Armorial of the House of Plantagenet

The House of Plantagenet was the first truly armigerous royal dynasty of England. Their predecessor, Henry I of England, had presented items decorated with a lion heraldic emblem to his son-in-law, Plantagenet founder Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, and his family experimented with different lion-bearing coats until these coalesced during the reign of his grandson, Richard I, into a coat of arms with three lions on a red field, formally Gules, three lions passant guardant or , that became the Royal Arms of England, and colloquially those of England itself. The various cadet branches descended from this family bore differenced versions of these arms, while later members of the House of Plantagenet would either quarter or impale these arms with others to reflect their political aspirations.

Overview of Plantagenet arms

Non-Plantagenet families

The heiresses of Norfolk and Kent transmitted the Plantagenet arms to non-Plantagenet families:
Henry VI of England granted differenced versions of the Plantagenet arms to his maternal half-brothers. This was an extraordinary grant, since they were not descended from the English royal family.