Upwell Church: Coats of Arms

The parish church of Upwell St Peter, Norfolk, is delightful throughout; this is the third occasion I have taken to writing about it.

State churches generally display the royal arms as we might expect, much like court rooms. In the north aisle, there is attached a Stuart coat of arms to the north gallery (below), while a Victorian one is fastened to the back wall (above). 

Churches seldom update the arms they display, but each royal house has had its own symbols depending on where they originated and some territory they claimed as their own. If kings and queens come and go, and their dynasties with them, how much more elected governments and the individual politicians with whom they are stuffed? Paying court to governments, honouring regimes and seeking to favour powerful ones seldom ends well, even if one can can keep abreast of their logic, for they are always changing and altering their minds. Only when we seek to honour God first and foremost in our lives do we have consistency and balance.