Meghan reveals touching tributes in coat of arms, but her father’s snubbed

Now that all the pomp and splendour of the wedding is done and dusted, the royal family is getting on with formalities for the new Duchess of Sussex, and that includes an special coat of arms designed just for her that includes loving touches paying homage to her homeland.

The royal family unveiled the new coat of arms on Friday in the UK, and gave a lengthy explanation of its special features, which were designed by Meghan herself in partnership with the College of Arms and Thomas Woodcock, whose full title is Garter King of Arms and Senior Herald in England.

“Her Royal Highness worked closely with the College of Arms throughout the design process to create a Coat of Arms that is both personal and representative,” the royal family said in an Instagram post unveiling the coat of arms that features a lion and a white songbird and a red and blue shield.

On its @kensingtonroyal Instagram account that follows the activities of Prince William and wife Catherine and Prince Harry and his new bride, the royal family explained that the blue in the shield represents the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where Meghan was born. The three quills represent communication and the power of words, while the gold ‘rays’ represent the sunshine of her home state . The shield sits on a base of golden poppies, the official flower of the US state.

The lion represents Prince Harry and his family, as it has since 1603, while the songbird is the Duchess of Sussex’s own ‘supporter’ in place of what would normally be a symbol of her family lineage if she was from the UK. Harry’s coat of arms, which he was given when he turned 18, includes the same lion, plus a unicorn, and the three red escallops that represent the Spencer family of his mother Princess Diana.

The poppies on the Duchess of Sussex’s coat of arms are mixed with wintersweet blooms, which grow at Kensington Palace, according to reports. The open beak on the bird also represents communication, the emphasis on which some UK media read as a hint that Meghan intends to continue to speak as freely as possible now that she has joined the royal family.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjM9CsxBzEw/?taken-by=kensingtonroyal

The Telegraph notes in its report, though, that while the Middleton family was granted its own coat of arms before Catherine married Prince William in 2011 – theirs uses three acorns to symbolise the Duchess of Cambridge and her siblings Pippa and James, as well as golden chevron as a nod to Goldsmith, her mother Carole’s maiden name, and white chevronels symbolising mountains and the family’s love of skiing – Meghan’s family hasn’t been granted its own coat of arms. (The whole Middleton family, in contrast, have the right to use their coat of arms, rather than it being restricted only to Catherine.)

“The Duchess … holds the coat of arms in her own right with no input from her father, who as an American does not have his own coat of arms,” The Telegraph explained. “The decision to grant the Duchess a coat of arms in her own right follows a model set by the Duchess of Gloucester when she married into the Royal Family in 1972 after being born in Denmark. More usually, the coat of arms belonging to a Royal bride impale the emblem of her own family with that of her husband to form a new image.”

The BBC says that as an American, Meghan’s father Thomas Markle could apply for an honorary arms, but to do so he would have to demonstrate his descent from a subject of the British crown, which could include ancestors from before 1783, when Britain recognised US independence. Thomas was unable to attend his daughter’s wedding, after suffering heart problems and having been embarrassed when caught conspiring with paparazzi to take ‘candid’ photographs of himself.

But Meghan’s estranged half-sister Samantha Grant told The Telegraph that being denied his own coat of arms was a snub and a “huge insult” to her father, that was “really stripping him of an honour”. But the newspaper noted that even if the royal family had given Thomas Markle a coat of arms, the Duchess of Sussex would’ve been unable to use it as her own as it was only an honorary one and thus not transferrable.

Do you think the decision not to grant the Markle family a coat of arms was an intentional snub? Have you researched your own family’s coat of arms?