of the other 6 members was negligible.

After I had finished writing this article, news emerged that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley, had announced his intention of altering Chang’s design of the coat of arms. In a world where colonial symbolism is being replaced with traditional local emblems, Dr. Rowley has suggested that the 3 ships on the shield, representing those which brought Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean, should be replaced by 3 traditional steelpan drums. I like this idea.

The concept of decolonising national emblems is a good way to express national identity and to show a period of successful independence, but does it go far enough to justify de-colonisalism as a reason? I wonder if Dr. Rowley also supports that changing of his nation’s name. Trinidad is the name given to the island by the very colonists he wants to remove from the coat of arms.

Next time you see the flag of Trinidad and Tobago you can put a name to the gay man who designed it, Carlisle Chang, and ponder on the irony that Trinidad and Tobago is still one of the many homophobic nations in the Caribbean.

Heraldic Alphabet 2024

Welcome to my 2024 Heraldic Alphabet with coats of arms in the lgbt+ community, celebrating the annual International Heraldry Day

Continuing elements I introduced last year, two letters have double entries because there are more people whose names begin with those letters who have coats of arms. Also continued is a black background to the arms of people who died in the past 18 months.

Some nations (e.g. England) don’t let women display their arms on a shield, only ovals or lozenges. For the sake of visual uniformity I use shields throughout. To indicate which individuals would officially use a lozenge, I place a diamond around their letter in the illustrations.

I show just the shields and not the helmet, crest, motto, supporters, or insignia to which a person may also be entitled. Individuals are listed according to the name by which they are most popularly known. Aristocrats are listed under their title unless they are popularly known by another name.

Some Quick Basic definitions

Arms of Office – arms of an institution or office of which the person is the nominal head and who may use the arms of the institution (in performance of official duties only). I extend this practice to similar institutions of any nation.

Assumed – arms adopted by an individual or family in a country where no state heraldic authority exists, or are not registered by such an authority that does exist.

Attributed – arms assigned to an individual, whether historical or legendary, after that individual’s life time.

Cadency mark – a specific symbol added to a family coat of arms to indicate the place in order of birth of the individual (i.e. 1st son/daughter, 2nd son/daughter, etc.).

Family – arms officially borne by the family’s senior bloodline member. Other family members may be required to add cadency marks. Some nations allow all family members to use the arms unaltered.

Marital – In some countries spouses and same-sex couples can place their arms side by side on one shield. Spouses who are have no coat of arms can use those of their spouse’s or place a small blank shield (if male) or lozenge (in England if female) upon it.

Personal – Arms granted to an individual by an official heraldic authority. Also inherited family arms specific to the individual.

Quarters – 4 or more divisions of a shield showing 2 or more different coat of arms. Some individuals bear many quarters.

Without further ado, here is 2024’s Heraldic Alphabet:

A) St. AELRED of Rievaulx (1110-1167). Cistercian abbot, “patron saint” of male couples. Attributed arms of office. These are the arms of Rievaulx Abbey of which Aelred was abbot. They are first recorded in 1530. They are the arms of the Roos family, the abbey’s then patrons, surmounted by an abbot’s staff.

B) Jacques Gordat, 6th Marquess of BELBEUF (1850-1906). French aristocrat. Personal arms. The arms of the Gordat family. They depict spurs worn by medieval knights. His wife was the artist Mathilde de Morny (see D below). In France married couples display their arms on separate shields side by side rather than together on one shield.

C1) Marina CICOGNA (1934-2023). Italian film director (Countess Marina Cicogna Mozzoni Volpi di Misurata). Inherited family arms. Cicogna is Italian for “stork”, which the family adopted as their coat of arms. In heraldry a stork is often shown standing on one leg holding a rock in the other because legend says this is how storks sleep – if they drop the rock they wake up. In 1580 the Count Cicogna married the heiress of Count Mozzoni, bringing her arms of three eagles into the family.

C2) Margaret CUTHBERT (1887-1968). Pioneering Canadian/US media executive. Inherited family arms. The original Cuthbert arms was the serpent. Legend says that in 1411 an ancestor captured the battle standard of a Scottish Lord and the King granted him the right to add a bar across his shield. The flowers had been added by the time the Cuthberts moved to Canada in 1778, and were registered with the Court of Lord Lyon in Scotland by Hon. James Cuthbert (Margaret’s 2 times great-grandfather) on 24th January 1778. They were registered with the Canadian Heraldic Authority of the Governor General’s Office on 15 August 2012.

