Fig. 730.Fig. 730.—John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, bore: France (ancient) and England quarterly, a label of three pointsermine(i.e.each point charged with three ermine spots).
Fig. 730.—John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, bore: France (ancient) and England quarterly, a label of three pointsermine(i.e.each point charged with three ermine spots).
The label of the eldest son of the heir-apparent to the English throne is not, as might be imagined, a plain label of five points, but the plain label of three points, the centre point only being charged. The late Duke of Clarence charged the centre point of his label ofthree points with a cross couped gules. After his death the Duke of York relinquished the label of five points which he had previously borne, receiving one of three, the centre point charged with an anchor. In every other case all of the points are charged. The following examples of the labels in use at the moment will show how the system now exists:—
Prince of Wales.—A label of three points argent.
Princess Royal(Louise, Duchess of Fife).—A label of five points argent, charged on the centre and outer points with a cross of St. George gules, and on the two others with a thistle proper.
Princess Victoria.—A label of five points argent, charged with three roses and two crosses gules.
Princess Maud(H.M. The Queen of Norway).—A label of five points argent, charged with three hearts and two crosses gules.
The Duke of Edinburgh(Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha).—A label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a cross gules, and on each of the others an anchor azure. His son, the hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who predeceased his father, bore a label of five points, the first, third, and fifth each charged with a cross gules, and the second and fourth each with an anchor azure (Fig. 731).
Fig. 731.Fig. 731.—Label of the late hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Fig. 731.—Label of the late hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The Duke of Connaught.—A label of three points argent, the centre point charged with St. George's cross, and each of the other points with a fleur-de-lis azure.
The late Princess Royal(German Empress).—A label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a rose gules, and each of the others with a cross gules.
The late Grand Duchess of Hesse.—A label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a rose gules, and each of the others with an ermine spot sable.
Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein.—A label of three points, the centre point charged with St. George's cross, and each of the other points with a rose gules.
Princess Louise(Duchess of Argyll).—A label of three points, the centre point charged with a rose, and each of the other two with a canton gules.
Princess Henry of Battenberg.—A label of three points, the centre point charged with a heart, and each of the other two with a rose gules.
The late Duke of Albany.—A label of three points, the centre point charged with a St. George's cross, and each of the other two with a heart gules.
The Dukes of Cambridge.—The first Duke had a label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a St. George's cross, and each of the other two withtwohearts in pale gules. The warrant to the late Duke assigned him the same label with the addition of a second label, plain, of three points gules, to be borne below the former label.
The first Duke of Cumberland.—A label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a fleur-de-lis azure, and each of the other two points with a cross of St. George gules.
Of the foregoing recently assigned labels all are borne over the plain English arms (1 and 4 England, 2 Scotland, 3 Ireland), charged with the escutcheon of Saxony, except those of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Cambridge, and Cumberland. In the two latter cases the labels are borne over thelatestversion of the arms of King George III.,i.e.with the inescutcheon of Hanover, but, of course, neither the electoral bonnet nor the later crown which surmounted the inescutcheon of Hanover was made use of, and the smaller inescutcheon bearing the crown of Charlemagne was also omitted for the children of George III., except in the case of the Prince of Wales, who bore the plain inescutcheon of gules, but without the crown of Charlemagne thereupon.
The labels for the other sons and daughters of King George III. were as follows:—
The Duke of York.—A label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a cross gules. The Duke of York bore upon the inescutcheon of Hanover an inescutcheon argent (in the place occupied in the Royal Arms by the inescutcheon charged with the crown of Charlemagne) charged with a wheel of six spokes gules, for the Bishopric of Osnaburgh, which he possessed.
The Duke of Clarence(afterwards William IV.).—A label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a cross gules, and each of the others with an anchor erect azure.
The Duke of Kenthad his label charged with a cross gules between two fleurs-de-lis azure.
The Duke of Sussex.—The label argent charged with two hearts in pale gules in the centre point between two crosses gules.
The Princess Royal(Queen of Würtemberg).—A rose between two crosses gules.
The Princess Augusta.—A like label, charged with a rose gules between two ermine spots.
The Princess Elizabeth(Princess of Hesse-Homburg).—A like label charged with a cross between two roses gules.
The Princess Mary(Duchess of Gloucester).—A like label, charged with a rose between two cantons gules.
