Some Real Heraldry in This Movie

So there I was, watching the 1957 film Witness for the Prosecution, a courtroom drama set in London, England.

I will say, it's a great little movie! Directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, and Laughton's real-life wife, Elsa Lanchester, it's based on a story by Agatha Christie. And I have to admit, the ending was a twist that I had not seen coming. At all!

Anyway, there are, naturally, a number of scenes inside the courtroom, and it was in those scenes that I was both pleased and somewhat confused to see the heraldry therein. Because while it was set in criminal court in London, nowhere did I see the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom. Not in any scene, not at any angle. And in any court in the United Kingdom, not just a criminal court, one would normally expect to see those arms prominently displayed, as a symbol of the Sovereign's authority as the "source and fountain of justice."

But despite that lack, the chairs upon which sat the judges and the barristers did bear a coat of arms:

As you can see pretty clearly (and you can click on the image above to go to the full-size screenshot I took during the movie), what we have on the backs of each of these chairs is the coat of arms of the City of London!

Here are two of the many examples of London's arms which I found when we were last there.

The arms of London themselves are remarkably simple: Argent a cross and in dexter chief a sword gules. (Yes, it's a sword and not a dagger. The arms combine the emblems of St. George and St. Paul. There is a story that the "sword" represents the dagger used by the Lord Mayor of London to kill Wat Tyler, the leader of the Peasants' Revolt in June 1381, but these arms were brought into use in April of that year, and thus pre-date Tyler's death.)

In the image from the movie and in the street sign, the arms of London are supported by two white dragons, their wings charged with a red cross. The crest is A dragon's sinister wing argent charged with a cross gules, and the motto underneath the arms is Domine dirige nos (God guide us).

Now, this is not to say that I take issue with the use of the arms of London on chairbacks. Indeed, I have seen exactly such a usage with the arms of the Royal Burgh of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute:

So I have no quibble with the arms of London on the chairs in the courtroom; I just didn't see a representation of the Royal Arms in the courtroom scenes where I would have expected them.

Anyway, it's always nice to see actual heraldry used in the movies, even when it really doesn't play a big role in the plotline.

Two Coats of Arms on an Historic Storefront

You can find two different coats of arms on the small-front building at 216 Strand in London, England.

One, the most impressive one, naturally, is the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, displayed on the front of the building to denote that the proprietors have a Royal Warrant from Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. (It may, or may not, have been upated since the accession of King Charles III to the throne.)

Be that as it may, this is what I saw when I passed by just a few years ago:

But as I said, there is another coat of arms there, less well-known, perhaps, but just as important to the proprietors:

These are, obviously, the arms of Twinings Tea & Coffee Merchants. The arms are differenced form of the personal arms of the Twining family (by reversing the tinctures and adding the lion), and are blazoned: Sable a fess embattled between two mullets and a lion passant guardant Argent. The crest is: A cubit arm grasping two snakes each entwined around the arm all proper. (So the crest is actually a cant, a stretched one, but still, a cant, or pun, on the surname.) The motto is: Fortiter ac Firmiter (Strongly and Firmly).

You can learn a little more about Twinings, its Royal Warrant, and its "logo", which is claimed to be the oldest one in the world, on-line at https://pagenorth.co.uk/the-worlds-oldest-logo/

It's always a little bit awe-inspiring to me, that you can learn so much by digging into the history of a place that you may have stopped at for only a minute or two, for the purpose of taking a couple of photographs.

Another Piece of Reel Heraldry

It's often interesting to see how moviemakers treat coats of arms, especially when the coat of arms is supposed to be that of a fictional country.

Well, the other day, I was continuing my quest to see movies that, in my opinion, I should have seen before, but which I haven't. And one of those movies which recently popped up on my radar was the old 1957 work starring the unusual, or at least unexpected, combination of Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, The Prince and the Showgirl.

I'm not going to get into all of details of the movie, its plot, or even (at least not very much) my opinion of it overall. However, there was some heraldry, and that, of course, got my attention.

The prince of the title, played by Sir Laurence, is His Serene Highness the Grand Duke Charles, Regent of the (fictional) Balkan country, the Kingdom of Carpathia.* And as many of the scenes in the movie take place in the Carpathian Embassy in London, there are several depictions of the Carpathian coat of arms, two in color, and one two tone.

None of the screenshots I got of these arms are quite clear enough to make out everything on the shield, but you can certainly easily notice that they are very complex.

