Gules [red]

An heraldic term. The most honourable heraldic colour, signifying valour, justice, and veneration. Hence it was given to kings and princes. The royal livery of England is gules or scarlet. In heraldry expressed by perpendicular parallel lines. (Persian, ghul, rose; French, gueules, the mouth and throat, or the red colour thereof; Latin, gula, the throat.)

“With man’s blood paint the ground, gules, gules.”

Shakespeare: Timon of Athens, iv. 3.

“And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast.”

Keats: Eve of St. Agnes.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.