xanderliptak;66060 wrote:

It seemed like a case where the city did not like the arms devised, and rather than taking that into consideration and amending the design, the College simply dropped the notion of granting the city arms.  I should have probably kept the link.  The city was South African and had the arms that were designed by the city council were finally granted by the South African Bureau of Heraldry in 1980, I believe it was.  The city could not have been too terribly wrong if another heraldic institute accepted them.

This sounds like the arms of Durban, which are quartered:  I & IV the arms of (governor) Sir Benjamin d’Urban and II & III those of (lieutenant-governor) Sir Benjamin Pine.  As I understand it, the reason why the CoA refused to sanction these with a formal grant was because they were composed as if they were the arms of a descendant of the two men.

As it turns out, I & IV are not actually the arms of Sir Benjamin (who, as a Napoleonic War general, had been granted arms of his own, with an augmentation), but those of some other D’Urban family—perhaps the designer of the arms looked up the surname in Burke’s General Armory.

xanderliptak;66060 wrote:

The city could not have been too terribly wrong if another heraldic institute accepted them.

Heraldry can be right in theory but wrong in the context of the heraldry of a specific time and place.

There would probably be little problem with assuming arms with a double tressure in the Low Countries (where double tressures are also a feature of heraldry) but difficult to get such past Lyon Court.

I don’t think it would be easy to get arms incorporating a chief gules a lion passant guardant or past the College of Arms, but I’m sure none of the German heraldic bodies would mind it.

Similarly I’m sure that the Swedes would have something to say about arms based on Azure three crowns Or but they are the basic arms of the Scottish MacArthurs (and the attributed arms of King Arthur).

James

James Dempster;66065 wrote:

...Similarly I’m sure that the Swedes would have something to say about arms based on Azure three crowns Or but they are the basic arms of the Scottish MacArthurs (and the attributed arms of King Arthur).

... and the province of Munster in Ireland

http://www.ngw.nl/int/ier/counties/images/munster.jpg

—Guy