Cranmer PaternalArms

Showing the arms of the See of Canterbury impaling the canting arms of Cranmer: A chevron between three cranes. These arms were changed by King Henry VIII to On a chevron between three pelicans vulning themselves three cinquefoils as recorded by Thomas Strype in 1693:

About this time it was, as I conjecture, that the King changed his coat of armse. For unto the year 1543 he bore his paternal coat of three cranes sable, as I find by a date set under his arms, yet remaining in a window in Lambethhouse. For it is to be noted, that the King, perceiving how much ado Cranmer would have in the defence of his religion, altered the three cranes, which were parcel of his ancestors' arms, into three pelicans, declaring unto him, "That those birds should signify unto him, that he ought "to be ready, as the pelican is, to shed his blood for his "young ones, brought up in the faith of Christ. For," said the King, " you are like to be tasted, if you stand to your "tackling at length." (Strype, John, Historical and Biographical Works: Memorials of Thomas Cranmer Chapter 28, 1544 (p.181 of 1840 edition[1])

Cranmer's seal of Nov. 1538 still showed cranes, but by April 1540 he had adopted the pelicans. (Ridley, Jasper, Thomas Cranmer, note 1 to chapter 1[2])

Arms of Cranmer (per Berry, William, Encyclopaedia Heraldica, Or Complete Dictionary of Heraldry, Volume 2[3] : Argent, a chevron between three cranes azure and later arms: Argent, on a chevron azure between three pelicans sable vulning themselves proper as many cinquefoils or