D) Mathilde DE MORNY (1863-1944). French artist. Inherited family arms. Mathilde’s father was an illegitimate half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III of France who created him a duke in 1863, granting him a border of dolphins (a French royal emblem) and eagles (a Bonaparte emblem). The black merlettes (birds with no beak or feet) are from the arms of the Duke’s father, the Count of Flahaut. Mathilde married the Marquess of Belbeuf (B above).

E) Miquel ENESENYAT RUITORT (b.1969), Mayor of Esporles, Majorca, 2005-15. Arms of office, being the arms of Esporles. They incorporate the red and yellow stripes common in Spanish (particularly Catalan) heraldry. On light blue are the cross keys and papal tiara of the Vatican.

F) St. FRANCIS of Assisi (c.1181-1226). Founder of the Franciscan Order of Friars. One of several attributed arms. The design symbolises Christ crucified with the five stigmata, the wounds he received on the cross. St. Francis is said to have borne temporary marks of the stigmata in 1224. Brown is the colour of the habit worn by Franciscans.

G) GIVENCHY (1927-2018). French fashion designer (Count Hubert Taffin de Givenchy). Inherited family arms. The Marquess de Givenchy is the title given to his ancestor in 1713. The family name is Taffin, and these are the family’s arms used since medieval times.

H) Juliet HARDINGE (1877-1970). Bisexual British actor, stage name of Mrs. Janette Thesiger (née Ranken). Marital arms, being those of her husband Ernest Thesiger (featured last year). She may have had a family coat of arms, but I have been unable to identify it, so I adopt the modern practice of placing a lozenge at the top of her husband’s shield.

J) Melvyn Gwynne JEREMIAH (1939-2023). British civil servant, Secretary of The Heraldry Society 2003-9. Personal arms granted by the College of Arms on 29 October 1994. The blue and white pattern is called vair - pieces of squirrel fur (“varus” is Latin for squirrel) sewn to form the lining of a medieval cloak (blue is back fur, white is belly fur). The Welsh dragon represents Melvyn’s nationality.

K) Mary KENDALL (1677-1710). Partner of Lady Caroline Jones (see 2023). Inherited family arms. The Kendall arms show 3 heraldic dolphins. In the other quarters are the arms of her mother, heiress of the Hallet family. Mary’s arms are shown on her memorial in Westminster Abbey.

L) Cam LYMAN (1932-c.1987). US transgender dog-breeder (whose murder is featured here). Assumed family arms. Assumed by descendants of the 17th century immigrant Richard Lyman, of which Cam was one. However, research in the 1950s proved that immigrant Richard Lyman was a different man to the one whose arms the family assumed and still use today. The 1st and 4th quarters are the Lyman arms, the 2nd quarter are the arms of Richard’s heiress wife Sarah Osbourne, the 3rd are the arms of his heiress ancestor Elizabeth Lambert. All recorded arms of the Osbornes have blue corners instead of red. I retain the colour assumed by the US Lymans.

M1 and M2) Barnaby MILN (b.1947). Magistrate, and member of the General Synod of the Church of England. In 2018 I did a full examination these coats of arms (see here). Basically, the blue arms were granted to an ancestor, and the green arms were granted to his father.

N) Florence NIGHTINGALE (1820-1910). Pioneer of nurse training, opponent of Votes for Women. As Florence features in many lgbt+ lists I’ve included her here, even though there’s no definitive evidence of her sexuality. Her father, William Shore, was heir to his grandmother’s family, the Nightingales. He adopted their name in 1815 and their arms shown here in 1874.

) Diego ORTIZ GONZALEZ (b.1982). Mayor of Pinto, Madrid, Spain, 2019-23. Arms of office, being those of the town of Pinto. The arms have been in use since before 1756 but were only officially registered on 17 September 2007. Red and yellow are the national colours of Spain. The dot on the map represents Pinto’s location at the exact centre of Spain.

P) Richard PARES (1902-1958). British historian. Inherited family arms. Richard descends from John Pares of Leicester (1635-1712) whose arms are the black and white design. The lion is the arms of the Lightbody family whose co-heiress married into the Pares family.

R) Eleanor RATHBONE (1872-1946). British politician and family rights campaigner. Inherited family arms. The arms were granted to Eleanor’s grandfather, William, by the College of Arms in 1841. The symbolism is unclear, though the fasces (bundle of sticks around an axe) is a Roman symbol of authority, and William was a magistrate.

S) Prince Janusz SANGUSZKO (1712-1775), Polish prince and bloodline heir to King Harold II of England. Inherited family arms. Basically, the arms of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania used since 1366, readopted by the republic of Lithuania in 1991. The Sanguszko family, like others who descend from the Grand Dukes, added the castle at some unknown date.

