Arms of Chester



The coat of arms of the city of Chester were, according to a patent re-printed in Hanshall, regranted in 1580 by William Flower of the College of Heralds. However the arms of the City are believed to be the oldest civic arms in the county.

The Arms
The shield shows the Royal Arms of England (a red shield with three gold lions - first adopted in a fixed form circa 1200) "dimidiated" with a shield representing the Earldom of Chester (three gold garbs on blue) and is said to have been in use in 1329, and regranted by Richard II, who erected Chester into a Principality. The Earldom had reverted to the Crown in 1237 on the death of John Canmore (aged 30). However, the reversion was not as simple as most histories describe. William de Forz (Latinised as de Fortibus, sometimes spelt Deforce), 4th Earl of Albemarle, (died 1260) claimed that, as a Palatinate, it could not be divided, and his wife should get it as the oldest coheir. William got the title, but the court decided that the lands should be divided. However, he and his wife (Christina (d. 1246), daughter and co-heiress of Alan, Lord of Galloway) quitclaimed the earldom to Henry III in 1241 in exchange for modest lands elsewhere. So by 1329 (during the reign of Edward III) it is entirely possible that the arms could have been in use, although Edward, the Black Prince, was only created as the second "Royal" Earl of Chester in 1333. The crest and supporters in the arms were also granted by Flower on September 3, 1580. The sword in the crest is often described as part of the Lord Mayor's regalia, but more properly reflects the status of the City as a country in itself and occurs on the Braun and Hogenberg map of Chester, published in 1581. The supporters are the gold lion of England and the silver wolf of Hugh of Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester.

While the Earl of Chester with "three garbs" was Ranulf de Blondeville (1181-1232), John the Scot does seem to get an oblique reference as the shield is surmounted by a barred helm facing  outwards, Scottish fashion. This feature was certainly unique in traditional English civic heraldry, but the helm has now been rotated slightly.

The Motto
The motto on the arms "ANTIQUI COLANT ANTIQUUM DIERUM" (normally translated as: Let the ancients worship the Ancient of Days) was apparently only added by Flower, in 1580. While the translation into English is not really debatable (although COLANT could mean "cultivate"), the precise meaning of the motto is not entirely clear. The motto is found in many places around the city including on 27 Northgate Street, on the Suspension Bridge and on the former park-keeper's lodge in Grosvenor Park.

Flower was born at York about 1498, and was probably the elder son of John Flower, tailor and corn merchant, of the parish of All Saints' Church, Pavement, York. Flower became "Guisnes pursuivant extraordinary" on the removal of Fulke ap Howell at Westminster, 10 June 1536. On 1 April 1543, while serving as "Calais pursuivant extraordinary", he was sent to visit the merchants and marines who had been captured by the French and confined at Rouen. He was appointed "Rouge Croix Pursuivant" in 1544 and "Chester Herald of Arms" (which had little to do with Chester) in 1546. He and Gilbert Dethick, "Garter Principal King of Arms" accompanied William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton, in his 1551 mission to Paris, to invest Henry II of France with the Order of the Garter. He received ten shillings per day for his "dyett" (food and lodging) on that mission. In 1555, Thomas Hawley, "Clarenceux King of Arms", issued a patent in London authorising Flower to act as his marshal and deputy. Flower delivered a message in Edinburgh from the Duke of Norfolk on 16 February 1560 to Mary of Guise and her Scottish and French councillors. Flower was promoted to "Norroy King of Arms". effectively in charge of heraldic matters north of the Trent, on 8 February 1562. A commission of visitation was issued to Flower on 10 July 1564, and he embarked on a series of visitations throughout the northern counties over the next eleven years. On 9 March 1580 he obtained a patent from Elizabeth joining his son-in-law, Robert Glover, Somerset Herald, with himself for the office of Norroy; the patent states that Flower was then eighty-two years of age.

No study of Flower appears to provide any insight into any philosophical or religious reason for his wording of the city motto. He was clearly a consumate survivor as regards the various religious transitions between Protestant and Catholic that he lived through.

Possible meanings of the motto


The reference to the "Ancient of Days" is one to the Book of Daniel, where the "Ancient of Days" is mentioned in several places:


 * יג חָזֵה הֲוֵית, בְּחֶזְוֵי לֵילְיָא, וַאֲרוּ עִם-עֲנָנֵי שְׁמַיָּא, כְּבַר אֱנָשׁ אָתֵה הֲוָא; וְעַד-עַתִּיק יוֹמַיָּא מְטָה, וּקְדָמוֹהִי הַקְרְבוּהִי  ("I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of days, and he was brought near before Him.")

