England
Cecil of Salisbury: junior line with crescent Gules
- Family / house
- Cecil
- Family / cadet branch
- Cecil of Salisbury; junior male line descended from the second surviving son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
- Armiger / bearer
- Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
- Entity type
- cadet_branch
- Social rank / class
- peer
- Heraldic authority
- College of Arms; British Armorial Bindings; later peerage armorials
- Record basis
- recording
- Issued / first recorded
- 1603
- Historical period
- Jacobean England to modern succession
- Grant / record reference
- Robert Cecil was created Baron Cecil of Essendon in 1603, Viscount Cranborne in 1604 and Earl of Salisbury in 1605. Later Salisbury armorial forms use a crescent Gules as the difference of the junior line.
- Blazon
- Barry of ten Argent and Azure, over all six escutcheons Sable, three, two and one, each charged with a lion rampant Argent, a crescent Gules for difference.
- Plain-English description
- The Salisbury branch bears the Cecil shield of ten silver-and-blue bars and six black lion-bearing shields, with a red crescent added as a cadency mark for the younger son and junior male line.
- Tinctures
- Argent; Azure; Sable; Gules
- Charges / ordinaries
- Barry of ten; Six escutcheons arranged three, two and one; Six lions rampant Argent; Crescent Gules for difference
- Crest
- Six arrows in saltire Or, barbed and flighted Argent, bound with a belt Gules, over the arrows a morion cap proper.
- Motto
- SERO SED SERIO
- Exterior ornaments
- Later Salisbury achievements include two lions Ermine as supporters and, after the Gascoyne marriage, quartering with the Gascoyne arms. The base Cecil quarter remains identifiable as the first and fourth quarters in later marquessate achievements.
- Difference / variant
- The Salisbury coat is a cadet or junior-line variant of the Cecil base arms. The material difference is the crescent Gules, conventionally associated with a second son in English cadency. Later Salisbury achievements may add quarterings, coronets, Garter insignia and Gascoyne marshalling, but those are separate developments.
- Source reference
- British Armorial Bindings, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
- Source
- Open source
Genealogical context
- Father
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
- Mother
- Mildred Cooke
- Spouse(s)
- Elizabeth Brooke
- Children / next generation
- William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury
Documented depiction
Notes / sources
The earliest surviving evidence for Robert's precise use of the crescent should be checked against original patents, seals, monuments and early seventeenth-century books rather than inferred solely from modern marquessate arms. The crescent is nevertheless securely established in later Salisbury armorial tradition and is consistent with the branch's descent as William Cecil's younger male line.