T) Hallam TENNYSON (1920-2005). BBC radio producer, murdered (unsolved). Inherited family arms. Hallam was great-grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (who may or may not have been queer). This is a modified version of the arms of Archbishop Tenison of Canterbury (1636-1715) to whom the Tennysons may be related. In turn, the Archbishop’s arms were modified from those of Bishop Cantilupe of Hereford (d.1282). The laurel wreath was granted to Lord Tennyson by the College of Arms on 2 February 1883. The crescent signifies Hallam’s descent from Lord Tennyson’s 2nd son.

V1) Dries VAN NOTEN (b.1958). Belgian fashion designer. Personal arms granted by the Belgian Crown when he was created a baron in 2017. The nut tree alludes to his surname (Noten is Dutch for “nut”), as well as representing the Tree of Life. The two hands are taken from the arms of Antwerp, where Dries was born.

V2) Sarah VEATCH. Associate Professor of Biophysics, University of Michigan. Inherited family arms. Prof. Veatch is a distant cousin of Olympian Dan Veatch (see here). Both descend from the Veiches of Scotland. Although Sarah’s and Dan’s line of descent has been questioned by some, DNA has proven they and the Scottish Veiches are the same family.

W) Lana (b.1965) and Lilly (b.1967) WACHOWSKI. Transgender US film directors (“The Matrix” films). Inherited family arms. Their great-grandfather arrived in the US from Poland in 1905. The Wachowski family is one of many connected to the Szeliga “clan” and can use their arms. The design dates from the 1300s, being used by Archbishop Bodzanta of Gniezno, Governor of Krakow, in 1366.

Z) Brother Thomas ZERAFA (1951-2023). Franciscan friar. Inherited family arms. Brother Thomas’s father was born on Malta with an old and distinguished ancestry. The arms are probably of medieval origin.

Heraldic Alphabet 2023

Welcome to my 10th Heraldic Alphabet celebrating the annual International Heraldry Day with coats of arms in the lgbt+ community. Regular readers and fans of my Alphabets will notice several differences this year.

First, there are two letters with double entries because there are more armigers (people with a coat of arms) whose names begin with those letters.

Second, there’s an oval instead of a shield for the letter B1. This is explained in my detailed look at its owner, Bishop Eve Brunne.

Third, in England, when an armiger dies his or her coat of arms can be displayed at the funeral on a diamond shaped black wooden panel. Heraldic internet sites have used black backgrounds to commemorate recent deaths (e.g. Queen Elizabeth II). The black background I show marks the passing of Princess Abigail Kawananakoa of Hawaii last December.

Some nations still don’t allow women to use shields, only ovals or diamond lozenges. For the sake of visual uniformity I prefer to use shields, except for the example referred to above. The symbol ^ used in the list below indicates that the individual would use a lozenge.

I have chosen not to show the helmet, crest, motto, and/or animal supporters to which any armiger is entitled. These are best shown in future in-depth looks at their full heraldic achievement.

Some Quick Basic definitions

Arms of Office – arms of an institution or public office of which the person is the nominal head, used only during their term of office. Not all institutions or offices grant this right.

Assumed – arms adopted by a family where no heraldic authority exists. Also, arms that are not officially registered by any such authority that does exist.

Cadency mark – a specific symbol added to a family coat of arms to indicate the place in order of birth of the user (i.e. 1st son/daughter, 2nd son/daughter, etc.).

Family – arms usually borne by the family’s senior bloodline member. Other family members are often required to add differences (e.g. cadency marks). Some nations allow all family members to use the arms unaltered.

Marital – spouses (including same-sex couples in some countries) can chose to place their arms side by side on one shield. Heirs place theirs on a smaller shield or lozenge on their spouse’s. A person who is not an armiger can just display the arms of their spouse alone.

Personal – inherited family arms used by the individual, with or without differences and cadency marks. Also new arms granted by an official heraldic authority.

 Quarters – 4 or more divisions of a shield with a different inherited coat of arms in each. Some individuals are entitled to bear many quarters.

Without further ado, here is 2023’s Heraldic Alphabet:

A) Carl Austen-Behan (b.1972) – Lord Mayor of Manchester 2016, Mr. Gay UK 2001. Arms of office. Arms of the city of Manchester, granted by the College of Arms on 1st March 1842.

B1) Bishop Eva Brunne (b.1954) – Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm 2009-19. Arms of office. For more information see here.

B2) Hon. Toby Butterfield (b.1965) – British-American lawyer, Gay Games squash champion 2002. Personal arms. Arms granted to his father, Lord Butterfield, with Toby’s cadency mark as his 3rd son (star). The towers on either side of the lion are from the arms of Nottingham (Lord Butterfield was Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham University).

C) Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) – Florentine sculptor and goldsmith. Family arms. The lion is the original family arms. The fleurs-de-lys and “label” at the top is called a capo d’Anjou (see here).

D) Nils Dardel (1888-1943) – Swedish artist. Family arms granted to his great-grandfather Georges-Alexandre Dardel, a Swiss army officer knighted, ennobled and granted arms by the King of Sweden on 21st May 1810.

E) Reginald, Lord Esher (1852-1930) – Sir Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher. Personal arms. The Brett family arms are the gold lions. They are holding a fasces, a symbol of authority in the Roman Empire (where we get the modern word “fascist” - this does not imply that the family has any fascist associations). The 3 leopard faces were inherited from the Wilfords of Enfield. The bears’ heads are inherited from the Forbes of Edinglassie.

F) Laudomia Forteguerri (1515-1555) – Italian poet. Family arms. The pattern on the right side is called vair. It represents pieces of squirrel fur (“varus” is Latin for squirrel) sewn together to form the lining of a medieval cloak. Blue represents the squirrel’s back fur, white represents its belly fur.

G) Sir John Gielgud (1904-2000) – British actor. Family arms. The Gielguds are untitled Polish nobility. Sir John’s great-grandfather fled to England during Russian occupation of Poland. I have not determined if Sir John had an English grant of arms. This is his inherited Polish arms. They are derived from an older coat of arms belonging to the Dzialosza family to which the Gielgud family are related.

H) Capt. Myles Hildyard (1914-2005) – British army officer, and historian. Personal arms. The blue quarters are the Hildyard arms. The white quarters with the bugles are inherited from the Thoroton family. Capt. Hildyard was President of the Thoroton Society, a historical society named after his ancestral uncle, an antiquarian called Robert Thoroton (1628-1678).

I) Ruth Illingworth – Mayor of Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ireland, 2009-10; the first openly lgbt mayor in Ireland. Arms of office. Probably assumed arms, as I cannot find any official grant. This design is based on the town’s 18th century civic seal. The wheel represents the mill-wheel of a local landmark – the name Mullingar means “left-hand mill”. Other objects on the shield represent local heritage and families.

J) Lady Catherine Jones (1672-1740) ^ – British philanthropist and women’s rights advocate, daughter of the Earl of Ranelagh. Family arms. The objects in the corners are called pheons, representing arrow heads.

K) Princess Abigail Kinoiki Kehaulike Kawananakoa (1926-2022) – Hawaiian princess and heir to the Hawaiian throne. Inherited arms, being those of the kingdom of Hawaii granted by the College of Arms in May 1845. Had the kingdom survived, these are the arms Princess Abigail would have used as Queen. Minor changes were made when it was chosen for the state seal of Hawaii in 1959. The stripes are prominent on the state flag.

L) Ellen Lascelles (b.1984) ^ – British recruitment consultant. Personal arms. Ellen’s great-grandmother was Princess Mary, Queen Elizabeth II’s aunt. Princess Mary had her own variation of the royal arms (bottom left), making her children her heraldic heirs, including Ellen’s father who would have added the star as a third son. The yellow crosses are the Lascelles family arms. They inherited the cross with the lion from the Burkes of Clanricarde.

M) Erica Mann (1905-1969) ^ - German actor and author. Attributed marital arms. I included the Mann family in last year’s Alphabet. If her family’s German arms were permitted in England, this is how Erica’s arms could have looked as wife of author W. H. Auden (see 2016 Alphabet). They married to allow Erica to flee Nazi persecution and become a British citizen.

N) Rt. Rev. Szymon Niemiec (b.1977) – Bishop of the United Christian Church of Poland, founder of Polish Pride, and psychotherapist. Personal arms, granted by the United Christian Church. Red and white are the Polish national colours. The angels (Gabriel left, Michael right) deliberately break the heraldic rule of never putting white on white. This symbolises the angels’ spiritual nature. The chalice and disc represent Holy Communion. The “X” on the disc is also the family arms of the Niemiec family.

O) Dr. Rachel Wyndham Obbard – American Professor, and planetary scientist. Family arms. These arms were granted to Dr. Rachel’s 3-times great-grandfather, Robert Obbard, by the College of Arms on 12 February 1850. The crescent indicates her descent from a 2nd son.

P) Dennis Price (1915-1973) – British actor. Family arms. For more information see here.

