The badge of a Tudor rose, as before, royally crowned, within a lozenge of laurel leaves.
[Christian Dictionarie. London, 1612.]
James Stuart (born 19th June 1566, died 27th March 1625) was the son of Mary, Queen of Scotland, and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. He was great-grandson of the Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., who had married James IV., King of Scotland, in 1502, and by right of this descent James came into the line of succession of the English throne. On the dethronement of Queen Mary in 1569, under the Regency of the Earl of Murray, James became King of Scotland under the title of James VI., and reigned for thirty-four years until the death of his cousin, Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, when he inherited the English crown and came to England as James I.
On the accession of James I., a greater change took place in the English Royal coat-of-arms than had ever occurred before. The old coat, France and England quarterly, which had practically been in use ever since the time of Edward III., now became only a quartering, and was shown in the first and fourth quarters, then in the second quarter James put the ancient coat-of-arms of Scotland, or, a lion rampant, within a double tressure flory counterflory gu.
The lion appears for the first time on the shield of Alexander II., and it is supposed to have been derived from the ancestors of the Scottish kings, the Earls of Northumberland and of Huntingdon, whose device it was. The tressure is also of doubtful origin, and is also very ancient; it is popularly supposed to have been given by Charlemagne in recognition of a league between that monarch and Achaius, King of Scotland. The double tressure is presumed to indicate that there were two treaties.
In the third quarter is the coat-of-arms of Ireland, az., a harp or, stringed arg. This harp appears on an illuminated manuscript that belonged to Elizabeth, and is said to have been granted to Ireland by Henry VIII. as a mark of his admiration for the musical qualities of the Irish. It also is used as a badge on Irish coins of and after 1526, and this single harp was increased to three in similar coins made during Elizabeth's reign. The harp was sacred to Apollo Grian or Beal, an ancient Irish deity. Irish silver groats of 1478 show the device of three crowns in pale, and this was probably the coat-of-arms of Ireland at that time, and before that, in 1422, a single crown is found as a badge.
It is curious to note the strong tendency of single devices or badges to merge into threes. It occurs first in the case of the single crown, which presently gets tripled, then the single harp does the same, and the three castles, the arms of Dublin, very likely began as one.
James I. made one more important change; he substituted one of the Scottish unicorn supporters for the red dragon of Cadwallader, used as a dexter supporter by Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. The ancient Scottish supporters were two unicorns arg., armed, maned, and unguled, gorged with a princely coronet and chained or. The origin of the unicorn supporters is lost, but the creature is generally considered to be an emblem of purity and of freedom; the horn, moreover, was credited with medical powers as a remedy against poisons. The idea of an animal bearing a single horn arose probably from the horn of the narwhal, which has diagonal striations upon it resembling those generally shown on the horn of a unicorn, and certainly does not look like the tooth of a fish. On the other hand cups made of rhinoceros horn are credited with the same magical powers as that of the unicorn. The chain attached to a princely coronet on the neck of the unicorn is not easy to explain; it is said that it alludes to an early king of Scotland, who, as a young man, accidentally killed his father, and bore the chain ever afterwards on his supporters as a sign of grief.