Image: Phoenix and Castle Badge

Description: drawn by Thomas Willement, 1821 Heraldic badge of Queen Jane Seymour, 3rd wife of King Henry VIII, as drawn by Thomas Willement (1786-1871) (w:Thomas Willement, Regal Heraldry: The Armorial Insignia Of The Kings And Queens of England, from Coeval Authorities, London, 1821[1]). Visible sculpted on shield held by the White lion of Mortimer, one of the "King's Beasts" stone sculptures at Hampton Court Palace. Three badges joined in one: bottom to top: (source: Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, Encyclopedia of Antiquities: And Elements of Archaeology, Vol. 2, p.758[2]) A double castle (King Edward II displayed two small castles on the side of his throne to show his maternal descent from the House of Castile,(Fosbroke, p.755) whose quarterly arms (Castile and Leon) showed two castles and two lions). A crown on a bush (badge of King Henry VII, representing the crown of the defeated King Richard III found in a bush after the Battle of Bosworth(Fosbroke, p.757) A falcon crowned with wings extended, red and white roses on his side, the falcon being a badge of the Dukes of York, later used by their descendant King Edward IV.(Fosbroke, p.757, states crowned falcon; Willement, pp.70-1[3] mentions her son King Edward VI using the device of a phoenix rising from the flames for his mother, due to the nature of her death, which he granted as a crest to his relatives the Seymour Dukes of Somerset). The bird here is crowned, suggesting the falcon (see Willement, p.70, re Anne Boleyn), but there appears to be the representation of red flame (although not rising vertically) at the bird's feet, suggesting a phoenix. However, a phoenix is usually depicted as a demi-phoenix, the lower half of the body hidden, yet un-risen, within flame, as blazoned and depicted in the present crest borne by the Duke of Somerset (Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.1036). The badge is shown sculpted on a shield supported by the White lion of Mortimer, one of the w:King's Beasts, Hampton Court Palace, the group of which as indiicated by the heraldry, celebrates the marriage of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.
Title: Phoenix and Castle Badge
Credit: Own work
Author: Sodacan
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