Gules, two swords in saltire, argent, the hilts in base, or.—The See.
The origin of the City of London is almost as unknown as that of Rome itself, and all its earliest history is lost in the misty traditions of the Middle Ages, and to this may be due the fact that the arms it blazons on its shield, and the weird supporters it claims to use, have but little to warrant them but custom and age. Other cities, less ancient and much less important, can give the full authority for the armorials which they have assumed, and even the great guilds associated with the Corporation are able to quote the reign and year—many of them dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth—when they received the grant of arms which they still enjoy. But for the arms of the City of London itself no authority can be adduced, and in the opinion of many none is required, "seeing," as an old writer on the subject says, "that of things armorial the very essence is undefinable antiquity; a sort of perpetual old age, without record of childhood." That the arms which the Corporation now use differ from those it first employed is freely admitted, but comparatively few are aware of the modifications they have undergone, or of the recentness of the date when they first assumed their present form; and to those who are interested in the City itself, or in heraldry generally, a short sketch of the history of the subject will be welcome.
It was only in the year 1224, the ninth of Henry III., that permission was granted to the commonalty of London to have a Common Seal; and the seal which was then made continued in use until 1380, the fourth of Richard II., when, to quote Stow, "it was by common consent agreed and ordained that the old seal being very small, old, unapt and uncomely for the honour of the city, should be broken up, and one other new should be had." Of this first seal no copy seems to have survived, and we are left to conjecture what arms, if any, it displayed. From the first, the simple cross of St. George appears to have been the only bearing adopted by the citizens for their shield, but they sometimes varied it by an augmentation in the dexter chief symbolizing their patron saint, St. Paul, but they appear to have used these two shields quite indifferently. Thus, when they rebuilt their Guildhall, in 1411, they carved both of these shields on the bosses of the groined crypt, where they can be seen to this day, those down the centre aisle having only the cross of St. George without the sword. On the screen to the chantry chapel of Bishop Roger de Walden, in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, erected in 1386, the arms of London appear as a simple cross, and a much later example occurred in the windows of Notre Dame at Antwerp. In the north transept windows of that church were portraits of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, which survived the damage wrought by the Gueux; and a traveller, one William Smith, who was Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, in 1597, says he saw with them the arms of many English towns, including London, which had in the dexter chief a capital L, and not a sword.
Fig. 1—Sir William Walworth's Dagger, Fishmongers' Hall, mccclxxxi.
In the year 1380, as we have seen, a new seal was made, on which were the effigies of the Blessed Virgin and SS. Peter and Paul, and in the base on a shield the arms of the City, a cross with a sword in the dexter chief, and on either side of it a demi-lion as a supporter. As to the origin of the sword, there is a very old story, very generally credited, which only requires retelling to show how inconsistent it is with historical truth. About the part played by the Lord Mayor, Sir William Walworth, in slaying Wat Tyler at Smithfield, there need be little doubt, and at the hall of the Fishmongers' Company is preserved the veritable dagger with which, it is asserted, the deed was done; and as the addition was made to the City arms about the time of this occurrence, popular fancy connected the two events, and ascribed the advent of the dagger on the shield to its use in Smithfield ([fig. 1]). Since, however, the new seal was made in 1380, and Wat Tyler was slain and Sir William Walworth was knighted a year later, we have to look elsewhere for the origin of the augmentation.
Fig. 2—Seal of Ralph de Stratford, Bishop of London, mcccxl—mcccliv. (In the British Museum.)