The arms of Bishop Seabury, first Episcopal Bishop in the United States, in St Andrew’s Cathedral Aberdeen. He was Bishop of Connecticut, Bishop of Rhode Island and 2nd Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church but the official arms are not those of either Diocese. Does anyone recognise them?
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James
Both diocesan coats of arms date to the early 20th century. That of Connecticut was granted by the English kings of arms in 1924; Rhode Island’s was designed by Pierre de Chaignon La Rose, who was heraldically active from the late 1890s and died in 1940.
Eckford de Kay’s Heraldry in the Episcopal Church says that Bishop Seabury used a seal "Sable a key and crozier in saltire Or," although the illustration he provides has no hatching and I’m not sure where he got the tinctures from. This is the basis for the inescutcheon on the modern diocesan arms.
Episcopal dioceses in the U.S. generally had no diocesan arms until the late 19th century at the earliest. As shown in Zieber’s Heraldry in America, bishops either used just their personal arms, just a religious motif (many crossed keys and croziers, or the same surmounted by a cross as on the Seabury window, or just a cross), the personal arms impaled with such a generic religous design, or in some cases the arms of the state itself.
The window looks 19th century—is the date known?
The little guide prepared for our visit says this about the window.
Quote:
The window in the east end of the Suther Chapel is the Seabury Centenary Window, originally in the Chancel. It is dated 1880 and is by Hardman of Birmingham under the direction of G.E. Street. It was designed by the then incumbent Rev. Henry Ley Greaves.
The window also has the arms of the three bishops who consecrated Seabury and of Bishop John Skinner’s son (and successor as Bishop of Aberdeen) William Skinner. All the arms (institutional and personal) shown were unmatriculated at the time (and probably still are).
James