England football badge has Three Lions due to thousand year old history

England are making steady progress in the 2026 World Cup, if not a bit too nervy at times.

Regardless of if the team bring it home or not at the World Cup, one thing will remain - those three lions on the shirt.

Yep, breathe it in. Sing Baddiel and Skinner at the top of your voice. Jules Rimet still gleaming, and all the rest.

But where does the iconic England badge's origin come from? And when, more precisely? It's time for a history lesson.

England's talisman, Harry Kane (Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)

There's the quick version up first. Long story short, the Three Lions on the England badge comes from the Coat of Arms of England which shows three golden lions on a red background.

At least it did between 1198 and 1340, and then again from 1360 to 1369, at other times it looked quite different and shared shield space with other images.

It's the iconic version that most people are going to know and associate with England specifically. You've probably seen this one somewhere, and even if you look at your passport the symbol on the front has got a couple of these images.

That crest with three lions on it is the sigil of the House of Plantagenet, who ruled England from 1154 when Henry II took the throne, until 1485 when Richard III decided he'd quite like to spend the next few centuries beneath what would eventually become a car park in Leicester.

Back then, people had all sorts of images and heraldry associated with them, and lions were always a popular choice.

Loads of people took lions as a symbol, including the historic House of Normandy from which William the Conqueror comes to the point that their Coat of Arms ended up having two lions on a red background.

William the Conqueror's son Henry I absolutely loved things that looked like lions, and gave gifts with lion imagery to his family so they had to love it too.

Henry would have had at least one lion on his heraldry, and likely added a second one when he married his second wife Adeliza, whose family also liked lion imagery.

The royal Coat of Arms on King John's tomb, three lions had become the consistent symbol for England during the reign of his older brother Richard. (Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images Images)

When his grandson Henry II came to the throne, the family were experimenting with all sorts of lion images, and there will have been imagery that featured one lion or two.

It doesn't hurt that the second Hank married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose symbol was yet another lion.

Eventually in 1198, Henry II's son Richard I started consistently using three lions - where before only one or two had been used.

Richard would die of gangrene from getting shot in the shoulder a year later, he was then succeeded by his brother John, who kept using the three lions and it rather stuck from there.

From then on it was pretty consistent that the symbol of the Kingdom of England was the sigil with three lions on it.

Centuries later when the FA were coming up with a badge for the England national team to wear on their football shirts, it was decided that they'd use the Coat of Arms of England as inspiration.

An alteration to the design was made in 1949 to remove the crown from atop the crest, which helps differentiate it from what you'd see on the shirts of England's cricket team.

The badge was also adorned with 10 Tudor roses, which were meant to signify the 10 levels of the football league at the time.

So now you know why it's 'Three Lions on a shirt'.