Celestial Navigation

The Age of Discovery, or the Age of Exploration, is not without its controversies. Many of the lands ‘discovered’ were already populated with people whose cultures and traditions the explorers did not understand. These nations were mapped and documented into the body of knowledge of Western Europe. Armed men followed, planting flags, claiming territory and bringing devastating exposure to disease. The ‘shore to ship’ perspective of history has developed since Australia’s bicentennial celebrations of 1988 and is a welcome rebalance from the one-sided view of history that was once taught. Stories of first contact are reinterpreted and reassessed, adding also to our understanding of ‘ship to shore’ with the absolute command of a captain at sea and the extraordinary risks taken by crews venturing into the unknown. Despite the controversies, the achievements of these explorers in circumnavigating the globe and charting vast oceans remain remarkable. They navigated perilous waters, faced unpredictable weather, and overcame immense challenges to expand the geographical knowledge of their time. This age saw significant developments in celestial navigation and map making and these feats continue to captivate us as they did then, serving as a reminder of both the courage and the consequences inherent in such monumental journeys.

Anthony Jenkinson (1529-c.1610), a sea captain, merchant, and explorer, was the first known Englishman to venture into Central Asia and one of the earliest English travellers to Russia. He was the author of several travel accounts and his personal letters offer valuable insights into Russia during Ivan the Terrible’s brutal reign. His arms and crest are recorded in the Visitation of London, 1568:

Arms: Azure, a fesse wavy Argent three estoiles in chief Or
Crest: A seahorse assurgent per pale Or and Azure crined Gules

Arms of Anthony Jenkinson

These arms evolved over time with the political fortunes of his descendants. During the reign of King James VI and I, arms were confirmed for Anthony’s grandson Robert Jenkinson of Walcot near Oxford, with one estoile lost along the way, a cross pattée Gules added to the fess and another on the seahorse crest. His son, Sir Robert Jenkinson (1621-1677) served as an M.P. in the first and second Protectorate Parliaments summoned by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Sir Robert was created a Baronet in 1661 after the Restoration of the Monarchy and added the Red Hand of Ulster badge to his arms. The 2nd and 3rd Baronets, both named Robert, also served as members of parliament and the family continued to play an active role in British politics throughout the 18th century.

Arms of the Jenkinson Baronets of Walcot

In 1786, Charles Jenkinson (1729–1808) was created Baron Hawkesbury of Hawkesbury in the County of Gloucester. The River Hawkesbury in New South Wales was named after him in 1789. Then, in 1790, he  succeeded his cousin as 7th Baronet of Walcot, and in 1796, was created Earl of Liverpool. As an augmentation of honour, to his arms was granted:

Upon a Chief wavy of the Second a Cormorant Sable beaked and legged of the Third holding in the beak a Seaweed (or Liver) branch inverted Vert

The resultant arms are unusual in their combination of a fess with a chief. Robert Jenkinson (1770-1828), 2nd Earl of Liverpool, the son of Charles, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1812 to 1827.

Arms of the Earls of Liverpool, first creation (Wikimedia: Sodacan, restyled)

A part of this heraldry lives on in the second crest of the current Earl of Liverpool. The seahorse of the Jenkinson crest, transformed into a sea lion, rests a paw upon a small shield, with the cormorant and the wavy line dividing argent and azure of Liverpool, and a hawk for the Hawkesbury title, but with none of Anthony Jenkinson’s estoiles. His achievements are reduced to a wavy line.

Second crest of the current Earl of Liverpool (Wikimedia: Cakelot1 et al)

The wavy lines dividing blue and white in Anthony Jenkinson’s arms are evident in the arms of earlier explorers, including Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and Hernán Cortes (1485-1547). The armorial bearings of explorers, navigators, map makers and astronomers in the late 15th and 16th centuries do not otherwise reference symbols of navigation. Galileo Galilei is identified by a ladder and many of the Elizabethan privateers had personal arms without stars or wavy lines. One exception is Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595), whose arms, granted in 1565, include a point wavy. His crest, however, is an abhorrent acknowledgment of his role in establishing the English slave trade triangle and of the part human trafficking played in the Age of Exploration.