In the original Aramaic the words are rendered atik yomin (עַתִּיק יֹומִין; - almost "antigue man"), whereas in the in the later Greek Septuagint (second century BCE) it is written as palaios hemeron (παλαιὸς ἡμερῶν).

The above passage is taken from a somewhat apolcalypic vision of Daniel in which four "beasts", possibly representing "pagan" nations, oppress the people of Israel until judged by God. Daniel 7:13-14 describes how the "Ancient of Days" gives dominion over the earth to "one like a man" (כבר אנש [kibar 'anash]). Daniel is filled with monsters, angels, and numerology, drawn from a wide range of sources, both biblical and non-biblical, that would have had meaning in the context of 2nd-century Jewish culture, and which Christian interpreters much later viewed as predicting events in the New Testament. The book was particularly influential during the Protestant Reformation, especially in the later 16th Century when the "beasts from the sea" could be interpreted as including the sea-power of Spain, and possibly the Nederlands.

Reformation Chester
The Henrician reformation had been received in Chester with acquiescence tempered by conservatism and expediency. Prominent townsmen who bought or rented ecclesiastical property included William Sneyd, Hugh Aldersey, and William Goodman, all former mayors, and the Dutton family. The more extreme official line taken under Edward VI was also accepted. At the cathedral Dean William Cliffe (1547-58) quickly ordered the destruction of traditional fittings, while some of the vestments may have been handed over for use in the Mystery Plays. The poorer parish churches, including St Peter's, had little to lose, but the effects on the richest parishes were severe. St Johns, formerly a well endowed college, became a rather poor parish church, while Holy Trinity, where many leading citizens worshipped, and St. Mary's lost many ornaments, sacred vessels, and vestments. There is little indication of enthusiasm for new doctrines in Chester, which contained no notable protestant laymen, and whose overseas trade was not with ports where protestantism was entrenched. John Bradford, a renowned protestant proselytizer, preached in the city during the 1550s, and John Bird, bishop of Chester 1541-54, took a strongly protestant line, but in general the clergy probably remained conservative and compliant. The Marian reaction in the city was thus limited: the married incumbent of St. Mary's and Bishop Bird were deprived. The latter's two successors, George Coates (1554-5) and Cuthbert Scott (1556-9), reorganized the church courts to revitalize Catholic worship throughout the diocese. Parishioners rebuilt altars, set up "roods" and images of the Virgin anew, and replaced vestments and vessels. The only indication of lay resistance to the "new" catholicism came in 1555, when one of the sheriffs, John Cowper, led an unsuccessful attempt to rescue a heretic, George Marsh, from being burnt at the stake in Spital Boughton. There was apparently little overt opposition to the Elizabethan settlement, but the interregnum between the deprivation of Bishop Scott in June 1559 and the appointment of Bishop William Downham in May 1561 left the diocesan machinery in the hands of the existing Catholic officials. The heavy cost of making church buildings suitable for protestant worship hampered the maintenance of cathedral and parish churches alike, notably at St Johns, which became partly ruinous. The churchyard of St Oswald's (to the south of the Cathedral) was desecrated by use as a rubbish dump.

Initial efforts to enforce conformity were less than urgent under the lax regime of Bishop Downham, but in 1564 he presented a report, not wholly accurate, which cast doubt on the religious loyalties of several aldermen, including the mayor (Richard Poole) and three of his predecessors (John Smith, William Aldersey, and Randle Bamvill). There were also a few suspect absentees from church services, notably Fulk Aldersey and his wife, but open "recusancy" was clearly negligible. During the later 1560s heavier pressure was brought to bear on conservatives, and by 1580 a score of "recusants" had been dealt with - typically by fines. About the same time convicted Cheshire recusants and priests were moved from Chester Castle to Manchester, partly because Chester was thought more sympathetic to Catholics. During the 1560s and 1570s there were attempts to promote "good behaviour" in church and, perhaps more notably, some agitation against the Chester Mystery Plays.