R) John Randolph (1773-1833) – US Congressman and Senator. Assumed arms. John Randolph is believed to have had a form of genetic gender variation, probably Klinefelter syndrome. The first Randolphs to settle in Virginia used the arms of the Randolphs of Kent who used black stars. There’s no known link between the two families. John’s great-grandfather was the first to use red stars.

S) Mrs. Sarah Scott, née Robinson (1720-1785) ^ - British novelist and social reformer. Personal arms. Sarah and her brother became heraldic heirs to the Robinson family in 1794. The deer features in many Robinson family arms. Sarah’s marriage to George Scott was for his financial benefit and was not a happy one.

T) Ernest Thesiger (1879-1961) – British actor. Personal arms. Granted to his grandfather, Sir Frederick Thesiger, in 1844 when he was knighted. Sir Frederick’s 5th son is Ernest Thesiger’s father, hence the cadency mark of a ring.

V1) Sándor Vay (1859-1918) – Hungarian poet and journalist. Family arms. Born Countess Sarolta Vay. The original Vay arms date from 1418 and show just the deer and arrow, facing the other way. Later generations modified and added to the design. This particular design was adopted by Sandor’s paternal grandfather,

V2) Count Gottfried von Cramm (1909-1976) – German tennis player. Family arms. For more information see here.

W) Dame Veronica Wedgwood (1910-1997) ^ – British historian. Personal arms. A member of the famous Wedgwood pottery family. These arms were confirmed to Dame Veronica’s ancestor, John Wedgwood, by the College of Arms on 20 November 1576.

Y) Dame Eileen Younghusband (1902-1981) ^ - British pioneer of social work training. Family arms. These arms appear on the memorial to one of her great-uncles, and are still used by descendants of another. This implies that her grandfather could also use them and, therefore, Dame Eileen could inherit them.

Queer Achievement: Arms For A Price

[Achievement – the name given in heraldry to the full pictorial representation of a coat of arms.]

It’s been a while since I did an in-depth look at the heraldic achievement of a specific individual, so I’ll rectify that today with a look at the full coat of arms of the British actor Dennis Price (1915-1973). His arms are these –

It’s more than 30 years since I began researching and drawing the coats of arms of famous people. Dennis Price was one of the first ones I did (at about the same time that I did Jeremy Brett’s). I didn’t know at the time that they were both bisexual.

The arms shown above are scanned from my original artwork, which was made before I had access to a computer, which I’ve “tweaked” and tidied up.

Dennis’s full name was Dennistoun Franklin John Rose Price. All except the name John were names of families that feature in his ancestry. I won’t go into the full genealogical profile today but skim through it to tell you where the names came from. Through his paternal grandmother Dennis is descended from the Dennistoun’s of Colgrain near Argyll in Scotland. Franklin is the family name of his paternal great-grandmother (sister of the explorer Sir John Franklin). Rose was the name of the family from whom Dennis’s ancestors inherited Rose Hall on Jamaica (yes, we have to acknowledge that both the Price and Rose families were slave owners). Even though the Dennistoun, Franklin and Rose families all have a coat of arms, none of them were passed down to the Prices through heraldic heirs. This leaves us with just the Price coat of arms.

The Price family is of Welsh origin. Dennis can trace his male line ancestry back with certainty to Capt. Francis Price who was the first member of the family to settle in Jamaica in 1655 after Oliver Cromwell (the Putin of Britain during the, thankfully, brief period when we were a republic) decided to invade Jamaica. Capt. Price probably descended from the Prices of Brecknock in Wales, or at least claimed some family association because the coat of arms granted to Captain Price’s grandson are very similar to theirs. Here are some of the arms known to belong to Price families in the Brecknock area. The earliest, on the left, dates to 1546.

The similarities (spearheads, chevron and black background) do not necessarily indicate a family blood relationship but are frequently adopted and granted with changes, even today, where there is a geographical connection or the same family name.

The specific coat of arms that Dennis Price inherited were granted to an ancestral uncle, the grandson of Capt. Price mentioned above. He was Sir Charles Price (1708-1772), Speaker of the Jamaica House of Assembly, who was created a baronet (hereditary knighthood) in 1768.

The arms were granted to Sir Charles on 13th August 1766 by the College of Arms and included a special limitation, a clause which indicates if other members of the family are allowed to inherit it. This is now common practice. If I were granted a coat of arms it could be extended to include all descendants and heirs of my paternal grandfather. Sir Charles had only one child, a son, who died childless. So, Sir Charles’s youngest brother, John, inherited this coat of arms and passed them down to his descendants, which included his 3-times great-grandson Dennis Price.

