File:TennysonArms.png

English: Arms of Tennyson: Gules, a bend nebuly or thereon a chaplet vert between three leopard's faces jessant-de-lys of the second.

The Tennyson arms are a "colourful imitation" of the arms borne by an older family of Tenison (see arms of w: Thomas Tenison (1636-1715), Archbishop of Canterbury), which were pirated by the latter from the family of Denys of (Syston & Dyrham) Gloucestershire, Knights tempore Henry VIII , apparently on the assumption that "Tenison" was a corruption of "Denys's son"

(Source: Cokayne, G. E. & Geoffrey H. White, eds. (1953). The Complete Peerage, or a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times, volume XII part 1: Skelmersdale to Towton. 12.1 (2nd ed.). London: The St. Catherine Press, p.666-7, note (f), quoting: "Barron in Ancestor, No.2, p.189; c.f. No.6, p.170")

The arms of Denys of Gloucestershire (previously of Waterton, Glamorgan) were a difference of Cantilupe of Candleston Castle, Glamorgan, which family originated the jessant-de-lys heraldic charge (arms adopted by Saint w:Thomas de Cantilupe (d.1282), Bishop of Hereford)