Presidential Arms of Office

 
gselvester
 
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gselvester
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17 April 2010 20:31
 

Hugh Brady;75962 wrote:

The Royal Arms are the arms of practically each constituent country of the U.K. The arms are blazoned 1 & 4, England, 2, Scotland, 3, Ireland. Thus, if the monarchy were abolished tomorrow, the arms of England would still be England until Parliament or other competent authority changed them.


No, they aren’t and no, it wouldn’t. The royal arms are made up of the coat of arms of the sovereign of each constituent country in the U.K. They are the arms of a person, the sovereign, not the country. That’s the very point I was making. And you don’t seriously think that if the monarchy were abolished (which is a stretch in itself but since we’re contemplating that hypothetical for the sake of argument) the question of what symbol the country would use would be taken up at the same time as well?

 

The royal arms are just that:royal. They are only the arms "of the country" (that is the U.K.) because the sovereign, whose arms they are, embodies the state. The lack of any royalty or of a kingdom would make using the royal arms of that kingdom ridiculous, not to mention illegal so that they couldn’t even if they wanted to. I think if the UK got to a point that they seriously wanted to abolish the monarchy then it seems doubtful they’d retain the trappings of that monarchy…just like the folks in formerly Communist countries who sliced up their national flags to remove the symbols of Communism even as the Berlin wall was falling.

 

Who would decide this would be interesting since the College of Arms, an office of the Crown, would, therefore cease to exist as well. I’m quite sure they’d just make do with slapping the Union flag all over everything until the matter was settled but they most certainly would not continue to use the royal arms after they’ve thrown the royals out!

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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Alexander Liptak
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17 April 2010 20:55
 

Whether arms represent the sovereign or the country and nation is itself debatable.  Often, the arms of the sovereign are used so extensively as a national emblem they become the de facto arms if not the de jure.  Case in point, the arms of Austria, which usurped the arms of the House of Habsburg (well, a single quarter of the Habsburgs).  Also, the arms of Spain use certain quarters of their King’s arms to represent Spain itself, which is dictated by law, though he has many more quarters in his possession.

Russia also proposes an issue to whether arms are the sovereign’s or the nation’s own.  The arms of the Imperial family, with the eagle and S. George, was initially adopted by the Emperors and their family, yet later the Emperors felt it necessary to adopt arms for the family that were separate from the Imperial version, with a griffin and a bordure of lion’s heads.  The sons of Emperors used a version of the Imperial arms, yet with the bordure of lion’s heads from the family arms, as a sort of in-between.  It seemed to be advancing in Russia that the Imperial arms belonged to the state, not the sovereign.

 

When discussing the UK, the arms are those of the sovereign, yes.  Yet, like in Russia, there seems to be the trend that the arms are property of the state.  After all, HM Elizabeth is also the sovereign of many other countries, which do not use her arms, yet have compiled completely new arms.  These alternate arms do not really act as arms of the sovereign, for they are not differenced or anything of that sort for members of the royal family.

 
gselvester
 
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gselvester
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18 April 2010 07:31
 

In the United Kingdom the royal arms are the arms of the sovereign. That is not really debatable.

In the other realms of which she is also the sovereign in many instances the coat of arms used is her coat of arms in right of that country, such as Canada or Scotland. One can’t really say those other countries "don’t use her coat of arms" because the royal arms to which the reference is made are the royal arms in right of the United Kingdom. In addition, in many of her other realms where she has granted a different coat of arms for the country’s use they do, oddly, make use of the royal arms "of England" (that is, of the United Kingdom) on things that pertain directly to her. It isn’t really possible to speak of the sovereign and the state as though they are two different things. She is the state personified, a notion we don’t have in a republic. So countries that often make use of part or all of the royal arms are doing so because the sovereign is the state and the symbols are intertwined. That would have also been the case with Russia when it was a monarchy.

 

When the Hanovers ruled England the symbol of the state incorporated the arms of their family (which was also the arms of the principality, later Electorate of Hanover) because the sovereign is the state. From 1814-1837 the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Hanover which was in a personal union with The United Kingdom was identical to the latter because the distinct kingdoms had the same sovereign whose arms were used by both. I believe this notion of a "personal union", which maintains two distinct countries that share a sovereign, is considered an outmoded one in today’s world. This explains why Queen Elizabeth is the Queen of the United Kingdom and she is also the Queen of Canada, for example, but the monarchies are considered to be separate.

 

What is very interesting as well as unusual is that the current Russian state which is obviously not a monarchy re-adopted the double headed eagle and crown which clearly were symbols of the monarchy when the arms were redesigned in 1993. So, there is an example of a republic adopting symbols of their own former monarch and making them their own property. Nevertheless, at the time of the monarchy’s abolition, the revolutionary government was clearly keen to abandon any of the symbols associated with the Czar.

