To begin with the heavenly bodies.
Angels, as also human beings, are very rare charges, though Guillim quotes the arms of one Maellock Kwrm, of Wales, where three robed kneeling angels are charged upon a chevron, and also the coat of arms of Sir John Adye in the seventeenth century, where three cherubim heads occur on the field. Both angels and men, however, are often used in heraldry as supporters. Charles VI. added two angels as supporters to the arms of France, and two winged angels occur as such in the arms of the Earl of Oxford.
Supporters, you must understand, are those figures which are represented standing on either side of a shield of arms, as if they were supporting it. No one may bear these figures except by special grant, the grant being restricted to Peers, Knights of the Garter, Thistle, and St. Patrick, Knights Grand Cross, and Knights Grand Commanders of other orders.
Charges of the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies are comparatively rare. One St. Cleere rather aptly bears the "sun in splendour," which is represented as a human face, surrounded by rays. Sir W. Thompson's shield is charged with the sun and three stars. The sun eclipsed occurs occasionally in armorial bearings; it is then represented thus: Or, the sun sable.
The moon occurs very often in early coats of arms, either full, when she is blazoned "the moon in her complement," or in crescent. The Defous bear a very comical crescent, representing a human profile. Of these arms, the old herald says severely: "A weak eye and a weaker judgment have found the face of a man in the moon, wherein we have gotten that fashion of representing the moon with a face."
The moon is certainly not in favour with Guillim, for, after declaring that she was the symbol of inconstancy, he quotes the following fable from Pliny to her discredit:
"Once on a time the moon sent for a tailor to make her a gown, but he could never fit her; it was always either too big or too little, not through any fault of his own, but because her inconstancy made it impossible to fit the humours of one so fickle and unstable."
The sixth Bishop of Ely had very curious arms, for he bore both sun and moon on his shield, the sun "in his splendour" and the moon "in her complement."
Stars occur repeatedly as heraldic charges. John Huitson of Cleasby bore a sixteen-pointed star; Sir Francis Drake charged his shield with the two polar stars; whilst Richard I. bore a star issuing from the horns of a crescent. The Cartwrights bear a comet; whilst the rainbow is charged on the Ponts' shield, and is also borne as a crest by the Pontifex, Wigan, and Thurston families. The Carnegies use a thunderbolt as their crest.