The arms and crest of the Royal Bastards were defined in Article III of the society’s constitution,  adopted before 1958, in this way:

The Arms of the Society shall be: on a shield gules a lion passant or, a canton or charged with two pairs of unicorns’ horns in saltire, sinister over dexter, couped vert, over all a baton sinister sable, inside a bordure wavy vert. Crest: on a knight’s helmet reversed antlered proper a ducal coronet or, surmounted by a cuckoo rampant proper. Motto: Honi soit qui mal y pense.

In his 1974 article on the Bastards, founder Walter Lee Sheppard Jr. wrote at length on the symbolism of arms and crest:

The unicorn, a fabulous beast, is considered a “royal animal,” and two are used as supporters of the Royal Arms of Scotland. Since the union of the two kingdoms, the Royal Arms of Great Britain have included one unicorn and one lion. According to mythology, a unicorn may only be captured by a virgin.

The prime ingredient in the ancient formulae for love philters, and later for aphrodisiacs, was ground up unicorn’s horn. The basic shield bears the lion of England (originally called a leopard) in the style of its earliest appearance, a single beast, a gold animal charged upon a red shield, for English royalty. The canton is an addition, sometimes, but not often, used to identify an illegitimate connection of the bearer, most often simply used for difference. This one has a suggestive charge: a double cross (the two pairs of unicorns’ horns in saltire). The meaning of the double cross must be immediately apparent to most Americans. This one is composed of materials used for making love philters, and the left over the right is suggestive of illegitimacy. The internal top corners of the crosses just touch, forming a diamond, the design (called a lozenge) upon which a maiden displays her arms. (A knight uses the shield.) The baton sinister, charged over all, is the symbol most frequently used in England to denote bastardy, but in Scotland the wavy border is more common. We have both in this coat.

The crest includes a reversed knight’s helmet, the reversal again denoting bastardy. A knight’s helmet would indicate the probable quality of one partner, and the ducal coronet the other. “Putting the horns” on the knight’s helmet (perhaps the husband of the lady) is perhaps more suggestive to the American mind, but quite intelligible to the heralds of all nations. Any bird lover knows that one attribute of the cuckoo is to lay its eggs in another bird’s nest. The royal unicorns used as supporters have, of course, sacrificed their horns to the alchemist for his love philters. The motto has been appropriated from the Most Noble Order of the Garter as entirely suitable to our worthy purposes.

Mr. Sheppard went on to note that the arms were first “drawn by America’s great herald, the late Dr. Harold Bowditch. He was not a member of the Society, but was in favor of it. He was very pleased with the heraldry of our coat armour and donated his time and effort to make our four-color membership certificate.”

Since 2008, the Society has been using an emblazonment of the arms by the late Romilly Squire, further adapted for digital use by our then Secretary-Treasurer James R. Terzian.   It is this rendering which currently appears on the website and above. This emblazonment adds several features furthering the winking allusions of the original design: the mantling tasselled with unlocked padlocks (evoking the unhistorical but ubiquitous motif of a locked chastity belt); the helm pierced with breathing holes in the pattern of a 4-leaved clover and its neck adorned with a collar of a black fleece (suggesting both luck and villainy or disapprobation); and finally, in an escrol the cri-de-guerre vrai prouvé (proved true). This last element might at first be taken as more in earnest than in jest, but scholars know that even the firmest-seeming genealogical conclusion might be overturned or cast into doubt with new evidence or a more skilled or nuanced interpretation.

The badge of the Royal Bastards is in the shape of a lozenge and may be blazoned as sable on a goutte or a baton sinister gules. Mr. Sheppard also defined and narrated the creation of this badge in his 1974 article:

A recognition badge, suggested by the late Lundie Weathers Barlow and designed by the late Dr. Harold Bowditch, was adopted by the Society in 1960. It may be described, heraldically, as follows: On a field sable, a [goutte] d’or, charged with a baton sinister gules. The badge was originally planned to be a lozenge bearing the above devices, but—because of unavailability of the proper diamond-shaped blanks—the Society settled on circular badges with small ceramic inserts on which the above device was painted and then fired. The [goutte] is a droplet, usually of blood or gold. Thus we interpret the device as: a black background representing mystery, or acts performed in the dark or secretly. The gold [goutte] indicates royal blood, and is surmounted by a baton sinister to indicate bastardy. The color of the baton is red, the color of the Royal Arms of Great Britain.

Since 2020 the badge has been correctly shaped—according to its original conception—as a lozenge, and is available for members as an enameled lapel pin or pendant. Older examples of the badge on a roundel, as mentioned in the 1974 article, are now collectors’ items.

The goutte on the badge is sometimes mistaken for a motile spermatozoon. Nevertheless the goutte—a French word indicating “drop”, as of blood, water, or some other liquid—is a well known charge in late medieval heraldry both in Britain and on the Continent. The goutte often appeared in form substantially similar to the emblazonment shown here—many generations before the invention of the microscope.