It is with this religious turmoil that the choice of the motto may lie. Some authors have suggested that the Mystery Plays included Catholic elements which would eventually lead to their demise around 1585. These elements included a rather ambiguous treatment of Roman characters in play, which may have arisen out of Chester's Roman roots, but was seen as "Popery". Indeed, the Privy Council in 1575 described Chester as "the very sink of Popery".

Among the wealthier citizens, many had profited from the selling-off of Church property during the dissolution and to some extent their grip on the city was strong. Chester was governed under its charter of 1506 by an Assembly comprising the mayor, two sheriffs, 24 aldermen (the Twenty-Four), and 40 common councilmen (the Forty), unofficially augmented in the earlier 16th century by the sheriff-peers (former sheriffs not yet promoted to the rank of alderman). The annual election of aldermen and councillors had already been undermined before 1550, elections being held only when vacancies occurred. The right of freemen to vote even on those occasions was gradually eroded, despite a lawsuit in 1573, though the Assembly managed to prevent mayors from simply nominating new councilmen.

The canonical Book of Daniel has, as well as tales of a corrupt court (where the writing was quite literaly "on the wall"), much apocalyptic imagery involving the sea, and the related apocalyptic-style pseudepigraphic text deals with a similar subject, describing one particular vision of Daniel regarding the appearance and activities of the Antichrist prior to the Day of Judgement before the "Ancient of Days". Could it be that William Flower chose the motto with this in mind?

Other possible interpretations
There are some less interesting reasons for the choice of motto. The table below lists the possible translations of the words used and notes the tenses:


 * ANTIQUI: ([let] those who are) ... old, aged, ancient, time-honoured, bygone, simple, venerable, classical, traditional, sages;
 * COLANT: third-person plural present active subjunctive (presently) ... till, cultivate (literal), inhabit, protect, nurture, honour, worship (figurative);
 * ANTIQUUM: nominative neuter singular (he who/that which is) ... old, aged, ancient, time-honoured, bygone, simple, venerable, classical, traditional;
 * DIERUM: genitive plural (of many) ... days;

That Chester was an "ancient" city was well known from the Polychronicon of the Chester monk Ranulph Higden, a standard history text at the time - it was translated into English by John of Trevisa in 1387 and printed by Caxton in 1482. Higden's description of Chester (which would presumably be well known to William Flower) reads:


 * "The cyte of legyons that is Chestre in the marches of Englonde towarde Wales betwegne two armes of the see that bee named Dee and Mersey Thys cyte in tyme of Britons was hede and chyefe cyte of all Venedocia that is North Wales This cyte in brytyshe speche bete Carthleon Chestre in Englyshe and Cyte of Legyons also For there laye a wyn ter the legyons that Julius Cezar sent for to wyne Monde And after Claudius Cezar sent legyons out of the cyte for to wynn the islands that be called Orcades Thys cyte hath plente of lyveland of corn of fleshe and specyally of samon Thys cyte receyveth grate marchandyse and sendeth out also Northubres destroyed this cyte sometyne but Elfreda lady of Mercia bylded it agayn and made it mouch more In thys cyte ben ways under erth with vowtes and stone worke wonderfully iwrought three chamberd werkes grete stones igrave with old mennes names there in Thys is that cyte that Ethelfreda king of Northumberlonde destroyed and sloughe there fast by nygh two thousonde monkes of the myn ster of Bangor Thys is the cyte that Kyng Edgar cam to some tyme with seven kyngs that were subject to hym"


 * There be waies heere under the ground vaulted marvelously with stone worke, chambers having arched roofes over had, huge stones engraven with the names of ancient men. Heere also are sometimes digged up peeces of money coined by Julius Caesar and other famous persons, and stamped with their inscriptions

Thus while the latin version of the bible (which would presumably be well known to William Flower) does contain the phrase antiquum dierum ("Aspiciebam ergo in visione noctis, et ecce cum nubibus caeli quasi filius hominis veniebat, et usque ad antiquum dierum pervenit: et in conspectu eius obtulerunt eum") this need not have been translated as "The Ancient of Days", but could also be read in English as "one who is very old". It is even possible that Flower is refering to himself, in a form of pun (he was 82 at the time0, and at least one writer has suggested that the motto did not originally appear as such but was a "".

Sources and Links

 * William Flower;
 * Heraldry of Cheshire;
 * The Chester Cycle in Context, 1555–1575: Religion, Drama, and the Impact of Change;