DENBIGHSHIRE In his seventeenth century work about the Battle of Agincourt, the poet Michael Drayton describes a banner

borne by soldiers from Denbighshire, Those of.........Denbigh, a Neptune with his three-forkd Mace: which may have been a little fanciful. Denbighshire County Council was awarded arms in 1962. Prior to this it had informally used a lion rampant as a seal and a lion was included in the 1962 award

. Whilst several sources have suggested that the lion derives from the arms of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who built Denbigh Castle, it should be considered that the castle was constructed as an instrument of suppression of the local population and it would therefore be rather peculiar for the councils arms to celebrate this aspect of the localitys history. Additionally the De Lacy arms were unequivocally acknowledged as being yellow with a rather unusual, distinctly purple lion

. More likely is that the lion recalls the arms, a black lion rampant on a white field, assigned to the mediaeval Welsh kingdom of Powys Fadog which included swathes of modern day Denbighshire,

Accordingly the armorial banner based on this design has been suggested as a potential flag for the county

In 1974 the newly reconstituted county council which retained the name Denbighshire was awarded with new arms

which retained he black lion but placed it over a quartered yellow and white field

meant to recall the cross

used by the local ancient prince, Edwin of

Tegeingl also featured in symbols used by neighbouring Flintshire. The quarters of the field are white in the first and third quarters and yellow in second and third although there appears to be no specific reason for this choice of colours. Whilst the old armorial banner of Powys Fadog may be the appropriate flag for the county to bear Philip Tibbetts has also composed the following proposal which features the mace described by Michael Drayton set against the quartered yellow and white field of the modern day civic arms.