The Princess Sophia.—A like label, charged with a heart between two roses gules.
The Princess Amelia.—A like label, charged with a rose between two hearts gules.
The Duke of Gloucester(brother of George III.).—A label offivepoints argent, charged with a fleur-de-lis azure between four crosses gules. His son (afterwards Duke of Gloucester) bore an additional plain label of three points during the lifetime of his father.
The Royal labels are placed across the shield, on the crest, and on each of the supporters. The crest stands upon and is crowned with a coronet identical with the circlet of any coronet of rank assigned in the same patent; the lion supporter is crowned and the unicorn supporter is gorged with a similar coronet. It may perhaps be of interest to note that no badges and no motto are ever now assigned in these Royal Warrants except in the case of the Prince of Wales.
F.-M. H.S.H. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Consort of H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte (only child of George IV.), received by warrant dated April 7, 1818, the right "to use and bear the Royal Arms (without the inescocheon of Charlemagne's crown, and without the Hanoverian Royal crown) differenced with a label of five points argent, the centre point charged with a rose gules, quarterly with the arms of his illustrious House ['Barry of ten sable and or, a crown of rue in bend vert'], the Royal Arms in the first and fourth quarters."
By Queen Victoria's desire this precedent was followed in the case of the late Prince Consort, the label in his case being of three points argent, the centre point charged with a cross gules, and, by a curious coincidence, the arms of his illustrious House, with which the Royal Arms were quartered, were again the arms of Saxony, these appearing in the second and third quarters.
Quite recently a Royal Warrant has been issued for H.M. Queen Alexandra. This assigns, upon a single shield within the Garter, the undifferenced arms of His Majesty impaled with the undifferenced arms of Denmark. The shield is surmounted by the Royal crown. The supporters are: (dexter) the lion of England, and (sinister) a savage wreathed about the temples and loins with oak and supporting in his exterior hand a club all proper. This sinister supporter is taken from the Royal Arms of Denmark.
Abroad there is now no equivalent whatever to our methods of differencing the Royal Arms. An official certificate was issued to me recently from Denmark of the undifferenced Royal Arms of Denmark certified as correct for the "Princes and Princesses" of that country. But the German Crown Prince bears his shield within a bordure gules, and anciently in France (from which country the English system wasvery probably originally derived) the differencing of the Royal French Arms for the younger branches seems to have been carefully attended to, as has been already specified.
Differencing in Scotland is carried out on an entirely different basis from differencing in England. In Scotland the idea is still rigidly preserved and adhered to that the coat of arms of a family belongs only to the head of the family for the time being, and the terms of a Scottish grant are as follows: "Know ye therefore that we have devised and do by these presents assign ratify and confirm to the said —— and his descendantswith such congruent differences as may hereafter be matriculated for them the following ensigns armorial." Under the accepted interpretation of Scottish armorial law, whilst the inherent gentility conferred by a patent of arms is not denied to cadets, no right to make use of arms is conceded to them until such time as they shall elect to matriculate the arms of their ancestor in their own names. This point has led to a much purer system of heraldry in Scotland than in England, and there is far less heraldic abuse in that country as a result, because the differences are decided not haphazardly by the user himself, as is the case in England, but by a competent officer of arms. Moreover the constant occasions of matriculation bring the arms frequently under official review. There is no fixed rule which decidesipse factowhat difference shall be borne, and consequently this decision has retained in the hands of the heraldic executive an amount of control which they still possess far exceeding that of the executive in England, and perhaps the best way in which to state the rules which hold good will be to reprint a portion of one of the Rhind Lectures, delivered by Sir James Balfour Paul, which is devoted to the point:—
"I have said that in Scotland the principle which limited the number of paternal coats led to a careful differencing of these coats as borne by the junior branches of the family. Though the English system was sometimes used, it has never obtained to any great extent in Scotland, the practice here being generally to difference by means of a bordure, in which way many more generations are capable of being distinguished than is possible by the English method. The weak point of the Scottish system is that, whilst the general idea is good, there is no definite rule whereby it can be carried out on unchanging lines; much is left to the discretion of the authorities.
