Lee Family Coat of Arms

Description: “Gules, a fesse chequy or and azure between ten billets argent, four in chief, and three, two and one in base”. (On a red shield a broad horizontal bar composed of three rows of alternating blue and gold squares between ten silver oblong figures, four in the top part of the shield and six in the lower, arranged three, two, and one.).

The Lees of Virginia have adhered to quartering their arms with that of the Astley family, which described them as follows: “Azure a cinqfoil pierced ermine within a bordure engrailed of the second” (On a blue field a pierced five-leaved figure, within a scalloped ermine border).

However, this quartering was not used in the Virginia Lees until about the fourth generation, when Hon. Philip Ludwell Lee, Sr., Esq. (1727-1775) used it on his bookplate while a student at the Inner Temple in about 1750, and his brother Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), who had it on his seal ring.

The Lee crest consisted of: “On a staff raguly lying fesseways a squirrel sejant proper, cracking a nut (or acorn); from the dexter end of the staff a hazel (or oak) branch vert, fructed or”. (On a horizontal staff or branch, a squirrel sitting, depicted in its natural color, cracking a nut or acorn. From the right end of the staff hazel or oak branch, bearing golden fruit). The motto “Ne Incautus Futuri” which translates into “Be not unmindful of the future”