Tower and Town, April 2020

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The Marlborough Coat Of Arms

The original borough seal (c.1280) was a three-turreted castle and by 1565 this turret, on a blue field, had become part of the new coat of arms that we know today. The full arms comprise a shield, a crest, a supporting beast on either side and a motto below.

At the top of the shield the castle is flanked on either side by a red rose, possibly referring to one theory that a local Mayor was either from a Lancashire family or a Lancaster supporter in the War of the Roses.

Below the castle and roses the shield is quartered diagonally red and blue and showing a bull at the top, a capon on either side and three greyhounds below. These represent the ‘duty and homage’ of the town burgesses and the community to present to the Mayor and aldermen the very same creatures, presumably for their pleasure or consumption

The greyhound supporters are not known to have any significance and were probably added simply to complete the coat of arms.

The crest is a helmet of a type that denotes an ‘untitled person’.

The motto: ‘Where are now the bones of wise Merlin’ harks back to the twelfth century legend that Merlin, the Arthurian wizard, lies under the mound of the Marlborough Castle, a favourite of King John but long gone, that is now within the grounds of Marlborough College.

Peter Noble