"As a general rule, it may be stated that the second son bears a plain bordure of the tincture of the principal charge in the shield, and his younger brothers also bear plain bordures of varying tinctures. In the next generation the eldest son of the second son would bear his father's coat and bordure without change; the second son would have the bordure engrailed; the third, invected; the fourth, indented,and so on, the other sons of the younger sons in this generation differencing their father's bordures in the same way. The junior members of the next generation might have their bordures parted per pale, the following generations having their bordures parted per fess and per saltire, per cross or quarterly, gyronny or compony, that is, divided into alternate spaces of metal or colour in a single trace—this, however, being often in Scotland a mark of illegitimacy—counter-compone or a similar pattern in two tracts, or chequy with three or more tracts.
"You will see that these modifications of the simple bordure afford a great variety of differences, and when they are exhausted the expedient can then be resorted to of placing on the bordures charges taken from other coats, often from those of a maternal ancestor; or they may be arbitrarily assigned to denote some personal characteristic of the bearer, as in the case of James Maitland, Major in the Scots regiment of Foot Guards, who carries the dismembered lion of his family within a bordure wavy azure charged with eight hand grenades or, significant, I presume, of his military profession.
"You will observe that, with all these varieties of differencing we have mentioned, the younger branches descending from the original eldest son of the parent house are still left unprovided with marks of cadency. These, however, can be arranged for by taking the ordinary which appears in their father's arms and modifying its boundary lines. Say the original coat was 'argent, a chevron gules,' the second son of the eldest son would have the chevron engrailed, but without any bordure; the third, invected, and so on; and the next generations the systems of bordures accompanying the modified chevron would go on as before. And when all these methods are exhausted, differences can still be made in a variety of ways,e.g.by charging the ordinary with similar charges in a similar manner to the bordure as Erskine of Shielfield, a cadet of Balgownie, who bore: 'Argent, on a pale sable, a cross crosslet fitchée or within a bordure azure'; or by the introduction of an ordinary into a coat which had not one previously, a bend or the ribbon (which is a small bend) being a favourite ordinary to use for this purpose. Again, we occasionally find a change of tincture of the field of the shield used to denote cadency.
"There are other modes of differencing which need not be alluded to in detail, but I may say that on analysing the earlier arms in the Lyon Register, I find that the bordure is by far the most common method of indicating cadency, being used in no less than 1080 cases. The next most popular way is by changing the boundary lines of an ordinary, which is done in 563 shields; 233 cadets difference their arms by the insertion of a smaller charge on the ordinary and 195 onthe shield. A change of tincture, including counterchanging, is carried out in 155 coats, and a canton is added in 70 cases, while there are 350 coats in which two or more of the above methods are used. From these figures, which are approximately correct, you will see the relative frequency of the various modes of differencing. You will also note that the original coat of a family can be differenced in a great many ways so as to show the connection of cadets with the parent house. The drawback to the system is that heralds have never arrived at a uniform treatment so as to render it possible to calculate the exact relationship of the cadets. Much is left, as I said, to the discretion of the officer granting the arms; but still it gives considerable assistance in determining the descent of a family."
The late Mr. Stodart, Lyon Clerk Depute, who was an able herald, particularly in matters relating to Scotland, had elaborated a definite system of these bordures for differencing which would have done much to simplify Scottish cadency. Its weak point was obviously this, that it could only be applied to new matriculations of arms by cadets; and so, if adopted as a definite and unchangeable matter of rule, it might have occasioned doubt and misunderstanding in future times with regard to many important Scottish coats now existing, without reference to Mr. Stodart's system. But the scheme elaborated by Mr. Stodart is now accepted as the broad basis of the Scottish system for matriculations (Fig. 732).
In early Scottish seals the bordures are to so large an extent engrailed as to make it appear that the later and present rule, which gives the plain bordure to immediate cadets, was not fully recognised or adopted. Bordures charged appear at a comparatively early date in Scotland. The bordure compony in Scotland and the bordure wavy in England, which are now used to signify illegitimacy, will be further considered in a subsequent chapter, but neither one nor the other originally carried any such meaning. The doubtful legitimacy of the Avondale and Ochiltree Stewarts, who bore the bordure compony in Scotland, along with its use by the Beauforts in England, has tended latterly to bring that difference into disrepute in the cadency of lawful sons—yet some of the bearers of that bordure during the first twenty years of the Lyon Register were unquestionably legitimate, whilst others, asScottof Gorrenberry andPatrick Sinclairof Ulbester, were illegitimate, or at best only legitimated. The light in which the bordure compony had come to be regarded is shown by a Royal Warrant granted in 1679 toJohn Lundinof that Ilk, allowing him to drop the coat which his family had hitherto carried, and, as descended of a natural son ofWilliam the Lion, to bear the arms of Scotland within a bordure compony argent and azure.
