The October 2024 Letter of Acceptances and Returns was recently published, where Laurel Sovereign of Arms reaffirmed the registration and depiction of the badge for the Order of Defense. There has been confusion in the decade since the badge was registered, so in the spirit of my “Depicting the Esperance Badge” article, I have written an overview on the proper way to depict the badge for the Order of Defense.

Background

On February 2, 2015, the Board of Directors approved the creation of the Order of Defense, and instructed Laurel Sovereign of Arms to “submit such name and heraldry to the heraldic comment process, with the intention of opening the Order on May 1, 2015.” That day, commentary opened on the Online System for Commentary and Response (OSCAR), the site the College of Arms uses to process names and armory. Six days after commentary closed, a special decision letter was published on April 5, 2015, announcing the approval of the order name, regalia, and badge, seen below.

The badge was inspired by one registered by Master Seosamh an Crúca Ó Máille in December 1994, who wanted to create a placeholder on the chance that the Society might one day recognize rapier combatants as Peers. When the Defense badge was registered, Seosamh released his own.

The three crossed swords evoke the characters Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, from Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, who (at least in film versions) cross their swords and invoke their motto, “All for one, one for all!” In addition to the fictional fencers, the three swords also mirror the three premieres required by the Board to establish the Order in each kingdom.

In the May 2024 LOAR, Laurel modified the registration of the Defense badge to include all swords, not just rapiers.

The Blazon

Let’s take a closer look at the blazon of the badge.

(Tinctureless) Three rapiers in pall inverted tips crossed.

The first part of the blazon is “Tinctureless.” This means that the charges, and the field they’re on, may be any color. I demonstrated some of the infinite variety of coloring options in my previous article about depicting the Esperance badge, and will not go into greater detail here.

The second part of the blazon is “Three rapiers.” As noted, the May 2024 LOAR expanded this protection to all swords.

The third part of the blazon is “In pall inverted.” A pall is an ordinary that is shaped like a Y and extends to the three points of a heater shield. “In pall” is a blazonry term that roughly translates to “in the shape or arrangement of a Y.” If a charge is inverted, it means it’s rotated horizontally, so “In pall inverted” means “in the shape of an upside-down Y.”

The fourth part of the blazon is “Tips crossed.” This specifies that the swords are oriented with their tips to center, and that the blades overlap at the tips. This is in contrast to the blades being oriented with the pommels to center, or the blades being crossed at the midpoint of the blade.

 

Why Does It Matter Where the Blades Cross?

The reason the swords were registered as “crossed at the tips” and not the midpoint was that six existing arms and badges had already been registered with that design, including a direct conflict — the arms of Duke Deaton Claymore — and five others with similar motifs.

During the commentary process, many (myself included) expressed concerns about interpretation of this badge design emerging from candidates for the nascent Order. Despite both the image and the text describing the swords being crossed at the tips, several images began circulating that were decidedly not. The image below was sent to me by Master Laertes McBride, then Society Deputy Earl Marshal for Rapier and one of the three premier candidates for the Order of Defense, who asked on behalf of his fellow candidates whether this was an accurate interpretation of the proposed design.

If the Order accurately depicted their badge as registered, there would be no issue of presumption against the armory listed. However, it was clear that several members of the Order, as well as artisans making regalia, were either ignorant of the requirements of the design or actively dismissive of them. Sure enough, when further discussion opened up on OSCAR about protecting the motif of the three rapiers in armory, one commenter provided an image of the collar and medallion of one of the premiers of Artemisia:

Over the last ten years, members of the Order in most kingdoms have used the inaccurate depiction of their badge, infringing upon existing armory. Duke Deaton passed away on December 8, 2023, at which point his son, Duke Morgan of the Oaks, inherited his father’s arms and badge. He has since repeatedly requested that members of the Order of Defense (and the community generally) not use designs which come too close to Deaton’s armory.

Laurel Sovereign of Arms raised this issue with the College of Arms and the Board of Directors on the May 2024 Cover Letter, and confirmed that the swords for the Order of Defense must be crossed at the tips on the October 2024 Cover Letter.

Artistic License

Now that we understand the parts of the badge and the importance of keeping the swords crossed at the tips, let’s talk about what options are available for artistic license.

Choose Your Weapon

While traditionally the sword used in the Order of Defense badge is a rapier, Laurel’s recent ruling allows for any period swords to be used. I offer up a very modest sampling here; for further illustrated options, please see the Pictorial Dictionary of Heraldry.

Each of these blades creates a unique silhouette, so choosing which to incorporate into the Defense badge is as much a matter of taste as of persona.

As with all period charges, these blades would have been drawn by hand. As such, there are differences even between swords which are supposed to be identical.  This gives some space for artistic license in depicting the swords in the badge as slightly different from one another.

For example, when Caid established its chapter of the Order, the first three medallions bestowed by the Crown reflected the specificd hilts of the respective Order premiers.

Generally, as long as the swords have the same general shape and silhouette, they can be used in a set. Swords which have substantially different silhouettes, such as a rapier, scimitar, and flamberge, are likely to cause confusion visually and should be thus avoided.

Crossing the Tips

As mentioned above, it’s important that the swords be crossed at the tips for the Order of Defense badge, rather than the middle of the blade, to avoid infringing on existing armory. This means finding a middle ground between crossed at midpoint and “conjoined at the tips” where there is no overlap at all between the blades. “Tips crossed” Seems to be a difficult concept for some artists and artisans. To help understand the idea a bit better, I’m going to approach it in two different ways.

The first way is to think of the blade as a fencer. Each blade is divided into three regions, known as the forte (strongest part of the blade), middle, and foible (weakest part of the blade).

The foible, being the furthest section of the blade, closely correlates to the “tip” of the rapier. As long as the blades are crossed somewhere solidly in this zone, there should be no ambiguity.

Another way to approach the issue is as a graphic artist. Consider the sword to have a bounding box around it; that is to say, the rectangle that surrounds the entire sword while it’s either horizontal or vertical.

When crossing the swords, each of the tips should be within each other’s bounding box. To extend the tip beyond this would break the Y shape of “in pall inverted.”

If the crossguard/quillions are wider, the bounding box expands as well.  While this might not be the most realistic ratio of an actual sword, period heraldry frequently exaggerated the identifying portions of charges.

Color As You Will

As with other peerage order badges, the insignia for the Order of Defense is tinctureless. I cover this concept at great length in my Esperance badge article; suffice to say that as long as the swords are distinguishable from the background, you can depict the design in whatever coloration you like.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to render the badge for the Order of Defense. We discussed the importance of  crossing the swords at the tips, reviewed various period styles of swords available, and explored just a handful of the infinite possibilities for coloring the badge. I hope that, armed with this information, you will be inspired to find a unique, balanced, and aesthetically pleasing version for a member of the Order.