THREE LIONS
Football fans will be familiar with the three lions worn as a badge by England teams since 1872 (and the recent outcry when the Football Association announced it was being changed) and which were adopted from the Royal Arms of England.
Lions first became associated with the English crown during the reign of Henry II but haven’t always been a trio; general opinion holds that they stem from the badges of the Norman kings, with Henry adding the third lion to represent the duchy of Aquitaine which came to him from his wife Eleanor. It was his son Richard I (nicknamed ‘Coeur de Lion’ or ‘Lionheart’) who was the first to bear them in the form of the three golden lions passant-guardant on a red background, and which have appeared unchanged and on the arms of every monarch since.