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A distinction blazon holds strictly and ordinary usage ignores entirely.
Count the towers. A tower is one structure — a single masonry tower with battlements and a door. A castle is specifically two towers joined by an embattled wall with a gateway between them. Calling a single tower a castle is wrong in blazon even though it is unremarkable in speech.
A tower is one structure; a castle is two towers joined by a wall. Blazon holds the distinction and ordinary usage does not.
| Tower (heraldic charge) | Castle (heraldic charge) | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of towers | One | Two |
| Connecting wall | None | An embattled curtain wall between the towers |
| Gateway | A door in the tower itself | An arched gateway in the wall, often with a portcullis |
| Common variant | Triple-towered — three turrets on top | Triple-towered — a third tower over the gate |
| Relationship (from Symbolwise's records) | Commonly confused with Castle (heraldic charge) — A tower is one structure; a castle is two towers joined by a wall. Blazon holds the distinction and ordinary usage does not. | Commonly confused with Tower (heraldic charge) — A tower is one structure; a castle is two towers joined by a wall. Blazon holds the distinction and ordinary usage does not. |
Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (1909), via Project Gutenberg · retrieved 2026-08-20
The standard English-language reference, and a period one: published 1909, so it states Edwardian English practice as though universal and is occasionally sharp about continental usage. Cited for blazon terminology, the conventional depiction of charges, and — notably — for its own detailed refutation of tincture symbolism.
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-08-20
Tertiary reference. Cited for the blazon term, the conventional form of a charge and uncontested historical detail. Never cited for a claim that a charge carries a fixed symbolic meaning.
A bend runs from the top left of the shield to the bottom right as you look at it; a bend sinister runs the other way. The bend sinister is widely said to mark illegitimacy, and that is not quite right: the mark used in English practice was the narrower baton sinister, granted case by case rather than applied automatically. 'Bar sinister' is not a heraldic term at all — a bar is horizontal and cannot be sinister.
Look at what the arms end in. A cross patonce widens outward and splits into three splayed points at each end; a cross fleury ends in a full fleur-de-lis. In practice the two are drawn so similarly that the standard authorities themselves differ over particular coats, and this is one of the genuinely unsettled distinctions in blazon.
Count the points. Both have arms that narrow at the centre and widen outward. A cross pattée ends in four straight edges — four points in total. A Maltese cross has each outer edge notched inward, producing two points per arm and eight in all.
Size and feet. An eagle is a principal charge, drawn large with wings spread and talons showing. A martlet is small, swallow-like, and has no feet at all — tufts of feathers appear where the legs would be. The martlet is also a cadency mark: in English practice it identifies a fourth son.