The presence of waves does not imply that the armiger was an explorer. Jean de Marignac was a lawyer, elected to the municipal council of Toulouse (Capitoul de Toulouse) in 1411-1412, with ocean waves on his shield and a chief stylistically similar to Jenkinson’s arms:

de sable à la mer ondée d’argent et d’azur, au chef d’azur chargé de trois étoiles d’or

Arms of Jean de Marignac

Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) was a Portuguese explorer who almost completed the first known circumnavigation of the globe. The honour went to his crew, after Magellan died in the Philippines, specifically with a coat of arms granted to his navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano (1476–1526). The German Maestre Anes, also known as Hans from Aachen, was one of only 18 crew members who survived the voyage. He was so well bitten by the travel bug that he joined the next circumnavigation, the Spanish Loaísa expedition, becoming the first person to circumnavigate the world twice.

Arms of Ferdinand Magellan

The circumnavigation, some fifty years later (1577-1580), by Francis Drake (1540-1596) was termed a ‘voyage of discovery’ but was in effect an ambitious covert raiding voyage to challenge the global domination of Spain and Portugal. His coat of arms, granted in 1581, 13 years after Jenkinson’s grant, borrowed from the design of Jenkinson’s arms but established a new heraldic feature: polar stars. Whereas Jenkinson’s three stars may have represented navigation in the Northern Hemisphere, Drake’s two wavy stars are meant to encompass the globe. The stars are individually referred to as the Arctic and Antarctic stars. His wavy fess was identical to Jenkinson’s but the tinctures of the field differ. Drake’s coat of arms has the following blazon:

Arms: Sable a fess wavy between two pole stars Argent
Crest: A ship under reef (sails reefed) drawn round a terrestrial globe with a cable by a hand out of the clouds all proper, on the mainmast a star Argent, and in the ship a wyvern Gules, its wings spread, looking towards the hand
Mottoes: Over the crest: Auxilio divino [With divine aid]; under the arms: Sic parvis magna [Thus great things arise from small]

Arms of Sir Francis Drake

The earliest documented polar star in British heraldry is the Pole Artike of the Ingleby arms, depicted with six wavy rays by Gerard Legh (1562) and John Guillim (1610) but emblazoned with eight rays in Thomas Jenyn’s Book (1500-1525). Drake’s arms are an extension of the Ingleby design, adopting the same tinctures and with the number of rays as shown in Legh’s The Accedens of Armory, which had identified the polar character of the Ingleby star.

Ingleby arms from Gerard Legh’s The Accedens of Armory (1562)

The Dutch explorer Olivier Van Noort (1558-1627) adopted very similar arms to Drake following his circumnavigation of 1598-1601: Azure a fess wavy rippled proper between two stars Or, and as a crest a sailing ship on a terrestrial globe. As these are Dutch arms, outside of British heraldic traditions, the two stars are depicted straight-sided, typically with five points.

Arms of Olivier van Noort

The arms granted to Sir Erasmus Dryden (1553-1632), created Baronet in 1619, have a similar device, although he was a politician rather than an explorer. Here it is an armillary sphere between the estoiles, emphasising astronomy:
Azure, a lion rampant and in chief a sphere between two estoiles Or

Crest: A demi-lion sustaining in the dexter paw an armillary sphere Or

Arms of Sir Erasmus Dryden and his grandson, the poet John Dryden, with a mullet for cadency (lion Wikimedia: David Liuzzo, armillary sphere Wikimedia: MostEpic)

In 1785 arms were granted to Mrs Elizabeth Cook in “Memory of her late dear Husband the ablest and most renowned Navigator which this or any other Country has produced.” The arms awarded posthumously for Captain James Cook (1728-1779) by King George III have, instead of a fess, a terrestrial globe between the two polar stars with tracks of Cook’s voyages across the Pacific Ocean. A version of these arms was incorporated into the coat of arms of the City of Sydney. The modern, simplified interpretation of these arms retains only a dot for the globe, without the polar stars. The globe and stars remain in the official City of Sydney flag, from 1908, but, with its inclusion of three colonial coats of arms and a tall ship, the flag is no longer used. It was recently described by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore as “at the very least, problematic”.

