Pips of Five Points

May 01, 2025

Pips of Five Points

A five star General in the United States Army and the military services of many other NATO countries is identified by his or her stars, colloquially called pips. These are stars of five points, which some English heralds have associated with meteors or stars that fell to earth, bringing us back to de Vere and the first crusade.

Orders of chivalry, such as the Order of the Garter or the Order of the Star (France, 14th century), used star motifs as part of their insignia or symbolism, linking the five-pointed star to martial and noble ideals. This star signifies chivalric excellence and military distinction, highlighting the knight’s connection to celestial virtue and divine sanction.

While it is tempting to imagine that the star, as a symbol of military distinction, has its origins one dark night on a battlefield during a crusade, others point out that the de Vere star is a much later addition to the Earl of Oxford’s arms. It is possibly the other way around, that the legend is based on an older tradition of military symbolism and a fanciful explanation for the prominent symbol in these arms.

The United States has a particular affinity for the five-pointed star. Their number in the Stars and Stripes is significant and it is an identifiable symbol of the U.S. Army. This star is often included in the armorial bearings of American armigers as an identifier of nationality. The Constitution and principles of the Republic reject any suggestion of nobility, particularly titles but personal heraldry does not fall into this category and many of the Founding Fathers were themselves armigers.

The five-pointed star is found in the personal heraldry of several U.S. Presidents, including George Washington (1732-1799), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) and Ronald Reagan (1911-2004).

Arms of the Washington family, first recorded in the 14th century

The stars in the flag of the United States of America are obviously not a constellation of natural stars but a collective representation of the States. As for the Washington coat of arms, while its resemblance to early American symbols is intriguing and may have had a subconscious influence, there is no direct evidence that it inspired the design of the Stars and Stripes.

The five-pointed Red Star as a symbol of communism was adopted during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. Its exact origin is unclear. The golden five-pointed stars on China’s national flag, adopted in 1949, reflect Soviet communist influence, adapted to Chinese aesthetics to symbolise national unity under the Communist Party. The use of stars by the United States, Soviet-era Russia, modern China and similarly Vietnam reflects the powerful, versatile symbolism of stars, transcending ideologies. Despite the stark differences in political systems, stars in both contexts represent aspirational and revolutionary ideals, albeit adapted to their respective philosophies. The flag of the European Union, designed and adopted in 1955, has a circle of twelve golden five-pointed stars on a blue field. Here they represent member countries and symbolise unity, harmony, and solidarity. In A Dictionary of Heraldry, edited by Stephen Friar, 1987, it is observed that for modern flags, The star is the most popular single emblem, usually of five points, as in the ‘Stars and Stripes’.

Stars appear, together with crescents and a saltire, in the arms of Field Marshal Douglas Haig (1861-1928), 1st Earl Haig. These stars are not a reflection of his military career. In fact, they are much older. Douglas Haig’s coat of arms, rather than recognising personal achievements of his life, was taken from the long standing shield and crest of the Chiefs of Clan Haig. There are Scottish clans with Chiefs, like Clan Fraser where Katharine Fraser, Lady Saltoun, recently followed her mother as “Chief of the Name and Arms”, and there are so called armigerous clans, where the line of descent from the last chief has somehow been lost. The Convention is a Scottish tradition in which the clan gathers to select a new clan chief who will carry the clan’s identity in his or her person. In 1913, the Court of the Lord Lyon, the official heraldic authority in Scotland, formally recognised Field Marshal Douglas Haig as Chief of the Name and Arms of Clan Haig. In 1921 the British Government bought Bemersyde, which has been in the possession of the Haigs since the 12th century, and presented it to him.

