[ANSTHRLD] arms - your thoughts

[Jennifer Smith]

Daniel quoted me and then wrote:
> > Yeah, but that's what is specified -- a royal crown. Not eastern or
> > 'of three points' or whatever, Royal.
> 
> My first thought was that I don't have any sources handy, but that I
> had the impression that what
> <http://herald.ansteorra.org/new/arms.jpg> has a closed imperial
> crown.

Possibly from prior artwork? I based my rendition (the one in the blackstar,
the one on the side of the royal trailer, the one painted on the new royal
pavilion, and scattered around the website here and there, and what Garreth
eyeballed when he did his, all with a silver/grey helm, sigh) on a much
older piece of art I'd found *somewhere*, and that I don't know who did it.
I'm fairly sure it used the exact same style of crown.

> But I actually *do* have a source.  Checking James Parker,
> <http://www.heraldsnet.org/saitou/parker/Jpglossc.htm#Crown> -- always
> a risky proposition in such a case, because he might be reporting a
> Victorianism or an invention of a treatise writer -- he had
[...cites of arched crowns well in period...]

> Anyone have a Pic Dic handy?

Not at the moment, but I do have JP Brooke-Little _An Heraldic Alphabet_,
where he says under "Crown" (any typos mine):

	The conventional representation of the Royal Crown (sometimes also
called the Imperial Crown) is a stylized version of St. Edward's Crown.  It
is composed of a gold circlet on which are four crosses fromy, one and two
halves being visible, and four fleurs-de-lis, two being shows. The circlet
is garnished with pearls and five large jewels; in the centre is a sapphire,
flanked by two emeralds, with two rubies at the outer edges. From the
crosses rise two gold arches. On the outer two nine, and on the centre arch
five pearls are shown. The arches support a mound or orb, often shown as
being green, on which is a gold cross formy ornamented with pearls. The
actual delineation of the crown varies with the whim of the sovereign but
the basic form of the present Royal Crown has been much the same since the
end of the seventeeth century."

Stephen Slater in _The Complete Book of Heraldry_, p. 136, says "By the late
16th century royal crows were often depicted with crimson or purple caps
within them, and where embellished with raised "arches"...In some royal
families the number of arches was reduced for lesser members. While the
English sovereign's crown has two intersecting arches, for example, the
coronet of the Prince of Wales has only one. Other members of the royal
family have coronets without any arches."

He also has a nice plate from Henry VII (so 1485-1509) that shows a royal
crown with five arches on it.

-Emma