Re: Royal Heraldry Changes

[telenet!rootbeer!dmontuor@uunet.uu.net (Dave Montuori)]

Unto the denizens of the Merry Rose and the overflow crowd out in Cheapside,
and to Herveus d'Ormonde (matrix boss #1) and Leifr Johansson (matrix boss #2),
greetings from Evan da Collaureo, Kraken Herald and Stierbach Pursuivant.

Leifr and Herveus, if you read this in time please bring these comments to
Curia so that they may be shared with Their Majesties etc. there -- I do
plan to send a hard copy to TRM next week, but redundancy can't hurt.

>In the April issue of the Acorn, Her Majesty, Queen Seonaid informed the 
>populace of her intent to consider changes to the Kingdom and Royal 
>arms.  There are four specific changes under consideration.

>The Prince has a crown of five points in yellow on the middle of his 
>shield.  When he becomes King, he adds a green laurel wreath around the 
>crown.

Amplification: The crown lies entirely on the middle wavy stripe.
The laurel wreath does not. This is why the blazon below says "within
*OVERALL* a laurel wreath...."

>When a woman wins Atlantia's Crown tourney, she will be entitled to use 
>the Sovereign's arms, and the arms of the sovereign's heir while she is 
>Princess.

And (of course) her (male) consort will bear the fuzzy clam (first without,
then later with, roses). Would anyone care to elaborate on why the furry
tincture was picked for the shell?

>Ask a herald to describe these, and they will use many fewer words.  
>That's why there is a jargon known as blazon.  To wit:
>ATLANTIA, Kingdom and Sovereign of.
>Per pale argent and azure, on a fess wavy cotised counterchanged a crown 
>vallary Or, within overall a laurel wreath vert.
>
>ATLANTIA, Consort of.
>Per pale azure and argent, on a fess wavy cotised counterchanged between 
>three roses gules barded and seeded Or, an escallop erminois.

Herewith follow my comments on the proposed changes, plus a bit.

-1-
On changing the background field of the consort's arms to match the
sovereign's:

Yes, yes, a thousand times YES. *PLEASE* make this change. No one I have
*ever* met could remember them correctly the first several times they
tried. A deeper reason, however, responds to another comment:

>In favor of keeping the female fields reversed to the male fields (which 
>was intentional, by the way):  The banners behind the throne look so good
>as mirror images of each  other.

At the risk of sounding like an Authenticity Geek, the above comment shows
a startling lack of feel for MEDIEVAL concepts of symmetry. Mirror-image
stuff is LESS symmetric than identical stuff, in period heraldic style.
Making this change reflects good heraldic taste.

-2-
On changing the Queen's roses:

I don't really care whether we keep the 3 roses as is or change them
to a wreath. We might change the tincture to plain *proper* for ease
of blazon, but I don't feel very strongly about it.

-3-
On changing the arms of the heirs:

I think the Sovereign's Heir will be identified as Atlantian whether
s/he bears "Atlantia with a label" or "Atlantia without a laurel wreath."
We don't need to have the blessing of the College of Arms to use the
one with the label (in fact, we CANNOT register it), so why don't we
keep the current arms and leave it up to each individual Prince(ss) which
style s/he wishes to bear?

Personally, if I were to somehow become an Heir (highly unlikely!), I'd
prefer the less cluttered version of the arms. This opinion, plus the
various points about the "consort's heir/heir's consort" thread, the
apparent lack of period examples, and concerns about heraldic space
which would interest almost nobody, lead me to believe we should
leave the so-called "Princess's Arms" as the shell without the roses.

If we *do* adpot a label for one or both, please make the label GOLD.

-4-
>Finally, lose the pairs of lines above and below the middle band.  These 
>are the cotises, and they add an additional level of complexity to the 
>kingdom arms.  They also impart a sense of waves, which is appropriate to 
>Atlantia's theme.

Perhaps surprisingly, I have no opinion on this one. Both sides present
arguments that make lots of sense to me, but I am not convinced by either
side, nor do I feel strongly enough about the issue to tip one way or the
other.

-5-
ANOTHER PROPOSAL FOR THEIR MAJESTIES' CONSIDERATION

Independent of the proposed changes, I would like to propose that Atlantia
register an ENSIGN (kingdom flag) with the College of Arms. The proposed
blazon is: Per pale argent and azure, a fess wavy cotised counterchanged.

This is the current Kingdom arms without the crown or the laurel wreath.
It would make a distinctively Atlantian flag, and the cotises would
not be nearly as much clutter without the other charges so I'd keep
them on the flag even if we remove them from the other armory.

---
I'm sorry if this was a bit long-winded; I do hope that these comments
will be found useful.

Evan