Shakespeare coat of arms

[3][2][7] The drafts have minor differences, and would have been used as a basis for the official grant or "letters patent", which as far as is known no longer exists,[8] though there is a late 17th-century copy.

[7] The heraldry scholar Wilfrid Scott-Giles suggests that the changes and additions that can be seen on the drafts may have been made during discussions between William and the heralds.

William wrote in Macbeth, 10 years later:[10][11] Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown And put a barren sceptre in my grip, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding.

[12] It is likely that she wanted the Arden family's coat of arms to descend to their children, but this only became possible after her husband's grant.

It appears that the coat of arms of a more prestigious branch of the Arden family was requested, but stricken from the draft.

[10] The clergyman William Harrison wrote in 1577 that the heralds "do of custom pretend antiquity and service, and many gay things thereunto".

[4]: 41 A speech in the play Richard II, written around 1595, mentions a lance and a falcon, possibly inspired by William's dealings with the heralds.

[21] It has been suggested that William's friend Ben Jonson alluded to the coat of arms in the 1599 comedy Every Man out of His Humour.

[22][3][4]: 32 The character Claudius Marcus wears the coat of arms in the 1968 Star Trek episode "Bread and Circuses".

[23][24] In the 2016 British sitcom Upstart Crow, John's desire and William's application for a coat of arms is a recurring plot point.