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College of Arms was reincorporated by Royal charter 18.7.1555
The College of Arms or Herald's College is a royal corporation consisting of professional officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the British Sovereign and are delegated authority to act on her behalf in all matters of heraldry, the granting of new coats of arms, genealogical research and the recording of pedigrees. The College is also the official body responsible for matters relating to the flying of flags on land, and it maintains the official registers of flags and other national symbols. Though a part of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom the College is self-financed, unsupported by any public funds.
Founded by royal charter in 1484 by King Richard III, the College is one of the few remaining official heraldic authorities in Europe. Within the United Kingdom, there are two such authorities, the Court of the Lord Lyon in Scotland and the College for the rest of the United Kingdom. The College has had its home in the City of London since its foundation, and has been at its present location on Queen Victoria Street since 1555. The College of Arms also undertakes and consults on the planning of many ceremonial occasions such as coronations, state funerals, the annual Garter Service and the State Opening of Parliament. Heralds of the College accompany the sovereign on many of these occasions.
The College comprises thirteen officers or heralds: three Kings of Arms, six Heralds of Arms and four Pursuivants of Arms. There are also seven officers extraordinary, who take part in ceremonial occasions but are not part of the College. The entire corporation is overseen by the Earl Marshal, a hereditary office held by the Duke of Norfolk, currently Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk.
Reincorporation
The College found a patroness under Mary I, although it must have been embarrassing for both sides, after the heralds initially proclaimed the right of her rival Lady Jane Grey to the throne. When King Edward VI died on 6 July 1553, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen four days later, first in Cheapside then in Fleet Street by two heralds, trumpets blowing before them. However, when popular support swung to Mary's side, the Lord Mayor of London and his councils accompanied by the Garter King of Arms, two other heralds, and four trumpeters returned to Cheapside to proclaim Mary's ascension as rightful queen instead. The College's excuse was that they were compelled in their earlier act by the Duke of Northumberland (Lady Jane's father-in-law, who was later executed), an excuse that Mary accepted.
The queen and her husband (and co-sovereign) Philip II of Spain then set about granting the College a new house called Derby Place or Derby House, under a new charter, dated 18 July 1555 at Hampton Court Palace. The house was built by Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, who married Lady Margaret Beaufort in 1482 and was created the 1st Earl of Derby in 1485. The house was built in 1503 and was given to the Crown by the 3rd Earl in 1552/3 in exchange for some land. The charter stated that the house would: "enable them [the College] to assemble together, and consult, and agree amongst themselves, for the good of their faculty, and that the records and rolls might be more safely and conveniently deposited." The Charter also reincorporated the three kings of arms, six heralds and all other heralds and pursuivants, and their successors, into a corporation with perpetual succession. A new seal of authority, with the College's full coat of arms was also engraved. On 16 May 1565, the name "the House of the Office of Arms" was used, thereafter in May 1566 "our Colledge of Armes", and in January 1567 "our House of the College of the office of arms".
Derby Place was situated in the parish of St Benedict and St Peter, south of St Paul's Cathedral, more or less on the College's present location. There are records of the heralds carrying out modifications to the structure of Derby Place over many years. However, little record of its appearance has survived, except the description that the buildings formed three sides of a quadrangle, entered through a gate with a portcullis on the west side. On the south range, roughly where Queen Victoria Street now stands, was a large hall on the western end. Derby Place's hearth tax bill from 1663, discovered in 2009 at the National Archives at Kew, showed that the building had about thirty-two rooms, which were the workplace as well as the home to eleven officers of arms.
The reign of Mary's sister Elizabeth I saw the College's privileges confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1566. As well as the drawing up of many important internal statutes and ordinances for the College by Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal, dated 18 July 1568. The long reign saw the College distracted by the many quarrels between Garter William Dethick, Clarenceux Robert Cooke and York Herald Ralph Brooke about their rights and annulments. Disputes in which the other officers also took part, often between the lesser heralds against each other. Historian Mark Noble wrote in 1805, that these fights often involve the use of "every epithet that was disgraceful to themselves and their opponents." and that "Their accusations against each other would fill a volume." During these years the College's reputation was greatly injured in the eyes of the public.
The reason behind these discords were laid on the imperfect execution of the reorganisation of the College in 1568 and the uncertainty over issue of granting arms to the new and emerging gentry of the era. An enquiry into the state of the College lasted for one year, finally reporting to William Cecil, Baron Burghley in 1596; as a consequence many important measures of reform for the College were made in the reign of James I. Eventually these animosities among the heralds in the College ended only after the expulsion of one and the death of another.
