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City of Leicester
The Arms of the City of Leicester of the cinquefoil and wyvern were confimed on the city at the Heraldic Visitation of 1619. The crest is based on earlier motifs of the first Earl of Leicester, Robert De Bellomonte, (the cinquefoil). When the Duke of Lancaster inherited the Earldom of Leicester he held land within the town and hence the Lancastrian connection.
City status was granted in 1919 and following application by the City Council in 1926 the College of Arms allowed two supporters to be added to the design; the Lancastrian Lions on either side of the cinquefoil and Elizabeth I's motto beneath.
Heraldic Description
- Motto
- Semper Eadem
- Arms
- Gules, a cinquefoil ermine pierced
- Crest
- on a wreath of the colours, a legless wyvern with outspread wings ermine strewed with wounds gules.
- Supporters
- on either side a lion rampant reguardant gules, gorged with a ducal coronet, suspended therefrom by a chain or, a cinquefoil ermine oierced gules.
Translation of the Heraldic Description
- Motto
- "Always the Same"
- Arms
- a red shield and on it a five-petalled white flower with one ermine's tail on each petal to represent fur; a hole at the flower's centre
- Crest
- a white or silver legless wyvern with red and white wounds showing, on a wreath of red and white.
- Supporters
- a rampant red lion on each side: the animals are looking backwards and wearing, in the form of a collar, the coronet of the Duchy of Lancaster, from which the cinquefoil hangs by a gold chain.