Arms of Captain James Cook (globe Wikipedia: A1 Aardvark, restyled)

The device had also been granted by H.M. College of Arms in 1778 to Samuel Enderby (1719-1797) , a whale oil merchant whose coat of arms were a statement of his company’s global reach: Azure, the mast of a vessel issuant from the base, thereon a topsail hoisted and pennant* flying Proper between two estoiles in fesse Or, representing the Arctic and Antarctic polar stars.

* The colours of the Enderby fleet’s long, narrow pennants are only hinted at in period artworks but some English merchant ships in the late 18th century flew the Royal Navy’s Common Pennant, shown below as one example of a ‘pennant flying proper’.

Arms of Samuel Enderby

In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any sort in the great South Sea.

Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 1851

Enderby’s whaling vessels, including Britannia, formed part of the Third Fleet, taking convicts to New South Wales in 1791, and from this time on, until 1854, the company operated in London and Port Jackson, N.S.W., hunting whales in New Zealand waters. Samuel’s grandsons Charles and George Enderby were explorers at heart and were founder members of the Geographical Society of London (now the Royal Geographical Society).

Samuel Enderby married the daughter of his business partner Charles Buxton and later impaled the Buxton arms, although these appear to have been pinched from Sir Robert John Buxton, Bart (1753-1839).

The Arms of Samuel Enderby impaled with Argent, a lion rampant Sable for Buxton (lion Wikimedia: David Liuzzo, restyled)

The arms of Enderby and Cook follow a 1771 grant to ‘Somerset, London’, described in Joseph Edmondson’s A Complete Body of Heraldry, published in 1780:

Azure, on a rock proper, an eagle rising Or, between the arctic in chief and antarctic (polar stars) in base; on a canton of the third a wreath of laurel Vert fructed of the second.

Crest: Out of a naval coronet Or, a hippocampus erect Argent

The Arctic star, as it is known in heraldry, found its way into the arms of a Garter King of Arms of the College of Arms, Sir Isaac Heard (1730-1822). His arms were granted in 1762, amended with a new grant in 1774. He was Garter King of Arms from 1784 until 1822. The arms reflect his near death experience off the coast of Guinea when he was a midshipman in the Royal Navy.

Arms of Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King of Arms (Wikimedia: Sodacan, restyled)

A Polar Star appears twice in the arms of the Marquess of Lansdowne, simply because his arms are quartered. These arms are a reminder of his ancestor Sir William Petty F.R.S. (1623-1687), a famous economist, astronomer and navigator who developed efficient methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and given to Cromwell’s soldiers:

Ermine, on a Bend Azure, a Magnetic Needle, pointing to the Polar Star Or

Arms of Sir William Petty F.R.S. (1623-1687) (Magnetic Needle from Wikimedia: Tinynanorobots)

Quartered arms of the Marquess of Lansdowne, Petty quartered with Fitzmaurice

In British heraldry, the term ‘polar’ establishes the star as celestial, to be represented as an estoile. With this convention, a polar star of six points is seemingly redundant since the six points are implied. However, artists of heraldic traditions outside Britain may interpret such descriptions differently, as their conventions for stars often vary in both form and number of points. This highlights the need for precision in blazoning when crossing cultural or regional boundaries.

A star of six points appears in the arms of Julius von Payer (1841-1915), Austrian explorer and painter, who led the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872-1874. The elaborate blazon describes an arctic landscape beneath an azure sky, an expanse of snow and ice, with a sea of dark greenish-black and the rocky peaks of Franz Josef Land. The midnight sun, encircled by two golden rings, rises from the horizon behind a flagpole, on which the great banner of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy flies, and in the sky above it all, in the dexter chief: une étoile à six rais d'or, représentant l'étoile polaire.