Usually, there are other symbolic explanations for every object in a coat of arms. The shield, as I’ve said, is probably to indicate some sort of connection to the Brecknock family. The dragon’s head in the crest was granted specifically to Sir Charles Price and his heirs. It may have been symbolic of the family’s Welsh ancestry. The bloody hand may indicate that Charles was a baronet, as a red hand is the badge of this particular order of knighthood and often appears on a little shield placed somewhere on the main shield.

Next we come to the star and the bird. These are both cadency marks, something placed on a shield to indicate which son in the family you are. I am the third son of my father, so I would have a star. Dennis descends from the third son of the above-mentioned John Price. Added to this, Dennis is descended from that third son’s fourth son (confused?), so he places a special bird called a martlet on top of the star. Technically, new cadency marks would be added generation after generation, but in practice they are often reduced to just one or omitted altogether to stop the arms from becoming cluttered with cadency marks.

Usually, if a husband and wife (now also same-sex married couples) both have a coat of arms they place them side by side on one shield, the husband’s on the viewer’s left (each person in a same-sex marriage can put their own arms on the left and their partner’s on the right). During his brief marriage to Joan Schofield (1920-2017) Dennis Price could have displayed his marital coat of arms as below. Joan’s family name was Temperley, and arms she could have used are those shown on the memorial plaque to her paternal uncle Rev. Canon Arthur Temperley. If there are cadency marks both the husband and wife can omit them, as I’ve shown.

Lastly there is the motto. This is in Welsh and translates as “All Depends on God”.

For heraldry fans, there's my annual Heraldic Alphabet to look forward to in June.

Game of Gay Thrones 7: Byzantium, Korea, England and Baden

Here we are again with another group of lgbt royal wannabes. Included are a couple of spouses who, for one reason or another, were prevented from sitting beside their spouses. I never stop being surprised by the number of queer claimants and disinherited heirs to thrones past and present there have been, not to mention their spouses. There are even more to come next year.

Imperial symbol adopted by the Byzantine emperors

1) Basiliskianos (pre-846- after 866); named as a possible Emperor of Byzantium, 866.

The throne of Byzantium has seen more than its fair share of dethronements, assassinations and claimants. Basiliskianos became a pawn in the power struggle between Emperor Mikhael III (840-866) and his lover and co-Emperor Basileios (c.830-886). I explain the emperors’ relationship in more detail here. Briefly, Mikhael spotted Basileios at a sporting event and became besotted with him. He later made him co-emperor.

In 866 Mikhael began to show more than a casual interest in a young courtier called Basiliskianos. After Mikhael won a chariot race Basiliskianos gave him a lot of enthusiastic praise. The emperor was wearing the imperial red boots, and he told Basiliskianos to remove them and wear them himself. This angered co-emperor Basileios and a bit of an argument ensured. Mikhael said to him “I made you emperor, and do I not have the power to create another?” He later added, “I am ready to make Basiliskianos emperor”. He never did, but the possibility was always there and it upset Basileios enough to assassinate Mikhael. There’s no record of what happened to Basiliskianos after Mikhael died.

Imperial emblem on the Joseon kingdom

2) Crown Princess Sun-Bin Bong (1414-after 1436); consort of the future king of Josean.

Sun-Bin was a member of the aristocratic Haeum Bong clan. In 1429 she married Crown Prince Hi Hyang of the Joseon kingdom in Korea. The marriage, however, was not a very congenial one, and it is reported that the king himself told the Crown Prince to take more interest in his new bride. It didn’t help the marriage, and it deteriorated even more when Princess Bong got angry after one of the Crown Prince’s concubines became pregnant.

Another stumbling block in the marriage was Princess Bong’s habit of giving clothes from the royal wardrobe to her own family. But what really put an end to the marriage, and any chance of her sitting on the Korean throne with her husband in the future, was her blatant over-friendliness towards her female servants, in particular a maid with whom she confesses to having been intimate with on more than one occasion.

This was too much for the king and he banished Sun-Bin Bong from court, annulled the marriage, and reduced her to the rank of commoner. As with Basiliskianos above, there’s no real record of what happened to her after that.

Coat of arms the Mervyn, Earl of Castlehaven

3) Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven (1594-1631); consort of the legal heir to King Henry VIII of England.

Before the 1701 Act of Settlement defined the order of succession to the British throne it was sometimes decided by the last will of the previous monarch. King Henry VIII’s will of 1546 decreed that after the extinction of his own descendants the throne should pass to descendants of his younger sister, not his elder sister as would have been the case under primogeniture rules.

