Crowns were not by any means always of gold or silver, and quite a number of pre-Tudor stall-plates have them enamelled red, and in two cases blue.
These heraldic crowns must not be confounded with the coronets, as they are now called, worn of different patterns by peers and peeresses according to their degree; some reference to these will be made later.
The cap of estate is generally depicted in English heraldic art as a high crowned conical hat or cap with flattened top, and a broad brim lined with ermine. The brim is usually turned up high in front, but gradually lessens along the sides towards the back, where the brim extends horizontally to its full width.
The cap of estate first appears, surmounted by his leopard crest, on the head of King Edward III in the great seal made for him in February 1339-40 on his assumption of the title of King of France. Whether the cap has any connexion with the assumption of the king's new title it is difficult to say, but its more common name of 'cap of maintenance' would acquire a significant meaning could such connexion be proved. It is however more probable that the cap was worn by the king for his dignity of duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and it was long the custom for representatives of those duchies to take part in coronation processions wearing robes and caps of estate. According to the Little Device for the coronation of Henry VII, there were to ride before the king in the procession from the Tower 'ij Squiers for the kinges bodie bearing in baudrick wise twoo mantells furred wt Ermyns, wearing twoo hattes of Estate of Crymsen clothe of golde beked on, beks turnyd upp behinde, and furred also wt Ermyns in reprecentacion of the kinges twoo duchesses of Gyen and Normandie.'[6]
Although the cap may at first have been restricted to the king, it was certainly used by the sons of Edward III, and may be seen of like form and fashion upon the seals of Edward as prince of Wales (1343), of John of Gaunt as duke of Lancaster (1362) and of Edmund of Langley as duke of York (pl. [XXI]), and of Thomas of Woodstock as duke of Gloucester in 1385. It was no doubt in each case given by personal investiture by the Sovereign, but only to those who were made dukes.
In heraldry, however, the cap of estate was used after 1350 by many who were not only dukes who had been invested with it, but by earls and barons who had not been so invested, and even by mere knights (pl. [XIII] F).
It would be as rash to argue from this that such persons were all entitled to wear for dignity the cap of estate as it would be to insist that the equally common use of a crown round the base of a crest entitled every knight or baron on whose seal it occurs to wear a coronet.
The colour of the cap of estate was almost invariably red, with a lining of ermine, but in two of the early stall-plates it is blue. The crest is generally placed directly upon it, but representations of two-legged or four-legged creatures often stand upon the brim with their feet on either side of the flat-topped cap (figs. [112], [138]). It is hardly necessary to say that the crested cap is always placed upon the helm, with the mantling issuing from under it.
It is a common practice nowadays, quite wrongly, to represent crests apart from the helm, and as standing upon a twisted bar, or wreath as it is called. A little research will show that this bar represents the twisting together of two or three differently coloured stuffs, and fixing the wreath so formed round the base of the crest to mask its junction with the top of a helm. Once invented it came into common use, and crests of all kinds were fixed within it.