a feudal possession of the Pope under the overlordship of the English monarch. The decision to change the three crowns arms may have sprung "from an idea that they might denote the feudal sovereignty of the pope" — whose tiara has three crowns — "whose vassal the king of England was, as lord of Ireland." Despite this, the memory of the three crowns arms may have remained for a time with one Elizabethan variant of the harp, sometimes found on coins, maps and seals as early as 1562, using of the three harps, one replacing each of the three crowns of the lordship's arms. This appears to have been a creation of the newly established Ulster King of Arms and never captured the popular imagination sufficiently to replace the single Harp arms that was in use from the reign of Henry VIII. Thus, at the funeral cortège of Elizabeth I in 1603 depicted in a manuscript at the British Library, the Earl of Clanrickarde is shown carrying the banner of Ireland just as in the Wijnbergen Roll. A variant of arms of the royal province of Meath were also apparently used at one time as the arms of Ireland. Meath, now a part of the province of Leinster was once the province of the High Kings of Ireland. Its arms are of a king sitting on a throne on a blue field. The variant apparently used as the arms of Ireland were of a majesty on a sable (black) background instead of an azure (blue) field. Achievement The design of the harp used by the modern Irish state is based on the Brian Boru harp, a late-medieval Gaelic harp now in Trinity College Dublin. The design is by an English sculptor, Percy Metcalfe. Metcalfe's design was in response to a competition held by the state to design Irish coinage, which was to start circulation in December 1928. Metcalfe's design became the model for future official interpretations of the harp as an emblem of the state. The modern design is markedly different from earlier depictions. During the 17th century, it became common to depict the harp with a woman's head and breasts, like a ship's figurehead, as the pillar. It is not necessary to show a full complement of thirty strings, provided that the numbers do not fall below nine (notwithstanding the illustration to the left). The strings are always silver