In 2009, the 400th anniversary of the arrival, by crashing onto a reef, on July 28, 1609, of the English ship Sea Venture was celebrated throughout Bermuda as a major commemoration of that event, which accidentally led to the permanent settlement of the island three years later. It seems that there had only been three such previous celebrations, the first possibly that of the three hundredth anniversary in 1909, though the significant part of the occasion was delayed until 1911 when the monument in Somers Garden in St. George’s was ready for unveiling.The second anniversary was in 1959, marking 350 years since the wrecking of the Sea Venture, while the third took place in a less major way for the 375th anniversary in 1984. Much, however, that we associate with the foundation and settlement of Bermuda did not exist in the three years between the sinking of the Sea Venture and the arrival of the ship, Plough, on July 11, 1612 with the first settlers.After the complement of the Sea Venture left for Jamestown, Virginia, in early May 1610, two men were left behind, one an escaped murderer, but in early 1611, when Matthew Somers, having returned to Bermuda with his uncle and others in late 1610, set sail for England, a third man was left here to join the other two first “Bermudians”, if you will. For company of a sort, the “Three Kings” may have tended the graves of the two children born and deceased here in 1609-10 and that of Henry Paine, who was executed for a crime in the same period, “his life and the sun setting together”.Thought perhaps to have been left here to hold a claim to the place for Britain, the Three Kings established no government, nor any material semblances of civilisation, but spent much time fighting over a lump of ambergris, much valued for its use in perfumes, and which originated from the belly of a whale. Their freewheeling lifestyle came to an end on July 11, 1612, when some 50 formal settlers and the island’s first governor arrived from England under the corporate banner of the Virginia Company of London.Three years later, the Bermuda Company was established by some of the major shareholders of the Virginia Company and from these first years after 1612, we may find markers of the formal settlement of the island, which for all the time of people on Earth, had seen only, from its discovery in 1505 onwards, the occasion shipwrecked mariners.At present, the surviving markers of the first three years of settlement appear in some of the forts built in stone by Governor Richard Moore, for all the timber buildings of those years have long vanished. We have not, as yet, found archaeological deposits equivalent to those discovered in recent years from Jamestown, that is to say, the buried evidence of Bermuda’s earliest years as a human settlement.In 1616, through the survey work of famed mathematician Richard Norwood, the island was carved up for development, with 25- and 50-acre plots being allocated to shareholders of the Bermuda Company, each in relation to the level of their investment. By the time Norwood’s survey appeared in the now-classic map published by John Speed in 1626, Bermuda was a modern developer’s paradise, for with the exception of the common land in what eventually became St George’s Parish, the entire island was “zoned” private property, ripe for creating whatever the shareholders desired.From the 1626 map, we can see that some shareholders were more equal than others, for in addition to the allocation of actual lands, eight of the investors were honoured by calling the first eight parishes (or “Tribes” as originally named) by their family names. Despite attempts at Bermudianisation in the 18th century, when locals tried to change the names of the parishes (Paget, for example, was renamed “Crow Lane”), those parish appellations have survived into the beginning of Bermuda’s fifth century as a place of human habitation.Aside from the boundaries shown on the 1626 chart, each parish had the coat of arms of its namesake associated with it, though when the allocation of such “logos” formally took place is uncertain. Some decades ago, the artist William Harrington, was commissioned to paint a set of the parish coats of arms, the eight in question are produced here.Starting in the west, the crests represent the families of Sir Edwin Sandys (pronounced Sands), the Earls of Southampton and Warwick, Lord Paget, the Earls of Pembroke and Devonshire, Sir Thomas Smythe and finally in the east, before the common land of St George’s, the Marquis of Hamilton. The later and last parish name, St George’s, as its prefix states, represents a heavenly entity, not a shareholder in the corporation of the Bermuda Company.Such crests have their origins in mediaeval times, when it was necessary for an ironclad knight to show some outward sign of his identity; such a pictorial sign of authority was also useful in more illiterate times. A central shield had a “supporter” on either side, often an aggressive or mythical figure, and for the literati, a motto in text, often Latin, was emblazoned at the top or bottom.Such mediaeval heraldry sells, especially to Jamestown descendants and others in what has become the Northeast of the United States of America. Some years ago, every parish in Bermuda displayed its coat of arms and a message of welcome at its borders; now this seems only to appear in Sandys Parish, due to the efforts of its Council, situated perhaps appropriately next to the New Traditions Restaurant.Next year, as Bermuda enters its fifth century, we might return to selling more generally one of the major things that sells the place well, namely its cultural heritage. In this instance, it would no doubt be pleasing to our visitors to be welcomed to each and every parish by its coat of arms and an underlining text of appreciation, indicating to that category of humans, who have long paid for our existence in the “second most remotest place on Earth”, that we are delighted to see them here in this place, the development of which was begun a mere 399 years ago by the knights of the boardroom table of the Bermuda Company.After all, to most of them, one part of Bermuda, if generally compared to its neighbour, is as faceless and unidentifiable as the armoured facades of Sir Galahad and the other boys of the King Arthur’s Round Table.Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum at Dockyard. Comments may be made to director[AT]bmm.bm or 704-5480.