The first and fourth quarters are actually pretty clear: 1, Or three lions passant guardant in pale Sable; and 4, Or a double-headed eagle displayed Sable, but it's hard to make out what is on the eagle's breast or what is in chief, though there is clearly something on the eagle's breast and clearly something is in chief. In the second image (and you can click on any image above to go to the full-size screenshot to see the details a little better), the charge on the eagle's breast looks like a lozenge Argent charged with a W throughout Gules, but I don't entirely trust my interpretation of that.

The second and third quarters are grand-quartered. The second quarter, as far as I can make it out, is: Quarterly, i and iv, Azure a fess and canton Or between in chief [something I cannot make out] and in base a tree Proper; ii and iii, Sable a chevron reversed Argent. The third quarter looks to be: Quarterly, i and iv, Gules a chevron between three [leopard's faces?] Or; ii and iii, Vair on a pile reversed throughout Argent a cross pomelly Gules.

Overall is an inescutcheon, Azure a [horse?] passant Argent [saddled? bearing a pack? Or is there something hanging from its neck over its side?] Proper atop a terrace [mount?] Vert.

Somebody, somewhere, put a lot of work into creating this very complex coat of arms for the fictional Kingdom of Carpathia. And the fact that the set builders kept all three examples of this coat of arms pretty consistent meant that they were paying attention to detail.

All in all, I am fairly impressed by the work that went into creating this coat of arms and its several depictions. I am less impressed by what I feel is its unnecessary complexity.

Still, though, its another example of running across some heraldy in an unexpected place, and I am always willing to stop (or in this instance, hit the "Pause" button) and look.

* As Google is happy to inform us, "There is no real country called 'Carpathia'; it is a geographical region that spans across eight Central and Eastern European countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine."

Some Foreign Arms in the Supreme Court of the UK Building

One of the lesser-known, perhaps, yet still very important, effects of World War II was the business of running more than one "government-in-exile" based in the United Kingdom.

And it is one aspect of this business that has been commemorated heraldically in the halls of the Supreme Court of the UK building.

The photgraph above is an overview of what we're going to look at today.

The arched frame in the center we have seen before; it contains the arms of the County of Middlesex.

The document in the square frame on the right explains what is being commemorated here:

"In Commemoration of the first authorization by the British Parliament of the establishment in the United Kingdome by the Allied and Associated Foreign Powers during the World War of Maritime Courts for the trail of offences committed by person other than British subjects, and in acknowledgment of the value and the valour of the great contribution made by these nations to the common cause notwithstanding the tragic misfortunes which had overtaken their native lands."

Flanking the text on the left is, of course, the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom, and along the bottom, the saltire of St. Andrew (for Scotland), the cross of St. George (for England), and the saltire of St. Patrick (for Ireland).

The document in the square frame on the left contains the arms of these "Allied and Associated Foreign Powers", governments in exile:

In the center are the arms of the Republic of Poland;* in the upper left, the arms of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; in the upper right, the arms of the Kingdom of Norway; in the lower left, the arms of the Kingdom of Belgium; and in the lower right, the arms of the Kingdom of Greece.

How fitting that these special Maritime Courts are commemorated in the halls of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

How much better that they are commemorated heraldically.

* In relation to one of my other big historical interests, airplanes and airmen in World War II, there were some sixteen Polish squadrons who flew with the Royal Air Force. Of particular note are 302 Squadron and 303 Squadron, who fought with distinction in the Battle of Britain.

The Arms of a Double Duke

Nearing the end of our look at some of the coats of arms to be found on and in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom building (formerly the Middlesex Guildhall), we are going to see the arms of a "double duke": Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne and Duke of Newcastle under Lyme. We'll discuss why he became a "double duke" farther below.

In this window, the arms of Thomas Pelham-Holles are on the left. The arms on the right side of the window are those of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, which we saw in our post of November 6, 2025 (http://blog.appletonstudios.com/2025/11/two-more-arms-of-middlesex-lords.html).

The Duke's arms are blazoned: Quarterly of six: 1 & 6, Quarterly: i & iv, Azure three pelicans argent vulning themselves in the breast gules; ii & iii, Ermine two piles in point sable; 2, Gules two demi-belts with buckles argent erect the buckles in chief; 3, Ermine on a fess gules three open crowns or; 4, Or fretty azure; 5, Azure two bars argent, on a canton sable a horse’s head couped argent.

The two crests: Dexter: A peacock in his pride proper; Sinister: A boar statant azure armed and crined or.

Supporters: Dexter: A bay horse collared with a belt argent buckles and studs or; Sinister: A bear proper collared with a belt argent buckles and studs or.