After the last of Henry VIII’s children, Queen Elizabeth I, died in 1603 the heir to the throne under his will was Lady Anne Stanley (1580-1647), who should have become Queen Anne. However, parliament decided to ignore the will and gave the throne to the primogeniture heir, the gay King James VI of Scotland. Some people considered Anne to be the rightful monarch though she never pressed her claim.

It is Anne’s second husband, the Earl of Castlehaven, who is our lgbt royal wannabe. Their marriage was disastrous. I wrote about it several years ago and it is best to read about it here because it’s a bit complicated. Thankfully, the whole sordid affair ended in 1631 when the earl was executed and he never got the chance to be the prince consort to the lawful (under King Henry’s will) queen of England.

Coat of arms of the Pinces Sanguszko-Lubartowicz

4) Prince Janusz Sanguszko-Lubartowicz (1712-1775); bloodline heir of King Harold II of England.

The most famous date in English history is 1066 – the year of 4 kings and 2 invasions. King Edward the Confessor died and was succeeded by King Harold II. Harold faced an invasion led by William of Normandy. Harold was killed in battle, but before William could take the throne as the victor one of King Edward’s nephews was declared king. He quickly abdicated in William’s favour.

Several sites online track Harold’s bloodline to determine who is his direct heir. None match my own research, which I believe is accurate. Harold’s bloodline passed through his daughter to the Kievan royal family, then to the Princes of Warsaw, and finally to the Counts Potocki, the present heirs. On the way several senior bloodlines became extinct and switched to surviving junior branches. One such senior line ended with Prince Janusz Sanguszko-Lubart.

Janusz became Harold’s heir at the age of 17 on the death of his mother, the previous bloodline heir. Janusz was a bit of a party animal and squandered his inheritance on parties and his many gay lovers. In contrast, he was also a great benefactor to local religious institutions. In 1730 he entered a dynastic marriage, but he showed little interest in performing his dynastic duty by fathering an heir. His wife soon left him, and Prince Janusz spent the rest of his life trying unsuccessfully to have his marriage annulled.

In 1748 his openly gay lifestyle was forced temporarily into the closet when his father imprisoned his lover for fraud. Two years later, his father died and Janusz had another vast inheritance to squander away. Although not interested in politics the king of Poland-Lithuania appointed him a Court Marshal, among other offices.

When Janusz died in 1775 he was in debt and there were no close living relatives on his mother’s side, King Harold’s bloodline, to succeed him. It had to go back to descendants of his great-grandfather’s younger brother, from which it has passed to today.

Coat of arms of the Grand Dukes of Baden

5) Prince Maximilian von Baden (1876-1929); heir presumptive to the Grand Duchy of Baden.

The Grand Duchy of Baden was one of the sovereign states within the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire until it was abolished in 1918. The last Grand Duke was Prince Friedrich II (1857-1928). He was childless and his cousin Prince Maximilian was his nearest living male relative and heir presumptive.

In the 1890s the British Queen Victoria attempted to marry Maximilian to her grand-daughter, Princess Alexandra von Hessen. Alexandra wasn’t interested because she was already in love with the future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. I wonder how history would have been different if Alexandra had married Maximilian. After all, it was Alexandra’s relationship with Rasputin that was one of the causes of the Russian Revolution.

In 1900 Prince Maximilian did marry into the British royal family. His wife was Princess Marie Louise, one of Queen Victoria’s cousins and a member of the “old Royal Family” (i.e. junior descendants of King George III), the Cumberlands. This branch of the family still exists, but most of them sided with Germany in World War I and were deprived of their British royal titles, Princess Marie Louise included.

Before his marriage Prince Maximilian was listed in Berlin police records as a homosexual. This fact was only revealed in a biography of him in 2013. Maximilian and Marie Louise had two children, both of whom have interesting connections. Their son married the late Duke of Edinburgh’s sister (he was named after Prince Philipp von Hessen, heir presumptive of Finland). Maximilian’s daughter married Philipp von Hessen’s twin brother.

In September 1918, when it seemed Germany would lose the war, the Kaiser appointed Prince Maximilian as Chancellor of Germany. The following day the Kaiser offered an armistice to the Allies and Maximilian advised him to abdicate. Once armistice was accepted a political “rebellion” against the Kaiser’s appointments forced Maximilian to resign. A republic was declared, royal titles were abolished, and Maximilian spent the rest of his life in retirement. On his cousin’s death in 1928 he became the head of the abolished Baden royal family, and claimed by monarchists as the rightful Grand Duke of Baden. He died the following year.

Heralding a New Reign

I didn’t think the death of Queen Elizabeth II would be an occasion to write something for this blog. Watching the proclamations of King Charles III, which are purely historical and ceremonial and not a legal requirement, reminded me of something I had planned to write next year.

