The Count of Krigsvold bears personal arms granted by the Chief Herald of Arms of Malta and territorial arms for each of his three titles. Both are governed by established heraldic convention and employed consistently across documents and contexts.
Personal arms
The personal arms of the Count are those of James P. Howard, II, granted under Letters Patent numbered G0102 by Count Charles Anthony Gauci, Chief Herald of Arms of Malta, on 1 May 2024. The grant was formally published in the Gazzetta tal-Gvern ta’ Malta, issue 21,194, on 16 February 2024, and is registered at Fort Saint Elmo, Valletta. The arms have also been entered in the records of the Committee on Heraldry of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the American College of Heraldry, and the American Armigers Register.
Argent in pale a tetrahedron Azure pierced in bend by a sword Or with pommel and crosspiece of the Second. Upon a helm befitting his degree with mantling Azure and doubled Or is set for crest, upon a wreath of the liveries a martlet Sable. Motto: Ir-rieda biss tmexxi l-qalb.
The field is Argent, silver, representing clarity and intellectual purpose. On it stands a tetrahedron Azure, one of the five Platonic solids: the geometrically perfect triangular pyramid, associated in classical thought with the element of fire and in modern mathematics with the foundations of polyhedral geometry. For a mathematician and data scientist, the tetrahedron is an appropriate armorial charge: a form that is simultaneously elemental and exact. The tetrahedron is pierced in bend by a sword Or, its pommel and crosspiece Azure, the livery colors reversed, a detail that ties the charge and the weapon into a single composition. The sword denotes service and purpose.
The crest, a martlet Sable on a wreath of the liveries, carries its own significance. In heraldry, the martlet is a bird shown without feet, a creature of perpetual flight that never lands. The martlet has long been associated with younger sons and those who must make their way through continuous effort and learning. Here it represents the ongoing pursuit of knowledge that animates the Count’s educational work.
The liveries, Azure and Or, blue and gold, carry through the mantling and appear in the tartan separately registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans under registration number 14,834 as the James Howard and Family (Personal) tartan.
Territorial arms
Three territorial arms are associated with the Count’s titles. Each is formally connected to a real geographic feature in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, and each has been designed to reflect both the character of that feature and the particular role it plays within the Count’s structured approach to climate education.
Krigsvold
Azure, a snowflake Argent, a chief invected Argent
The arms of Krigsvold bear Azure, the blue of Antarctic sky and polar water, on which a single snowflake of six points rests in Argent, silver. The snowflake is the fundamental unit of the Antarctic cryosphere: the crystal form through which precipitation becomes ice sheet becomes glacier becomes the subject of every major dataset in polar climate science. A chief invected Argent surmounts the field. The invected line, a series of small convex curves, recalls the irregular profile of a nunatak ridge breaking through the ice surface, the very form of the Krigsvold Nunataks themselves.
The composition works as a landscape read from bottom to top. The Azure field occupies the lower portion of the shield, the snowflake floating at its center as the essential element of the cryosphere. Above it, the chief invected Argent introduces the only other tincture in the arms, its silver repeating the color of the snowflake but standing for something entirely different: not ice, but rock, the exposed stone of the nunatak ridge breaking the surface. Both charge and chief are Argent, yet they represent the two distinct substances that define the nunatak itself, ice and the rock that rises through it. The arms achieve economy of design without sacrificing precision: two tinctures, one charge, one ordinary, and between them a portrait of the terrain.
As the principal title, Krigsvold carries the most directly representative arms: a field that evokes the landscape, a charge that names the physical substance under study, and a line of partition that describes the terrain.
Rubin de la Borbolla
Gules, three estoiles of twelve in chief
The arms of Rubin de la Borbolla are Gules, red, a field that in heraldic tradition signifies importance, urgency, and the call to attention. Three estoiles of twelve points are placed in chief, toward the top of the shield. An estoile differs from a star in that its points are wavy rather than straight, giving it an appearance of radiance or emanation rather than fixed geometry.
The arrangement of three estoiles in chief, concentrated in the upper portion of the shield rather than distributed across the field, is a deliberate compositional choice. The lower Gules field remains plain, a ground of uninterrupted urgency, drawing the eye upward to where the estoiles are gathered. The effect is directional: observation, like the work of a meteorologist, is oriented toward the sky. The twelve points of each estoile, rather than the six of a standard estoile, multiply the radiating lines and suggest the complexity of atmospheric data: not a single instrument reading but an array, not one observation but the accumulated record through which scientific inference becomes possible. Rubin de la Borbolla was a meteorologist. His arms look upward.
Three estoiles in chief suggest observation and measurement: instruments pointed at the sky, data gathered over time, the sustained scientific attention that distinguishes real polar research from passing interest. Rubin de la Borbolla, named for a meteorologist who served at Plateau Station, is the title most directly associated with the processes of environmental observation, modeling, and interpretation. The arms reflect that role.
Matikonis
Per pale Gules and Vert, an oak tree counterchanged, fructed Or
The arms of Matikonis are divided per pale, vertically, in Gules and Vert, red and green. On this divided field stands an oak tree counterchanged: that is, the half of the tree on the red side is shown in green, and the half on the green side is shown in red. The tree bears acorns fructed Or, in gold.
The combination of Gules and Vert is unusual in heraldry, the two colors rarely paired because together they carry a visual weight that creates tension. Here that tension is the point. Red and green suggest the biological urgency of ecosystems under pressure: the living world, rendered in Vert, against the Gules of alarm and consequence. The oak, a northern tree with no presence on the Antarctic continent, is chosen precisely because it is not geographically literal. Where Krigsvold’s snowflake describes ice and Rubin de la Borbolla’s estoiles describe the sky, Matikonis reaches for a symbol of deep time: the oak that takes centuries to mature, that roots in difficult ground, that produces fruit long after planting. It stands for the work that outlasts any single observation campaign.
The oak is an emblem of endurance, deep roots, and long growth. Counterchanged, it demonstrates the capacity to adapt to different conditions while remaining structurally coherent, a quality that describes both the nunatak peaks themselves and the disciplined analytical work associated with this baronial title. The golden fruit suggests the scientific harvest of sustained, patient observation: the kind of longitudinal data that can only be gathered through years of continuous presence in a difficult environment.
Protocol and use
The personal arms are borne in accordance with the terms of the Maltese grant. The territorial arms are employed where formal identification of the Count’s offices is appropriate. All are used consistently and in accordance with established heraldic hierarchy.