Motto: Vicit Amor Patriæ (“To love my country”)

Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne and Duke of Newcastle under Lyme was one of the most powerful men of his age. He was born in 1693 in Sussex as plain Thomas Pelham but, by the age of 19 he had inherited vast estates, including patronage of some twelve rotten boroughs (that is, boroughs able to elect a representative to Parliament though having very few voters, the choice of representative typically being in the hands of one person or family), and with it control of twenty-four members of the House of Commons.

At the age of twenty, Lord Pelham made great noise in support of the Hanoverian succession and when King George I duly succeeded in 1714 he rewarded Pelham, appointing him Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex (this being the reason his arms are displayed in the building) and Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, and granting two of his late uncle’s titles; Viscount Houghton and Earl of Clare. After the 1715 election the Whigs were in and Pelham became Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne and Marquess of Clare. At the age of thirty he became Secretary of State for the Southern Department with responsibility for foreign policy and much else beside. He was in command of the war effort throughout the War of Jenkins’s Ear with Spain from 1739 and the War of the Austrian Succession from 1741.

Newcastle became Prime Minister in 1754. He was not a great success in the role and he duly resigned in 1756. In the same year, King George II granted him an additional title; Duke of Newcastle under Lyme, so that he could pass “Newcastle” to his nephew and heir, Lord Lincoln, who could not inherit as “Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne”.

And now you know why he was made a "double duke".

And Today, We "Shoot" Two More Sheriffs

Sorry, I just can't seem to get the old Bob Marley song, "I Shot the Sheriff", out of my head. I should be over it by the time for my next post, though.

Today, we are going to look at the arms of two more Sheriff's of Middlesex to be found in the stained glass windows of the Supreme Court of the UK building, formerly the Middlesex Guildhall.

First, on the left in the image below, we have the arms of Frederick Cox. He was a financier, the senior partner in the firm of Cox and Co., Army agents and bankers, of Charing Cross. He was also a director of various life insurance or investment companies.

Away from the office, Frederick Cox threw himself into public endeavours. He was involved in the Chelsea Hospital for Women and in 1884 he was on the committee organising a famed entertainment; The Shakspearean Show to aid the hospital. He worked for the Home Hospitals Association and was a Governors of the British Lying-in Hospital, and Trustee of the Egyptian War Fund for the widows and families of the war in the Sudan, which later developed into the Imperial War Fund, whose meetings he hosted at Cox & Co.

He became Sheriff of Middlesex in 1901.

His arms are blazoned: Argent three cocks gules crowned or on a chief azure on a pale between two ostrich feathers argent a rose gules. The crest is: A cock gules. And the motto: Gard la Foy (“Guard the faith”).

Once again, I recommend clicking on the image above to see the full-size, more detailed photograph of the arms here.

And on the right, we have the arms of Alfred Henry Tarleton. He was a naval man. In the 1880s he served on torpedo boats, a new concept for the Royal Navy at the time, and later on larger warships. In the 1890s Lieutenant Tarleton was Treasurer of the Deptford Fund, a charity to relieve the hardships of the poor in Deptford, a naval dockyard town on the Thames. Other charities in which he took a leading role included the Chelsea Hospital for Women, the Order of Mercy and the Order of St John, in which he had the remarkable rank of a “Knight of Grace of St John of Jerusalem”. He became an Equerry to HRH the Duchess of Albany. He became Sheriff of Middlesex for the year 1909-1910. In 1913, Tarleton attended the Guildhall’s opening, commanding the Middlesex Boy Scouts in the Guard of Honour.

His arms are blazoned: Quarterly, 1st & 4th, Gules a chevron erminois between three cinquefoils or (Tarleton); 2nd & 3rd, Argent on a fess dancetty between three mullets azure three bezants (Dimsdale); and on an escutcheon of pretence the arms of Tennyson-D’Eyncourt: Quarterly: 1st & 4th, Azure a fess dancetty between ten billets, four in chief and six in base three two and one, or (D’Eyncourt); 2nd & 3rd, Gules three leopards’ faces or jessant-de-lys overall a bend azure (Tennyson). Dependent from the shield is the ribbon of the Order of St John. The crest is: Above a mural crown argent a leopard’s face or all between two ostrich feathers argent. And the motto: Post Nubiles Phœbus (“After clouds, Sun”).

That seems to be all of the Sheriffs whose arms I "shot" in the Supreme Court of the UK building. Next time, the arms of another Duke found there.

