Richard the second was the first of the English kings, who used supporters to his arms.
Henry the sixth was the first of our kings who wore an arched crown, which has been ever since continued by his successors.[[69]]
Henry the eighth was the first king of England that added to his shield, the garter and the crown, in imitation of which, the knights of the garter, in the latter end of his reign, caused their escutcheons on their stalls at Windsor, to be encompassed with the garter, and those who were dukes, marquesses, or earls, had their coronets placed on their shields, which has been so practised ever since.
Queen Elizabeth was the first sovereign who used in her arms, a harp crowned, as an ensign for the kingdom of Ireland.
King James the first was the first of our monarchs, who quartered the arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in one shield.
The number of princes of the blood royal of the houses of York and Lancaster, may easily be distinguished, by the labels on their coats of arms, which are different for each, and very often their devices are added.
Where the figure of a woman is found with arms both on her kirtle and mantle, those on the kirtle are always her own family’s, and those on the mantle, her husband’s.
The first instance of arms on sepulchral monuments, in England, are those on the tomb of Geoffrey de Magnaville, first Earl of Essex, (so created in 1148,) in the Temple church, in London. Armorial bearings were used in France, on monuments, forty years before we find them in England.
Very intimately connected with the ornaments and devices upon sepulchral monuments are the figures and dresses of our early monarchs found on their great seals, and of the principal nobility of those times on their seals. King Henry the third was the first English sovereign who wore upon his helmet a crown, and he is also the first king who is depicted upon his great seal as wearing rowels in his spurs in the manner in which they are now used, all the former kings using spurs with a single point or spike from the heel.
Sandford, in his Genealogical History of England, says, that the arms upon the seal of John, Earl of Morton, (afterwards king John,) namely, two lions passant, are the first which he had seen upon any seal of the royal family. This was in the reign of king Henry the second.