Grant of Arms

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The Grant of Arms is an award given by the Crown. Grant level awards are considered more ennobling than those that confer an Award of Arms.

The Grant of Arms is a Society-wide type of award.

Arms which are given to the recipient by grant denotes an intermediate stage of nobility between the armiger, who is given arms by award, and the Peer, who is given arms by Letters Patent.

According to Kingdom Law in the Middle, grants of arms are made to Great Officers of State who have served successfully for six months, and this is sometimes referred to by heralds as a "naked grant" and a rare honor, though lower in precedence than the grant-level orders listed below. Such honorees may use the letters GoA after their names.


Precedence

A Bare Grant of Arms is below the other Grant-level Orders:

and above the Orders of the Willow and Silver Oak.

Rights and Privileges

Person who hold their arms by grant are titled The Honorable Lord/Lady and may be addressed as His/Her Lordship/Ladyship. The Gender-Neutral Titles of Armiger, Noble, or Nobilis (Latin) are available to those who prefer them.

They may also wear a collar of maintenance and display their arms in full achievement with two supporters.

Holders of Grants of Arms by virtue of past service to the Middle Kingdom as Great Officers of State may use a Dragon Crest in displaying their arms. Same crest is reserved to these holders of Grants of Arms. Holders of Grants of Arms by virtue of service prior to becoming a great officer of the Middle Kingdom may be granted the right to use a Dragon Crest in displaying their arms. Only Great Officers of State who have received the Grant of Arms for that service, may use the dragon as a crest.

History

A grant of arms now accompanies several kingdom orders of high prestige, the Dragon's Heart, Gold Mace, Evergreen, White Lance, Greenwood Company and Bronze Ring. See Order of Precedence. Members of such an order may use the letters appropriate to the order after their names, (e.g. CDH), but not GoA unless they were given a "naked" grant.

For a time in the late 1990s, "naked grants" were also made to other deserving persons as their majesties saw fit, but this practice is rare after the honors reorganization of April 2000.

The first person in the Middle Kingdom to receive a Grant of Arms was ?

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