The new Roll of the Peerage. The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom to receive a summons to sit in Parliament, and led to the discontinuation of the Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, formerly maintained by the Clerk of the Parliaments. This meant that there was no official register in which those inheriting hereditary peerages could seek inclusion as evidence of their status or rank. The matter has now been partly resolved by a Royal Warrant dated 1 June 2004, published in the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes on 11 June, and due to be recorded at the College of Arms. This institutes a Roll of the Peerage, to be presided over by the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs in consultation with Garter Principal King of Arms and Lord Lyon King of Arms. The new Roll (which will be maintained by a Registrar and two Joint Assistant Registrars) will have slightly broader scope than the old parliamentary roll, in that it will record peers of Ireland as well as those of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Life Peers may also be enrolled. The warrant also states that any peer not entered on the Roll will not be entitled to any precedence attaching to his peerage, and shall not be addressed or referred to by the title of his peerage in any official context. The new Roll is thus rather more significant than the old parliamentary one, which included only those peers sitting in Parliament; a peer might have decided not to seek a summons without necessarily wishing to abjure his peerage. Application to be entered on the Roll, and questions regarding its operation, should be directed to the Joint Assistant Registrar, The Roll of the Peerage, The Department for Constitutional Affairs (Constitutional Policy Division), Selborne House, 54 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6QW.

The Marriage of England and Spain: 29 June to 30 September 2004. This major exhibition at Winchester Cathedral marks the 450th anniversary of the marriage of Mary I to Philip, King of Naples and Jerusalem, and later King of Spain, which took place in the cathedral on 25 July 1554. The College of Arms has lent several items, which join important artefacts from the British Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Prado, the National Archives and other collections at home and abroad. For fuller details, visit www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk.

The Arms of the Speaker of the House of Commons. On 8 October 2003, Lord Lyon King of Arms (chief heraldic officer of the Crown in Scotland) granted arms to the Right Honourable Michael Martin, M.P. for Glasgow Springburn and Speaker of the House of Commons. As was reported in the national press on 23 July this year, these arms have recently been set up in the Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster. In April, as is necessary before Scottish arms can be used in England, the grant was entered into the records of the College of Arms, with the reference Scotland 5 / 88. The design of the arms was of course entirely the work of Lyon Court.

Recently recorded Royal Warrants

Flag of the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross Foundation. Under the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000, the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross Foundation was established to mark the sacrifices made by members of the RUC. Its name commemorates the award of the George Cross to the Constabulary made in 1999. By Royal warrant dated 20 May 2004 Her Majesty the Queen granted and assigned the Foundation a flag. For an illustration, see above. The warrant is recorded in the College of Arms with the reference I.85 / 169.

Courtesy titles of adopted children. A Royal warrant dated 30 April 2004 directs that such styles and courtesy titles as are proper to the younger children of peers of the realm will in future be accorded to children adopted by peers within the meaning of the Adoption Act 1976 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002, notwithstanding that no right to any dignity or title of honour is thereby conferred upon them. This means, for instance, that the adopted sons of an Earl will be accorded the prefix designation of 'Honourable' and the adopted daughters of an Earl that of 'Lady', used in front of their Christian names. The warrant is recorded in the College of Arms with the reference I.85 / 170.

Honours

New York Genealogical and Biographical Society Medal for Heraldry. On 14 June 2004 it was announced that the newly instituted Medal for Heraldry of the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society was to be awarded to Peter Gwynn-Jones, CVO, Garter Principal King of Arms. "In selecting Mr. Gwynn-Jones to be its first recipient, the G&B Committee on Heraldry celebrates not only his considerable achievements as an officer of arms for over 30 years but also the renaissance of heraldry in England," said Henry C.B. Lindh, president of the society. The award is to be made at a dinner in New York on 4 October this year.

Tudor Enigmas: 26 May 2004. Peter Gwynn-Jones, C.V.O., Garter Principal King of Arms, gave a lecture with this title to the Heraldry Society at the Society of Antiquaries in Burlington House, Piccadilly. The lecture covered such topics as the disputes between the sixteenth-century kings of arms, the granting of crests to women in the Tudor period and the question of the species of bird represented in the arms of the College of Arms itself.

Heraldry and the Mediaeval Coinage: 3 July 2004. Clive Cheesman (Rouge Dragon Pursuivant) spoke on this topic at the British Numismatic Society summer meeting in Canterbury. His paper dealt with the significance of the newly discovered 'lion' pennies of the twelfth-century Earls of Gloucester for understanding the origins of noble and royal heraldry in England.