Tyde what may, what’er betyde, Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde

Thomas the Rhymer, 13th century

The Arms of Clan Haig

It is not only in Scottish Clan structures that the design of arms may be aligned to surnames. The arms of Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts (1832-1914), 1st Earl Roberts are almost identical to those of another apparently unrelated Roberts family. The arms of Earl Roberts had been confirmed for his father General Sir Abraham Roberts (1784-1873) by John Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, in 1865 with an Eastern Crown Gules on the chief to differentiate from those of the other Roberts family.

Earl Roberts commanded the British forces in the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-1880 and was Commander in Chief during the Second South Africa War of 1899-1902. He acknowledged the contribution of the Imperial Bushmen of New South Wales and New Zealanders who also served under his command in South Africa - a few of whom, like C.S.M. Jack ‘Snow’ Peisley (1879-1918), later served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. Roberts was one of the most successful military commanders of his time. In 1901 he was created Earl Roberts, of Kandahar in Afghanistan and Pretoria in the Transvaal Colony and of the City of Waterford. His father was a General in the British East India Company who had served nearly 50 years in India.

The arms referenced in the 1865 grant to Sir Abraham Roberts were those of Richard Robartes, 1st Baron Roberts of Truro, Cornwall, created Baron Robartes in 1625. The Robartes arms are:

Azure, three estoiles Or, a chief wavy of the last

Arms of Richard Robartes, Baron Roberts

Baron Robartes lived at Lanhydrock and was described as The wealthiest in the west. His father had accumulated vast wealth and 40,000 acres of land through supplying fuel for the tin industry. Baron Robartes bought the title Baron of Truro from the Duke of Buckingham in 1624 for £10,000 in a questionable title deal that was later raised during the Duke’s impeachment.

Although the tinctures of the estoiles and shield match John Guillim’s recommendations, there is no indication that these estoiles represent any notable stars of the heavens. What personal significance could these stars hold for Earl Roberts and his father, without any greater connection to the original grant than clan affinity to Robartes?

Arms of Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts (Wikimedia: MostEpic, Sodacan restyled)

Sylvanus Morgan (1620-1693), writing in The Sphere of Gentry, published 1661, reinforces the difference between the “straight and pentangular” mullets and celestial stars, including polar stars, with “rayes waved”. He goes on to present a number of different types of mullets:

the one is Celestial, being in the likenesse of a Star, and is that Meteor that is as it were, the shooting or falling matter in the upper region of the air.

There is another “of the sea” and the third is a Terrestrial Mullet. Morgan also provides guidance on depicting the planets: Saturn is a mullet Sable, Jupiter a mullet Azure, Mars a mullet Gules, Venus a mullet Vert and Mercury a mullet Purpure.

Planetary Parade, late February 2025

Uranus and Neptune, either side of Venus in the alignment, were unknown in Morgan’s time and are only visible with telescopic assistance.

In the seventeenth century, the Music of the Spheres still influenced the likes of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), whose personal heraldry featured an angel. In contrast, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), building on his father Vincenzo’s research into music, shifted toward observational astronomy, marking a transition from harmony to geometry in understanding planetary motion.

Morgan’s attempt to distinguish metals and colours by reference to planets and gem stones held sway into the early eighteenth century. A later edition of Guillim’s A display of heraldry, published 1724, makes reference to Diamond and Pearl tinctures. Yet this was merely a passing phase. As R. H. Edgar puts it in Ye Comic History of Heraldry, published 1878:

modern Heralds plan it differently, and not only is the practice exploded, but the originators also have been considerably blown up.

With planets, what goes around comes around, one might say. The tinctures were once again connected to gem stones, such as diamond and pearl, in A Dictionary of Heraldry, published 1987. The planets too, although the colour-matching was entirely new and not exactly what a modern generation, familiar with images of the planets, might expect. Why on Earth (or beyond) would you liken Mars, “the red planet”, to Sable?

Stars have many meanings and, regardless of their shape, these may not be clear even to those who inherit them. With the U.S. Flag, the original idea is at least documented, although the arrangement, number of points and orientations of the stars was left open to interpretation. On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution, stating:
“Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”