England
William Cecil's quartered Garter achievement
- Family / house
- Cecil
- Family / cadet branch
- Cecil of Burghley; personal quartered achievement
- Armiger / bearer
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
- Entity type
- individual
- Social rank / class
- peer
- Heraldic authority
- Late-sixteenth-century heraldic tradition; represented in a panel catalogued by Corpus Vitrearum USA
- Record basis
- recording
- Issued / first recorded
- late 16th century
- Until / superseded
- 1598-08-04
- Historical period
- Elizabethan
- Grant / record reference
- Late-sixteenth-century achievement associated with William Cecil and his Garter status; not a separate new shield grant.
- Blazon
- Quarterly of six: 1 and 6, Barry of ten Argent and Azure, over all six escutcheons Sable, three, two and one, each charged with a Lion rampant Argent; 2, per pale Gules and Azure, a Lion rampant Argent sustaining a Tree eradicated Vert; 3, Sable, a Plate between three Towers triple-towered, ports open Argent; 4, Argent, on a Bend cotised Gules three Cinquefoils Or; 5, Argent, a Chevron between three Chess-rooks Ermine; the whole within the Garter and ensigned with a coronet.
- Plain-English description
- The principal Cecil arms occupy the first and sixth quarters. The intervening quarters preserve arms attributed to Winstone, Caerleon, Heckington and Walcot, producing a six-quarter genealogical achievement surrounded by the Garter.
- Tinctures
- Argent; Azure; Sable; Gules; Vert; Or; Ermine
- Charges / ordinaries
- six escutcheons; lions rampant; tree; plate; three triple-towered towers; bend cotised; three cinquefoils; chevron; three chess-rooks; Garter
- Crest
- A garb Or supported by two lions, associated with the Burghley-Cecil achievement.
- Motto
- COR UNUM VIA UNA
- Exterior ornaments
- Garter surrounding the shield and a coronet above; the achievement records Cecil's status as a Knight of the Garter and his claimed ancestral quarterings.
- Difference / variant
- Expanded genealogical and titular achievement of the same Cecil arms, distinguished from the plain shield by five additional quarters, the Garter and coronet.
- Source reference
- Corpus Vitrearum USA, Heraldic Panel: Arms of William Cecil
- Linked historical person
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
- Source
- Open source
Genealogical context
- Father
- Sir Richard Cecil
- Mother
- Jane Heckington
- Spouse(s)
- Mary Cheke; Mildred Cooke
- Children / next generation
- Thomas Cecil; Robert Cecil; Anne Cecil; Elizabeth Cecil; Frances Cecil
Documented depiction
Notes / sources
The quartering nomenclature differs between surviving traditions. The Corpus Vitrearum catalogue reads the fourth quarter as Heckington, while some later armorial sources identify a comparable quarter as Dauney. Preserve both traditions as a source-critical issue rather than silently harmonising them.