see: List of oldest heraldry

In the same period lions also appeared in the arms of Brabant, Flanders, Luxembourg, Holland, Limburg and other territories(see Dutch Republic Lion). It is curious that the lion as a heraldic symbol was mostly used in border territories and neighbouring countries of the Holy Roman Empire and France. It was in all likelihood a way of showing independence from the emperor, who used an eagle in his personal arms and the King of France, who used the famous Fleur-de-lis. In Europe the lion had been a well-known figure since Roman times, through works such as the fables of Aesop, and as a symbol of ancient royalty from HerculestoAlexander the Great.

The first documented use of royal arms dates from the reign of Richard I (1189–1199). Much later antiquarians would retrospectively invented attributed arms for earlier kings, but their reigns pre-dated the systematisation of hereditary English heraldry that only occurred in the second half of the 12th century.^[3] Lions may have been used as a badge by members of the Norman dynasty: a late-12th century chronicler reports that in 1128, Henry I of England knighted his son-in-law, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, and gave him a gold lion badge. The memorial enamel created to decorate Geoffrey's tomb depicts a blue coat of arms bearing gold lions. His son, Henry II (1133–1189) used a lion as his emblem, and based on the arms used by his sons and other relatives, he may have used a coat of arms with a single lion or two lions, though no direct testimony of this has been found.^[4] His children experimented with different combinations of lions on their arms. Richard I (1189–1199) used a single lion rampant, or perhaps two lions affrontés, on his first seal,^[5] but later used three lions passant in his 1198 Great Seal of England, and thus established the lasting design of the Royal Arms of England.^{[5] [4]} In 1177, his brother John had used a seal depicting a shield with two lions passant guardant, but when he succeeded his brother on the English throne he would adopt arms with three lions passant or on a field gules, and these were then used, unchanged, as the royal arms ('King's Arms') by him and his successors until 1340.^[5]

The heiresses of Norfolk and Kent transmitted the Plantagenet arms to non-Plantagenet families:

Henry VI of England granted differenced versions of the Plantagenet arms to his maternal half-brothers. This was an extraordinary grant, since they were not descended from the English royal family.

The Tudors claim to the throne was the strongest one at the end of the Wars of the Roses, as it combined the Lancastrian claim in their descent from the Beauforts and the Royal Yorkist claim by the marriage of Henry VII to the heiress of Edward IV.

(using pre 2008 shoulder boards)

^[6]

The Right Honourable Admiral of the Fleet Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS↵↵↵

See main article: House of Percy and Duke of Northumberland