"I 'Shot' the Sheriff"

Well, to be honest, it was four Sheriffs (two of which we are reviewing today), and I only "shot" them in the sense of "took a photograph" of their coats of arms.

But you can see why the old Bob Marley song came to mind in preparing to write this post.

But be that as it may, today we're going to look at the arms of two Sheriffs of Middlesex, England, whose arms can be found in one of the windows in the Supreme Court of the UK building, formerly the Middlesex Guildhall.

The first is Arthur Nockolds Gilbey, Sheriff in 1912. He was born on 6 April 1861, the son of Sir Walter Gilbey. His home was Bloomsbury St George in Middlesex, but his active life took him to a number of places of the home counties and beyond. Gilbey was most famous not for his public service but for his keenness for fishing. His obituary in The Times in 1939 was devoted entirely to Gilbey’s prominence amongst the angling fraternity and his pioneering techniques in developing the craft of the angler, in particular in pursuit of trout.

His arms, seen on the left side of the window below, and which appear to have no relationship at all to fishing or angling, are blazoned: Gules a fess nebuly between in chief a horse rampant between two estoiles and the same in base all or, on the fess a crescent argent for difference. The crest is: On a tower proper issuant from the battlements thereof a dragon’s head gules a fleur de lys or all between two ostrich feathers argent. And the motto: Honore et Virtute (“Honour and virtue”).

As always, you can click on the image above to see the full-size, and therefore much more detailed, picture.

The other Sheriff, in the right-hand window, is Joseph Edward Lilley, a stockbroker and later a barrister. He was born in 1850 in Northamptonshire, and married a Northamptonshire woman, Emma Harris of Peterborough.

As a stockbroker he traded in the City, at Throgmorton Avenue. He later passed his law examination and became a Barrister; he was called to the bar in May 1900. He became sheriff of Middlesex in 1904.

His arms are blazoned: Azure on a pile between two fleurs de lys in base argent a lily of the valley eradicated proper. His crest is: On a cubit arm holding in the hand two lilies of the valley leaved and slipped in saltire all proper, a fleur-de-lys argent. And the motto: In Arduis Fortior (“Stronger in difficulty”).

Next time, shots of two more Sheriffs' arms.

A Pair of Royal Arms in the Supreme Court of the UK Building

In our post of November 3, 2025, http://blog.appletonstudios.com/2025/11/some-other-arms-in-supreme-court-of-uk.html, in the portion discussing the arms of the 11th Duke of Bedford, it was noted that as Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, in December 1913 he was at the opening of the Guildhall, accompanying Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Connaught.

Today, we are going to look at the arms of Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, which are also displayed in the building.

HRH Prince Arthur Frederick Patrick Albert was the son of the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, a younger son of Queen Victoria. The Duke served as Governor-General of Canada, but returned to London in 1913 for his son’s wedding, and while in town, he opened the Middlesex Guildhall, hence this kind tribute that greeted his arrival. Prince Arthur was a soldier, and saw active service in South Africa in the Boer War. After the accession of King George V in 1911, and after his father went to Canada, Prince Arthur found himself one of the most senior male members of the Royal Family over the age of 18 still in the United Kingdom and undertook a wide variety of royal duties on behalf of the King.

A year after his wedding to the Princess, the First World War broke out and Prince Arthur served as Aide-de-Camp to the commander, Generals French and Haig in turn. By 1919 he was a Lieutenant Colonel. He returned to South Africa in 1920, this time in peace, as Governor-General until 21 January 1924. He died in 1943. His father survived him by four years.

HH Princess Alexandra was the daughter of Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, and Louise, Princess Royal, and was a cousin once removed of her husband.* She inherited her father’s title on his death.

The arms of Prince Arthur of Connaught: The arms of the United Kingdom with overall a Label of five points Argent charged on the center and outer points with a cross of St George gules and on the two inner points a fleur-de-lis azure, an inescutcheon of Saxony.

The arms of Princess Arthur of Connaught (HH Princess Alexandra Victoria Alberta Edwina Louise), Duchess of Fife: Impaled with the arms of Prince Arthur of Connaught, the Royal Arms, differenced by the same label as her husband and upon an inescutcheon the quarterly coat of Duff, the inescutcheon being surmounted by the coronet of a Duchess of the United Kingdom. The dexter supporter is the Royal Lion of England crowned with the last mentioned coronet and charged with the label as in the arms. The sinister supporter is a savage taken from the supporters of the late Duke of Fife.



