England
Base Cecil arms of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
- Family / house
- Cecil
- Family / cadet branch
- Cecil of Burghley; ancestral arms of the Exeter and Salisbury lines
- Armiger / bearer
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
- Entity type
- family
- Social rank / class
- peer
- Heraldic authority
- College of Arms; Elizabethan heraldic records; later armorial authorities
- Record basis
- recording
- Issued / first recorded
- 1571
- Until / superseded
- 1598
- Historical period
- Elizabethan England
- Grant / record reference
- William Cecil was created Baron Burghley in 1571. The precise surviving patent for the personal arms was not located, but the coat is securely recorded in late-sixteenth-century heraldic material, including the 1589–1593 Hassop Hall glass panels and an approximately 1575 British Museum vessel.
- Blazon
- Barry of ten Argent and Azure, over all six escutcheons Sable, three, two and one, each charged with a lion rampant Argent.
- Plain-English description
- Ten horizontal stripes alternating silver and blue, with six small black shields laid over them in a three-two-one arrangement; each small shield bears a silver upright lion.
- Tinctures
- Argent; Azure; Sable
- Charges / ordinaries
- Barry of ten; Six escutcheons arranged three, two and one; Six lions rampant Argent
- Crest
- On a wreath Argent and Azure, a garb Or supported by two lions rampant, the dexter Azure and the sinister Argent; later representations vary in the exact tincture and treatment of the lions.
- Motto
- COR UNUM VIA UNA; later family and Salisbury representations also use SERO SED SERIO.
- Exterior ornaments
- William Cecil's later Garter achievement included the Garter and appropriate peerage and Order of the Garter insignia; the shield itself is the relevant base design.
- Difference / variant
- This is the base coat from which the principal male lines descended. It should not be conflated with William Cecil's later quarterly achievement, which added maternal and ancestral quarterings while retaining the Cecil coat in the first and sixth quarters.
- Source reference
- Corpus Vitrearum USA, Four Heraldic Panels, Hassop Hall, 1589–1593
- Source
- Open source
Genealogical context
- Father
- Sir Richard Cecil of Burghley
- Mother
- Jane Heckington
- Spouse(s)
- Mary Cheke; Mildred Cooke
- Children / next generation
- Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter; Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury; Anne Cecil, Countess of Oxford; Elizabeth Cecil, later Lady Coke
Documented depiction
Notes / sources
The base shield is the key dynastic armorial unit. William's full quarterly achievement should remain a separate record from this shield. The early Sitsylt/Alt-yr-Ynys origin tradition is genealogically interesting but should not be treated as proof that the Tudor Cecil coat was continuously borne from the medieval period.