House Gagge

The crest used in the present Lord of Coley's arms incorporates elements associated with the Danish–Scanian ancient nobility represented by the Gagge family. In the late medieval and early modern Scandinavian world, "ancient nobility" (uradel) often denotes families whose nobility predates formal ennoblement letters, emerging instead through long-standing landholding, office-holding, and recognised status.

Gagge is historically associated with southern Scandinavia, including the Danish realm and the Scanian region (later Swedish). Like many such families, its prominence is tied to service—military and administrative—as well as to regional networks of marriage and land. The line is generally treated as extinct in the male line in the early eighteenth century, but genealogical descent through daughters can still carry the connection forward into later families.

On this site, Gagge is not presented as a separate "Coley line," but as part of the Swedish and Scandinavian background that sits behind the Vachell-to-Sweden story. In heraldic terms it contributes a distinct northern-European texture to the crest symbolism, complementing the more explicitly documented eighteenth-century Swedish noble marriages.

Further Reading:

• Reference summaries in Scandinavian nobility overviews (Denmark/Scania).
• Regional historical works on late-medieval office-holding families in southern Scandinavia.
• Comparative introductions to "uradel" in Swedish and Danish noble history.