* This family thing of being a “first cousin, once removed”, or a “third cousin, twice removed”, etc. can be very confusing. The short explanation is that first cousins share the same grandparents; in the case of “first cousins, once removed”, one cousin’s grandparents are the other cousin’s great-grandparents, thus adding one generation,

one “remove”, in descent from the shared ancestor(s). For the Prince and Princess here, their specific situation is that: 1, He is a grandson of Queen Victoria (Victoria > Arthur William Patrick Albert > Arthur Frederick Patrick Albert); 2, She is a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria (Victoria > Edward VII > Louise Victoria Alexandra Dagmar > Alexandra Victoria Alberta Edwina Louise).

Or like this, if it helps you to visualize it better:

                                        Victoria
                _______________|_______________
               |                                                    |
    Arthur William                                    Edward VII         Siblings
               |                                                    |
    Arthur Frederick                              Louise Victoria     1st Cousins
                                                                    |
                                                       Alexandria Victoria  1st Cousin
                                                                                         Once removed

Full disclosure: I’ve had to learn all this from working on my own family tree. My second great-grandparents on my mother’s side were second cousins, and my own parents were second cousins, once removed (which makes me a second cousin, twice removed, to myself!). As my late very southern wife was often pleased to remind me regularly (given the stereotype of southern cousins marrying cousins), “Your family tree circles back on itself more than mine does.”

More Heraldry In The News!

Sometimes, an heraldic artifact can be found just hanging in someone's house, the owner having no clue as to its historical significance.

Such is the case of a depiction of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's coat of arms, for nearly 200 years hanging in Gwysaney Hall, the North Wales home of the Davies-Cooke family. It had been presumed that the 23" by 23" artifact was a replica produced early in Queen Victoria's reign.

Wrong!

The carved and painted wooden achievement of arms was part of a collection of relics which sold at auction in Berkshire for a combined £17,000 last year. But the vendor suspected it might be older than previously thought. So they commissioned scientific analysis, which included analysing tree ring sequences, and now believe it was made in 1525.

Wolsey died in 1530.

The coat of arms has been authenticated by Tudor historian Dr Elizabeth Goldring, who has labelled it an "exceptional survival".

It will go on display at West End art gallery Simon Dickinson, Ltd. before being sold for a fixed price of £250,000 - 15 times what it went for at auction a year ago. (So well out of my price range!)

A Simon Dickinson spokesperson said: "For at least 200 years the coat-of-arms have been Gwynsaney Hall in the North Wales home of the Davies-Cooke family. Until recent research at Dickinson, they were thought to have been made in Queen Victoria's reign as a historical anachronism."

According to the National Archives, a Wolsey coat of arms hung in Thomas Cromwell's London mansion at Austin Friars in 1527. Could it have been this one? Well, maybe.

Speculation like that aside, you can read a lot more in the Daily Mail article on-line at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15241817/Coat-arms-Henry-VIIIs-condemned-adviser-500-years-Victorian-replica-hanging-Welsh-home-Cardinal-Thomas-Wolseys-original.html

All I can say is: "Wow! What a find!"

Heraldry In The News!

A 200-year-old hatchment from a church in Norfolk, England, missing for 30 years, has been returned to St. Margaret's Church on the Felbrigg Hall Estate.

The return was made by a combination of efforts of PC Dane Wyatt from Essex Police's Rural Engagement Team, Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers in Stansted Mountfitchet, the Heraldry Society of England, and Historic England.

Thanks to the fine work by everyone involved, the funeral hatchment of Cecilia Windham, née Forrest, who died in 1824, the wiidow of William Windham, MP, has been returned to the church on the estate of Felbrigg Hall, where the Windhams lived.

Cecilia Windham's hatchment (above) has now been reunited with the family’s three remaining hatchments in the church, where, as PC Wyatt notes, "they can once again be appreciated as part of the area's rich heritage."

The two news stories (well, there is a third, but it's behind a paywall) covering this event in greater detail and better outlining the efforts made by the various individuals and organizations that aided in its identification and return can be found on-line at:

https://www.saffronwaldenreporter.co.uk/news/25584486.essex-police-officer-finds-stolen-funeral-hatchment/

and

https://www.essex.police.uk/news/essex/news/news/2025/october/auction-checks-recover-coat-of-arms/

A hearty congratulations is in order to all of the people involved in returning this 200-year-old hatchment to where it belongs. I, for one, am so very pleased that this piece of heraldic heritage has been returned to the church and can once again be seen by historians and heraldry enthusiasts like myself.