Earl Roger in gold & blue

 

Thanks to JT for responding to my post about Earl Roger of Montgomery, the original Norman overlord of Shrewsbury.  I was mulling there over the theory that the gold & blue colouring in the loggerheads might have come from Earl Roger's shield of arms (even though if he had a set of arms, I couldn't find them).

JT pointed me in the direction of the 17th century map made by John Speed, a copy of which is to be found in the Civil War Room at Shrewsbury Museum.  Speed clearly has Roger's colours as gold & blue. 
However, as Speed lived five hundred years after Roger, he may have just been responding to a 'folk tradition'.

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Earl Roger the overlord

The tomb of Earl Roger de Montgomery in Shrewsbury Abbey is one of the town's most precious heritage assets.  Earl Roger was the Norman lord who was installed as the first Earl of Shrewsbury by William The Conqueror following the Norman invasion of England in 1066.

It's said that the reason that the traditional colours of loggerheads/Shrewsbury are gold & blue is because there were Earl Roger's colours. In fact, though Roger's wife and his son seemed to have arms of gold & blue bars, I can't find a direct link between Roger himself and any gold & blue colouring.  Can anyone help me find out more about this?

The gold & blue colours-combination has persisted for nearly one thousand years in Shrewsbury.  Today, the town's football club play in these same exact colours!

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