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The Royal Coat of Arms of England, or the Royal Arms for short, was the official coat of arms of the English monarch, used on official documents and on coinage - since the coinage was (and still is) issued in the name of the monarch and not the country.
The Stuart dynasty variant was used between 1603 (the accession of King James I to the English throne) until 1707 when, with the Acts of Union, England and Scotland were united and the Coat of Arms of England was succeeded by the arms of Great Britain.
The symbol is a shield, quartered to represent the monarch's rule over England, Scotland, Ireland, and France (the English monarchs still claimed the French throne at the time, even though they never managed to actually rule France). The first and fourth quarters (upper left and lower right) represent England; they are also quartered, with two representations of the three gold lions passant guardant (walking to left) on a red field (for England) and two quarters each with three gold fleurs-de-lis on blue (for France). In the upper right quarter, a red lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory on a gold field represents Scotland, and below left a gold harp with silver strings on a blue field stands for Ireland.
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