Chas Charles-Dunne wrote:Because it is too broad to be a chief. The blazon is quite clear - "Per fess nebuly enhanced Bleu-celeste and Purpure issuant in chief a Sun in Splendour Or in base three Bees volant proper."
The College of Arms is the authority and if they call it Bleu Celest, that is what it is. Pretending that it is a different tincture doesn't help the argument at all.
I wasn't pretending that it was a different tincture. I didn't go back and re-check what tincture was blazoned because it has no bearing on my point, which is that this is a colored chief on a colored field.
And it
is a chief, whatever the kings of arms called it. Surely you can't be serious in arguing that it is "too broad to be a chief." Because (a) there is no set proportion fixed for any ordinary, and (b) in any combination of color and metal no one would conceivably blazon it as other than a chief. In fact, if we compare the official emblazonment of these arms with the official emblazonment of another, newer coat also published in the CofA newsletter (arms of Raco, April 2015 issue), we can see that the placement of the partition line could practically have been traced from one to the other.
The Raco arms, needless to say, are not blazoned as "Per fess embattled enhanced..." but "Or a heart on a chief embattled..."
I'm familiar with the argument that the king can do no wrong, but am not prepared to accept it as applying to kings of arms. Sophistry in blazoning doesn't change what the arms really are, and what the U of Manchester arms are is a colored chief on a colored field.
If I were making the rules, there would be no problem with this, because the idea that a chief or other ordinary is "on" the field is wholly artificial. I find it absurd that "barry of six gules and azure" is permissible because the field is parted but "gules two bars azure" is prohibited because the bars are "on" the field. But the kings of arms are the one who made this rule. If they didn't realize that this coat violates it, they never would have weasel-worded the blazon.