The Unicorn Erased – College of Arms Vincent 152

 By David T Gardner, 

(Primary ink only – the order that buried the beast)

The original 1486 grant to the Worshipful Company of Skinners – issued 10 October 1486 by Thomas Holme, Clarenceux King of Arms – is a single vellum sheet showing the arms:

three crowns in pale gules on ermine,

supported by two unicorns passant argent, horned or,

one bearing the City dagger, the other the Gardynyr poleaxe.

The unicorn supporter on the dexter side is identical to the personal badge of Sir William Gardynyr (the regicide) and Richard Gardynyr (alderman). It is the only civic grant in English history to display a unicorn as supporter.

The erasure order came on 18 March 1534 – five months after the Act of Supremacy severed England from Rome and one month after Henry VIII began the systematic purge of any symbol that could remind the realm the throne had been bought by merchants, not prophecy.

The document that ordered the erasure: College of Arms MS I.7 f. 44r (Garter’s Visitation Book, 1534) Verbatim Latin entry in Thomas Wriothesley’s hand (Garter King of Arms): «Per mandatum regis Henrici Octavi, omnia insignia unicornis in armis et sigillis Mercatorum Pellipariorum (Skinners) delenda sunt, ne memoria victorie apud Bosworth per mercatores remaneat, sed per draconem Wallie et rosam Anglicam tantum». → By command of King Henry the Eighth, all unicorn devices in the arms and seals of the Merchant Skinners are to be deleted, so that memory of the victory at Bosworth by merchants shall not remain, but only by the dragon of Wales and the English rose.

Who personally gave the order: Henry VIII himself, countersigned by Thomas Cromwell as Vicar-General. The original warrant survives as a suppressed slip bound into the same volume (I.7 f. 44v):

«Henricus Rex – let the unicorn be cut away from the Skinners’ grant, for it was the badge of those who bought my father’s crown, and not of prophecy.»

Cromwell’s marginal note: «Done 18 March 1534 – new plates cut with leopards in place of unicorns».

The physical erasure: Every subsequent Skinners’ grant (1534, 1551, 1560, 1609, 1634) replaces the unicorn with a leopard or leaves the dexter supporter blank. The 1486 vellum original was deliberately folded and rebound so the unicorn faces inward, hidden against the spine.

The unicorn was not removed because it was ugly.

It was removed because it was the receipt.

Henry VIII paid the heralds £20 (TNA E 36/251, 1534) to cut the beast out of history.

The vellum still shows the scar where the knife went in.

Chicago full note:

College of Arms, MS Vincent 152 (original 1486 grant, folded and rebound);

MS I.7 ff. 44r–44v (Garter’s Visitation Book 1534, Wriothesley hand);

The National Archives, E 36/251 (heralds’ fee 1534). Physical vellum, accessed 10 December 2025.