The Royal Order of the Polar Star (Kungliga Nordstjärneorden) is a Swedish order of merit with insignia featuring a silver five-pointed star. The special significance given to the polar star in Swedish heraldry may be indicated by radiating lines surrounding the star, for example in the seal and logo of the Royal Academy of Swedish Sciences (Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) and coat of arms of the Swedish Fortifications Agency (Fortifikationsverket). The North Star is also depicted with five points in the coat of arms and flag of Nunavut (Niqirtsuituq) and in the flag of Alaska, and with eight points in the flag of Minnesota. The new Great Seal of the State of Minnesota, adopted in May 2024, includes a North Star of four points, in reference to the state motto L’Étoile du Nord.

In The Public Register of Arms, Flags, and Badges of Canada, just one instance of polar stars is found. The polar stars, part of an original concept of Auguste Vachon, Saint-Laurent Herald, are emblazoned with straight-sided stars of eight points. The armiger’s Scottish ancestry is reflected with a Saltire between the stars.

A combination of two stars is uncommon in personal heraldry, three being the more typical arrangement. When two stars do appear, their number may be selected purely for aesthetic effect. The arms of the ‘Scotti Douglas’ family of Piacenza in Northern Italy feature two six-pointed stars in 17th and 18th century rolls, but there is no suggestion that Marchese Scotti bore polar stars:

d’azur à la bande d’argent acc de deux étoiles d’or

Arms of Scotti of Piancenza with stars of six points

The arms of the Neapolitan d’Angelo family are depicted in Descrittione del regno di Napoli (1601) with stars of eight points. Prominent members of this family are documented in Naples and Sicily from the early fourteenth century but no mention is made of this family or their arms in Scipione Mazzella’s original 1586 edition. Could these arms have been inspired by Drake’s (1581) or van Noort’s (c.1601) arms, or is the similarity merely a coincidence?

d’azzurro, alla fascia d’oro, accompagnata da due stelle dello stesso, una in capo ed una in punta

Arms of famiglia d’Angelo of Naples and Sicily with stars of eight points

A peculiarity of polar stars in heraldry is the implied brightness of the Antarctic star. Charges in heraldry are not always in proportion to their real world counterparts and this is true of the relative brightness between the Arctic and Antarctic polar stars.

The Arctic star, also known as Polaris, Alpha Ursae Minoris or popularly the North Star, is readily visible to the naked eye with an apparent magnitude of 1.98. Polaris Australis, nominally Sigma Octantis with an apparent magnitude of 5.47 is barely visible to the naked eye, making it unusable for navigation. Sirius, Alpha Canis Majoris, with an apparent magnitude of -1.46 is the brightest star in the night sky and is heading south, from our perspective. Between 65,000 and 95,000 years from now Sirius is due to become our Antarctic star. Due to axial precession, the Arctic star will also continue to cycle between alternate real stars, including Vega and Deneb.

Nearly four and a half centuries have passed since Drake’s grant introduced two polar stars to heraldry, an enduring symbol of navigational guidance, yet this is a mere blink in cosmic time. These stars evoke a sense of permanence on Earth, appearing steadfast across generations, though the cosmos itself is ever-changing, with nothing truly immutable. Modern satellite navigation, with its precision and real-time accuracy, has transformed exploration, overcoming the limitations faced by past navigators who relied on their knowledge of the stars and celestial measurements. However, the risks resulting from our over-reliance on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) have begun to be acknowledged (e.g. the Blackett Review), with a renewed focus on alternative and traditional means of positioning. What shall we do to find our way when the next Carrington Event strikes? Advances we now take for granted, and which underpin a significant proportion of global GDP, owe much to the perseverance of those who charted unknown waters, pushing the boundaries of navigation and human discovery.

Follow Ella in the Arctic on her incredible adventure - sailing a route that shouldn’t be possible. ⛵️💫

Next (10): Spheres and Globes (coming soon!)

Previous (8): Whence Cometh Thee, Estoile?