At all of the great ceremonial state occasions, such as the proclamation or the State Opening of Parliament, you’ll see a group of people dressed in brightly coloured tabards and feathered hats. These are the heralds. They are members of the Royal Household.

You may know how much I love heraldry by the many articles I’ve written on the subject. Today I’d like to concentrate on two heralds, or more correctly, two officers of arms. The first is very openly gay, and the second is reported to be gay.

Maj.-Gen. Alastair Bruce (b.1960) holds the office of Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary. A pursuivant (pronounced “percy-vant”) is the lowest rank of officer of arms at the College of Arms in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The word pursuivant come from the same root at “pursue”. Originally, a pursuivant was a person who follows or offers support. So, a heraldic pursuivant is someone who supports a herald in the performance of the latter’s duties. Fitzalan is the name of one of the junior titles of the Duke of Norfolk, the person at the very top of the English heraldic hierarchy. “Extraordinary” means Alastair is a part-time officer of arms and called upon for special occasions and ceremonies. However, last weeks’ proclamation was reserved for the senior heralds and Kings of Arms.

Being a part-time pursuivant Alastair Bruce doesn’t earn a living from it. Thankfully, he has a military pension and still holds several military appointments. He is also a familiar sight on UK television as a regular royal commentator and adviser. He was almost constantly on screen on various channels, UK and world-wide, during this summer’s Platinum Jubilee. Alastair is also the historical adviser to several well-known films and television series – e.g. “Downton Abbey” and “The King’s Speech”.

Although he is an English officer of arms Alastair Bruce is, as his name suggests, Scottish. In fact he holds a Scottish feudal title, the Bruce of Crionaich. He is also the current Governor of Edinburgh Castle. I didn’t notice him at the castle when the proclamation of King Charles was televised from there. No doubt he was in a television studio commentating on the event. His royal connection is evident in several ways. He was equerry to Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and interviewed the Queen in a BBC documentary about her coronation.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t said anything about his sexuality yet it’s because I thought the video below in which he speaks on UK television about it himself and his wedding would be better.

Given time, I’d like to do a full “Queer Achievement” article on Alastair Bruce, because he possesses several variations of his own coat of arms – personal, marital and official.

The second officer of arms I wish to mention is a man whose sexuality I haven’t been able to verify. His names is Rev. Canon Joseph Morrow (b.1955). He is the most senior officer of arms in Scotland with the title of Lord Lyon King of Arms. If you saw the proclamations of King Charles made around Edinburgh you’ll have seen him. He’s the person making the proclamation.

I am reluctant to claim that Rev. Morrow is gay because there’s only one source which states that he is, which is the “Mail of Sunday”. This is a publication that is not known for its accuracy or impartiality. It is a very right-wing newspaper.

In an article which the Main on Sunday on 4th September 2005 they reported on Rev. Morrow’s appointment the previous year as Grand master Mason of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. The article mentions him as being openly gay twice, giving no source or supporting statement from Rev. Morrow himself.

Ten days later there was a report in The Scotsman, a very reliable publication, about Rev. Morrow’s resignation as Grant Master Mason due to “a change in personal circumstances and for health reasons”. The article refers to the Mail on Sunday article and Rev. Morrow’s reported sexuality, again giving no source. When The Scotsman contacted the Grand Lodge of Scotland they declined to comment on the story.

So, who is Rev. Canon Joseph Morrow? Unlike Alastair Bruce, he wasn’t born into and old landed Scottish gentry. One of his first jobs was as a bus conductor. He studied law, became a barrister, was ordained into the Scottish Episcopal Church, and was elected a Labour councillor in Dundee. Among his many honours is a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) from Queen Elizabeth in 2018 for services to mental health (he is president of the Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland). Rev. Morrow was appointed Lord Lyon King of Arms by the Queen in 2014 and has many other royal connections through various appointments.

Whatever his sexuality may be, he has one of the most pleasing and distinctive coat of arms I’ve seen (as shown on the official Lord Lyon website). Like Alastair Bruce, there are several variations and ideal for one of my “Queer Achievements”.

Throughout European history since the Middle Ages heralds have played an important and visible part of ceremonial and pageantry. Their official duties are to regulate the adoption and use of coats of arms, a task that has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the 20th century. More people, many without titles or rank, have a coat of arms, either by grant of inheritance. In the UK these heralds and offices of arms are more visible than anywhere else, and continue to play important roles in royal and state ceremonial. The presence of one, perhaps two, openly gay officers of arms during this changeover of reigns only goes to show that the lgbt community are at the very heart of such occasions.