Livery Collar - Collar of Esses

Collar of Esses

This famous livery collar, which has never passed out of use, takes many forms, its Esses being sometimes linked together chainwise, and sometimes, in early examples, as the ornamental bosses of a garter-shaped strap-collar. The oldest effigy bearing it is that in Spratton church of Sir John Swynford, who died in 1371. Swynford was a follower of John of Gaunt, and the date of his death easily disposes of the theory that the Esses were devised by Henry IV to stand for his motto or "word" of Soverayne. Many explanations are given of the origin of these letters, but none has as yet been established. During the reigns of Henry IV, his son (Henry V), and grandson (Henry VI), the collar of Esses was a royal badge of the Lancastrian house and party, the white swan, as in the Dunstable Swan Jewel, usually being its pendant.

In one of Henry VI's own collars the S was joined to the Broomcod of the French device, thus symbolizing the king's claim to the two kingdoms. The kings of the house of York and their chief followers wore the Yorkist collar of suns and roses, with the white lion of March, the Clare bull, or Richard's white boar for a pendant device. Henry VIII brought back the collar of Esses, a portcullis or a Tudor rose hanging from it, although in a portrait of him, in the Society of Antiquaries, he wears the rose "en soleil" alternating with knots, and his son (later Edward VI), when young, had a collar of red and white roses. It was presented to ministers and courtiers, and came to represent more a symbol of office by the time of Elizabeth I.