GREAT BRITAIN, ROYAL Aims op% The arms of the united Britain and Ireland are borne by her majesty queen Victoria. fourth gales, three lions passant gardant in pale, or, for England: rampant within a double tressure flory countertiory gales, for Scotland; third azure, a harp or, stringed argent, for Ireland; all surrounded by the garter.
the royal helmet, the imperial crown proper, thereon a lion statant gardant or, imperially crowned, also proper.
a lion rampant gardant or, crowned as the crest. Sin ister, a unicorn argent, armed crined, and unguled or, gorged with a coronet composed of crosses pattee and fleur-de lis, a chain affixed thereto, passing between the ,fore legs, and reflexed over the back, also or.
et mon Droit in the 'com partment below the shield, With the union.
rose, shamrock, and thistle ingrafted on the same stein.
Arms have been ascribed by heralds to the Saxon and Norman monarchs of England in the 10th and llth centuries; but as heraldry was, in point of fact, unknown till the middle of 12th c., they must be dealt with as ffibulous. However, at a period almost before the earliest dawnings of hereditary coat-armor, the sovereigns of England, in common with various other monarchs of ch•istendotn, adopted the lion as their device. Richard I., in his earliest seal, has two lions, which are borne counter-rampant; lint in the latter part of his reign, after his return from the third crusade, the great seal of cceur-de-lion representS the three lions in pale and passant•.gardant, as they have been almost uniformly depicted since. The only subsequent instance of which we are aware of any variation in the number is on a seal of the Carmelites at Oxford, in which Edward III. is represented in a surcoat charged with four lions in pale passant gardant, a proof of the latitude which heralds occasionally allowed themselves as late as the beginning of the 14th century. In 1340 Edward III., in virtue of the supposed right of his mother, assumed the title of king of France, and quartered the arms of France with tlrose of England. giving to the former the precedence. The fleurs-de-lis were then generally borne sans nonre; but in the latter part of the reign of Henry IV. they were reduced
to three, borne or on a field azure. No further change took place in the royal escutcheon until the time of James L, except that Mary, on her secondgreat seal, made after her marriage with Philip II., impaled the arms of Spain and England.
James VI. of Scotland,. on succeeding to the throne of England, quartered the arms borne by sovereigns with those of Scotland and Ireland, the first and fourth quarters being France and England quartered as before, the second quarter the lion rampant of Scotland within the double tressure (see Sco'rLtsn, ARMS OF), and the third quarter the harp of Ireland (see IRELAND, ARMS On The royal arms were similarly borne by all the sovereigns of the house of Stuart till the reign of Anne, except that William IIl, bore over all the coat of _Nassau (az. seme of billets, a lion rampant or) on an escutcheon of pretense. in the reign of Anne, the legislative union with Scotland brought about a material change. England and Scotland impaled were placed in the first and fourth quarter, France in the second, and Ireland in the third. The accession of George 1. displaced England and Scotland front the fourth quarter, to make way for the arms of his majesty's German d9minions. These were gu. two lions passant gardant in pale for Brunswick, impaled with or, seme of hearts gu. a lion rampant az., for Luneburg, having the arms of ancient Saxony—viz., gu. a horse courant ar. emit en base, and in a shield surtout gu. the crown of Charlemagne proper, being the badge of the arch-treasurer of the holy Roman empire. A further alteration took place on the union with Ireland, when Gtorge III. laid aside the titular assumption of king of France, and abandoned the French ensigns. The arms of England were now made to occupy the first and fourth quart4r, Scotland the second, and Ireland the third, while the German ensigns were relegated to an escutcheon of pretence. These last were finally abandoned on the everence of Hanover from the crown of Great Britain, which took place on the accession of queen Victoria, and the royal escutcheon thus assumed its present arrange ment.