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Everyone to Parliament!

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The Present-Day Place D'Youville

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Place Royale

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Place d’Armes

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Notre-Dame Street

6

Champ-de-Mars

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Coat of Arms

Detail from a 19th-century painting depicting the throne in the Assembly Chamber of Montréal’s Parliament. The throne is flanked on either side by lamps and topped by the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, above which hangs a gilded clock. The coat of arms shows a unicorn and a lion framing a shield. A man in a black robe sits on the throne.

James Duncan, “The House of Assembly, Montreal” (detail), National Gallery of Canada, 28066.

The throne in the Assembly Chamber is adorned with the Royal Arms of Great Britain. They appear wherever representatives of the Crown sit, symbolizing the monarch’s presence during official proceedings.

A Symbol of the British Monarchy

Guy Lessard, Pointe-à-Callière.

The video opens with a 360-degree view of a 3D model of the United Kingdom’s coat of arms. A gold shield is topped with a helmet and a crown, and flanked by a unicorn on the right and a lion on the left. The crown, and the heads of the lion and unicorn, have been sawn off. The video stops after 10 seconds, offering a full view of the coat of arms.


This finely carved coat of arms is topped by a helm (a knight’s helmet) and the Imperial State Crown. On either side of the shield stand the lion and the unicorn, along with the British monarchs’ motto: “Dieu et mon droit.”

Table

Detail from a 19th-century painting depicting the throne in the Assembly Chamber of Montréal’s Parliament. The throne is flanked on either side by lamps and topped by the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, above which hangs a gilded clock. The coat of arms shows a unicorn and a lion framing a shield. A man in a black robe sits on the throne.

James Duncan, “The House of Assembly, Montreal” (detail), National Gallery of Canada, 28066.

We know that the coat of arms hung above the throne of the Legislative Assembly, in keeping with tradition—and thanks as well to this watercolour by James Duncan, which depicts the Legislative Assembly chamber and its royal symbols.

Rediscovered Coat of Arms

Coat of arms of the United Kingdom. A golden shield is topped with a helmet and a crown, and flanked by a unicorn on the right and a lion on the left. The crown and the heads of the lion and the unicorn have been sawn off.

Pointe-à-Callière, 2010.77.


In 2010, the Honourable Robert P. Kaplan revealed that he had bought this coat of arms twenty years earlier at a flea market in New York State. The seller claimed it came from Montréal’s Parliament, which burned in 1849—a story Kaplan considered doubtful at the time, yet intriguing.

When he learned that Pointe-à-Callière was undertaking excavations on the Parliament site, Kaplan donated it to the museum. The object does indeed date from the period, though its whereabouts after the building’s destruction cannot be confirmed. The deep scars it bears—lion and unicorn beheaded—nevertheless evoke the violence of the April 25, 1849 riot. A truly fascinating story!