page_title: Mercia
section_title: Symbolism and attributed heraldry
hierarchical_section_title: Mercia / Legacy / Symbolism and attributed heraldry
context_page_description: Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. The name is a Latinisation of the Old English Mierce or Myrce, meaning "border people". Mercia dominated what would later become England for three centuries, subsequently going into a gradual decline while Wessex eventually conquered and united all the kingdoms into the Kingdom of England.
  The kingdom was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries, in the region now known as the English Midlands. The court moved around the kingdom, and there was no fixed capital city. Early in its existence Repton seems to have been the location of an important royal estate. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was from Repton in 873–874 that the Great Heathen Army deposed the King of Mercia. Slightly earlier, King Offa seems to have favoured Tamworth. It was there where he was crowned and spent many a Christmas.
  For 300 years, having annexed or gained submissions from five of the other six kingdoms of the Heptarchy, Mercia dominated England south of the River Humber: this period is known as the Mercian Supremacy.
context_section_description: There is no authentic indigenous Mercian heraldic device, as heraldry did not develop in any recognizable form until the High Middle Ages.
  The saltire as a symbol of Mercia may have been in use since the time of King Offa. By the 13th century, the saltire had become the attributed arms of the Kingdom of Mercia. The arms are blazoned Azure, a saltire Or, meaning a gold (or yellow) saltire on a blue field. The arms were subsequently used by the Abbey of St Albans, founded by King Offa of Mercia. With the dissolution of the Abbey and the incorporation of the borough of St Albans the device was used on the town's corporate seal and was officially recorded as the arms of the town at an heraldic visitation in 1634.
  The saltire is used as both a flag and a coat of arms. As a flag, it is flown from Tamworth Castle, the ancient seat of the Mercian Kings, to this day. The flag also appears on street signs welcoming people to Tamworth, the "ancient capital of Mercia". It was also flown outside Birmingham Council House during 2009 while the Staffordshire Hoard was on display in the city before being taken to the British Museum in London. The cross has been incorporated into a number of coats of arms of Mercian towns, including Tamworth, Leek and Blaby. It was recognised as the Mercian flag by the Flag Institute in 2014.
  The silver double-headed eagle surmounted by a golden three-pronged Saxon crown has been used by several units of the British Army as a heraldic device for Mercia since 1958, including the Mercian Regiment. It is derived from the attributed arms of Leofric, Earl of Mercia in the 11th century. It is worth noting, however, that Leofric is sometimes attributed a black, single-headed eagle instead.
  The wyvern, a type of dragon, came to have a strong association with Mercia in the 19th century. The Midland Railway, which used a white (silver) wyvern sans legs (legless) as its crest, having inherited it from the Leicester and Swannington Railway, asserted that the "wyvern was the standard of the Kingdom of Mercia", and that it was "a quartering in the town arms of Leicester". The symbol appeared on numerous stations and other company buildings in the region, and was worn as a silver badge by all uniformed employees. However, in 1897 the Railway Magazine noted that there appeared "to be no foundation that the wyvern was associated with the Kingdom of Mercia". It has been associated with Leicester since the time of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster and Leicester (c. 1278–1322), the most powerful lord in the Midlands, who used it as his personal crest, and was recorded in a heraldic visitation of the town in 1619.
  In Bram Stoker's 1911 novel The Lair of the White Worm, explicitly set in Mercia (see above), the Mercian white wyvern sans legs of the Midland Railway was transformed into a monstrous beast, the eponymous worm of the title. The word "worm" is derived from Old English wyrm and originally referred to a dragon or serpent. "Wyvern" derives from Old Saxon wivere, also meaning serpent, and is etymologically related to viper. Today, the White Wyrm of Mercia is recognised as the Mercian flag by the Acting Witan of Mercia.
  The ultimate source for the symbolism of white dragons in England would appear to be Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fictional work,  The History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136), which recounts an incident in the life of Merlin where a red dragon is seen fighting a white dragon and prevailing. The red dragon was taken to represent the Welsh and their eventual victory over the Anglo-Saxon invaders, symbolised by the white dragon.
  Professor Tom Shippey has suggested that the Middle Kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham, a story dominated by a dragon, is based on Mercia. This dragon, Chrysophylax, though mostly hostile, eventually helps Giles found a realm of his own, the Little Kingdom.
caption: Cross of St Alban