Standards and banners, plus livery jacket colours are a sometimes confusing or controversial subject especially during this period. Dal Gavan refers to the Lance and Longbow (Hobilar) articles. I was the author of the article on livery colours and this has been expanded by me and now appears as six A4 pages in my recently published Bills, Bows and Bloodshed 2.2
Referring to BBB 2.2 first, Percy colours are shown as red and black in that order. My primary source for this is 'Standards, Badges, and Livery Colours of the Wars of the Roses' by McGill and Jone and published by the Lance and Longbow Society. This is red over black on the long standard but might be red and black vertical halves on a banner.
It is noticeable that among some lords with large and diverse estates multiple badges are used. It has been hypothesised that each separate badge may represent a separate estate but this cannot be confirmed. It is simply plausible. Edward IV is credited with as many as 13 badges I read somewhere and some of these may have been inherited from his Mortimer ancestors on his mother's side.
Referring to the illustration of the same Percy standard (red over black) this shows several Percy badges including a white lion, white shackle bolts, white crescents, a hunting horn in blue with yellow bands, and a curved falchion sword with a black scabbard and yellow fittings. Line drawing Fig 2 on page 6 also uses the Percy standard to show how any of these separate badges might have been used as a single item, perhaps as company or estate standards.
Referring to Heraldic Banners of the Wars of the Roses by Coveney (also published by Lance and Longbow) the Percy arms are shown quartered with the blue lion on yellow (1st quarter), three white fish on red (2nd quarter), with these repeating on the second line, fish (3rd quarter) and lion (4th quarter). This would be the Earl's only.
See: link
His sons would display similar but with a cadency mark.
See:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadency
Now we are lucky that the same book also shows the full banner of Sir Richard Percy (Thomas' BROTHER) as a blue lion on yellow (i.e. same as 1st and 4th quarters of his father's) with a white annulet (circle) on the lion as the cadency mark. Which means Sir Richard was counted by the heralds as the official 5th son.
This means that the first son known to have been born, in 1418, was discounted when calculating cadency. See:
link
This first son evidently did not survive infancy.
If this is the case then Henry Percy (later 3rd Earl) would have carried had a label of three points during his father's lifetime and your Thomas would have been SECOND son in the heraldic pecking order and would have carried the crescent moon as his cadency mark. Now, as a white crescent moon was also a Percy badge (see main standard, above) it is very tempting to suggest that Thomas either carried a crescent moon as his personal badge alone OR he used a white lion on his standard adorned with a crescent moon.
So… what we PROBABLY have for Lord Egremont is a yellow banner bearing an upright blue lion and a white crescent moon – for cadency – as his banner (heraldic coat of arms) but if he follows his father's practice it will be red/black with a white lion and crescent moon upon it has his standard or livery banner. The crescent moon would not be white (as the lion is white) and would probably be black or red.
Note also that the Percy lion changes colour between the banner (blue) and the standard or livery banner (white). This is because of the rule that you cannot put a colour on a colour or a metal on a metal. The 'metals' were white/silver and yellow/gold. It was simple common sense to create this rule as putting a colour on a colour would create a lack of contrast in a period when no telescopes or binoculars were used. Everything had to be easy to read AT DISTANCE to aid in identifying friends and foes.
As a footnote: Bills, Bows and Bloodshed, with the six-page livery colour article, is currently available on e-bay.
Barry