 

Boy, have we gotten off onto a tangent! This area is supposed to be about government heraldry in the USA.

 
gselvester
 
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gselvester
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18 April 2010 07:59
 

xanderliptak;75965 wrote:

Case in point, the arms of Austria, which usurped the arms of the House of Habsburg (well, a single quarter of the Habsburgs).


The arms Gules a fess Argent was not usurped from the Habsburgs. It predated them.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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18 April 2010 11:59
 

gselvester;75963 wrote:

The lack of any royalty or of a kingdom would make using the royal arms of that kingdom ridiculous, not to mention illegal so that they couldn’t even if they wanted to.


Umm… how would it be illegal?  If the Parliament of the new United Republic of Great Britain & Northern Ireland were to retain the existing arms, even with the trappings we consider royal, it would be legal in the URGB&NI, which is the only place the question of legality would matter.

 

As to "ridiculous," is it ridiculous for the republics of Ireland, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia to use the arms of the former kingdoms and empires they succeeded—in some cases even retaining the royal accoutrements?  Ridiculous for the republics of Finland and Austria to use the arms of their respective erstwhile grand duchies, or for the Freistaat Bayern to continue marshalling the royal and princely arms of the Wittelsbachs with those of the Palatinate, Franconia, Swabia, and Ortenburg?  Ridiculous, for that matter, for the State of Maryland to continue using the arms of the Calvert Lords Proprietors before the Revolution?


Quote:

I think if the UK got to a point that they seriously wanted to abolish the monarchy then it seems doubtful they’d retain the trappings of that monarchy…just like the folks in formerly Communist countries who sliced up their national flags to remove the symbols of Communism even as the Berlin wall was falling.


Possibly.  Not, as suggested by the examples cited above, necessarily.


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Who would decide this would be interesting since the College of Arms, an office of the Crown, would, therefore cease to exist as well.


The College of Arms is a corporation chartered by the Crown, not an office of the Crown.  It would no more automatically be dissolved than the BBC or Oxford University.  If the demise of the monarchy automatically meant the abolition of the College of Arms, how can we explain that the College stayed in business, albeit under new management, during the Commonwealth?

 
gselvester
 
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gselvester
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18 April 2010 14:56
 

Joseph McMillan;75979 wrote:

Umm… how would it be illegal?


Because abolishing the monarchy wouldn’t make the person whose arms they are, Elizabeth, disappear. They’d still be hers because they don’t belong to the country as you are continuing to assert! They belong to her (and her descendants) who would still use them. They’d still be the royal house of Windsor-Mountbatten even though that house would no longer be reigning as the sovereign house of the UK.


Joseph McMillan;75979 wrote:

...is it ridiculous for the republics of Ireland, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia to use the arms of the former kingdoms and empires they succeeded—in some cases even retaining the royal accoutrements?  Ridiculous for the republics of Finland and Austria to use the arms of their respective erstwhile grand duchies, or for the Freistaat Bayern to continue marshalling the royal and princely arms of the Wittelsbachs with those of the Palatinate, Franconia, Swabia, and Ortenburg?  Ridiculous, for that matter, for the State of Maryland to continue using the arms of the Calvert Lords Proprietors before the Revolution?


Yes. And two wrongs (or in your example ten wrongs) don’t make a right.

 
Jay Bohn
 
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Jay Bohn
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18 April 2010 17:03
 

gselvester;75982 wrote:

Because abolishing the monarchy wouldn’t make the person whose arms they are, Elizabeth, disappear. They’d still be hers because they don’t belong to the country as you are continuing to assert! They belong to her (and her descendants) who would still use them. They’d still be the royal house of Windsor-Mountbatten even though that house would no longer be reigning as the sovereign house of the UK.


We’ve now definitly gone off topic. It is an interesting discussion although perhaps it should be moved.

 

If Royal Arms are Elizabeth’s personally by right of inheritence, they also belonged to her Uncle David, temporarily Edward VIII, by the same right. There was nothing in his instrument of adbication or in the Act of Parliament that was passed to give it effect about arms, but the undifferenced arms were used by his successor and a differenced version were granted to the former king. It must be then that the undifferenced arms were considered part and parcel of the Crown which passed from Edward VIII to his brother Albert as George VI. That being the case, could not any Act of Parliament abolishing that Crown and establishing a republic appropriate the (now former) Royal Arms to the new political entity?

 
Kelisli
 
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Kelisli
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18 April 2010 20:24
 

Not to throw a wrench in the argument, but as I understand it, the arms used by Queen Elizabeth are considered arms of dominion.  Her dynastic and therefore personal arms would be the arms of the House of Saxe-Coubug-Gotha.  So, where does that leave us with which arms are to be used by a monarch of GB, should the monarchy be abolished? With my limited knowledge of the subject matter, I would consider arms of dominion to be arms of office more so than personal arms.  In so many cases, monarch use their arms of dominion over their dynastic arms.  There are multiple examples throughout Europe.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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18 April 2010 21:09
 

gselvester;75982 wrote:

Because abolishing the monarchy wouldn’t make the person whose arms they are, Elizabeth, disappear. They’d still be hers because they don’t belong to the country as you are continuing to assert! They belong to her (and her descendants) who would still use them. They’d still be the royal house of Windsor-Mountbatten even though that house would no longer be reigning as the sovereign house of the UK.


But those arms don’t belong to her as Elizabeth Windsor, only as Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom.  There are any number of moments in British history when the normal rules of armorial inheritance would have dictated one thing and the realities of succession to the throne—legal or extralegal—have dictated something else.  This has been absolutely clear since the accession of George I, who would have had neither the throne nor the arms if not for the Act of Settlement, which settled the throne on him as the senior Protestant descendant of the Electress Sophie.  The arms of the UK came with the job, not because they were his by armorial inheritance.

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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Alexander Liptak
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19 April 2010 03:14
 

gselvester;75977 wrote:

The arms Gules a fess Argent was not usurped from the Habsburgs. It predated them.


Yes, the arms date back to the Babenbergs, a line that died out and was succeeded by the Habsburgs.  The Republic of Austria, however, does not predate the Habsburgs nor the Babenbergs, and thus the arms were usurped.  Austria took arms which belonged to the House of Habsburg, as heir to the House of Babenberg, to use for their nation.

 
Alexander Liptak
 
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Alexander Liptak
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19 April 2010 03:46
 

gselvester;75982 wrote:

Because abolishing the monarchy wouldn’t make the person whose arms they are, Elizabeth, disappear. They’d still be hers because they don’t belong to the country as you are continuing to assert! They belong to her (and her descendants) who would still use them. They’d still be the royal house of Windsor-Mountbatten even though that house would no longer be reigning as the sovereign house of the UK.


Would not the new state, if the monarchy was abolished, have the authority to declare the royal arms obsolete, or even to take the arms for the state?

 

Whilst it is that the arms are the de jure property of HM Elizabeth, the de facto stance seems to have delegated them to emblems of the state.  When Emperor Charles I & V inherited the thrones of Spain, the Romans, Naples, Austria, Italy and so forth, he did not use different arms in right of each country, but just one.  If the Windsors truly thought of the "UK arms" as their own, why would they have a "Canadian arms", "Manx arms", "New Zealand arms" and so forth?

 
Jay Bohn
 
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19 April 2010 06:00
 

Joseph McMillan;75979 wrote:

The College of Arms is a corporation chartered by the Crown, not an office of the Crown. It would no more automatically be dissolved than the BBC or Oxford University. If the demise of the monarchy automatically meant the abolition of the College of Arms, how can we explain that the College stayed in business, albeit under new management, during the Commonwealth?


The College might continue, but the College does not grant arms, that is done by the Kings of Arms, which are Crown officers. Not to say that they would automatically lose ofice since they do not do so upon a demise of the Crown, just that there is a distinction between the corporate body and the persons who, by right of office, are its members.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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19 April 2010 07:12
 

Sure.  I wouldn’t deny that they might be abolished by a republican Parliament, just that there’s nothing automatic about it, any more than any other officer of the Crown—the governor of HM Prison at Someplace or Sqdn Ldr John Doe, RAF—would automatically lose his or her office.

 
arriano
 
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19 April 2010 14:09
 

Kelisli;75985 wrote:

Not to throw a wrench in the argument, but as I understand it, the arms used by Queen Elizabeth are considered arms of dominion.  Her dynastic and therefore personal arms would be the arms of the House of Saxe-Coubug-Gotha.  So, where does that leave us with which arms are to be used by a monarch of GB, should the monarchy be abolished? With my limited knowledge of the subject matter, I would consider arms of dominion to be arms of office more so than personal arms.  In so many cases, monarch use their arms of dominion over their dynastic arms.  There are multiple examples throughout Europe.


This is a interesting point. The arms used by the ruling monarch of the UK is different than the arms of that particular family. If Elizabeth were dethroned, it seems to me that her true personal arms are what she would inherit through the paternal family line, and perhaps marshalled with Mountbatten (or whatever Danish/Greek arms Philip initially inherited).

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Wappen-Ernestiner.jpg

 
gselvester
 
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22 April 2010 15:11
 

Jay Bohn;75984 wrote:

We’ve now definitly gone off topic. It is an interesting discussion although perhaps it should be moved.

If Royal Arms are Elizabeth’s personally by right of inheritence, they also belonged to her Uncle David, temporarily Edward VIII, by the same right. There was nothing in his instrument of adbication or in the Act of Parliament that was passed to give it effect about arms, but the undifferenced arms were used by his successor and a differenced version were granted to the former king.


They belonged to Edward VIII as the sovereign. When he abdicated from being the sovereign the coat of arms passed to the next sovereign and the Duke of Windsor used a differenced version.