The bordure counter-compony is assigned to fifteen persons, none of them, it is believed, of illegitimate descent, and some expressly said to be "lineallie and lawfulie descended" from the ancestor whose arms they bore thus differenced. The idea of this bordure having been at any time a mark of bastardy is a very modern error, arising from a confusion with the bordure compony.
Fig. 732.Fig. 732.—The scheme of Cadency Bordures devised by Mr. Stodart.
Fig. 732.—The scheme of Cadency Bordures devised by Mr. Stodart.
In conclusion, attention needs to be pointedly drawn to the fact that all changes in arms are not due to cadency, nor is it safe always to presume cadency from proved instances of change. Instead of merely detailing isolated instances of variation in a number of different families, the matter may be better illustrated by closely following the successive variations in the same family, and an instructive instance is met with in the case of the arms of the family of Swinton of that Ilk. This is peculiarly instructive, because at no point in the descent covered by the arms referred to is there any doubt or question as to the fact of legitimate descent.
Claiming as they do a male descent and inheritance from Liulf the son of Edulf, Vicecomes of Northumbria, whose possession before1100 of the lands of Swinton is the earliest contemporary evidence which has come down to us of landowning by a Scottish subject, it is unfortunate that we cannot with authority date their armorial ensigns before the later half of the thirteenth century. Charters there are in plenty. Out of the twenty-three earliest Scottish writings given in the National MSS. of Scotland, nine, taken from the Coldingham documents preserved at Durham, refer to the village and lands of Swinton. Among these are two confirmations by David I.,i.e.before 1153, of Swinton "in hereditate sibi et heredibus" to "meo militi Hernulfo" or "Arnolto isti meo Militi," the first of the family to follow the Norman fashion, and adopt the territorial designation of de Swinton; while at Durham and elsewhere, Cospatric de Swinton and his son Alan and grandson Alan appear more than eighty times in charters before 1250.
Fig. 733.Fig. 733.—Seal of Alan de Swinton,c.1271.
Fig. 733.—Seal of Alan de Swinton,c.1271.
But it is not till we come toc.1271 that we find a Swinton seal still attached to a charter. This is a grant by a third Alan of the Kirk croft of Lower Swinton to God and the blessed Cuthbert and the blessed Ebba and the Prior and Monks of Coldingham. The seal is of a very early form (Fig. 733), and may perhaps have belonged to the father and grandfather of the particular Alan who uses it.
Of the Henry de Swinton who came next, and who swore fealty to Edward the First of England at Berwick in 1296, and of yet a fourth Alan, no seals are known. These were turbulent days throughout Scotland: but then we find a distinct advance; a shield upon a diapered ground, and upon it the single boar has given place to the three boars' heads which afterwards became so common in Scotland. Nisbet lends his authority to the tradition that all the families of Border birth who carried them—Gordon, Nisbet, Swinton, Redpath, Dunse, he mentions, and he might have added others—were originally of one stock, and if so, the probability must be that the breed sprung from Swinton.
Fig. 734.Fig. 734.—Seal of Henry de Swinton, 1378.
Fig. 734.—Seal of Henry de Swinton, 1378.
This seal (Fig. 734) was put by a second Henry de Swynton to one of the family charters, probably of the date of 1378, which have lately been placed for safe keeping in the Register House in Edinburgh.
His successor, Sir John, the hero of Noyon in Picardy, of Otterburn, and Homildon, was apparently the first of the race to usesupporters. His seal (Fig. 735) belongs to the second earliest of the Douglas charters preserved at Drumlanrig. Its date is 1389, and Sir John de Swintoun is described as Dominus de Mar, a title he bore by right of his marriage with Margaret, Countess of Douglas and Mar. This probably also accounts for his coronet, and it is interesting to note that the helmet, coronet, and crest are the exact counterpart of those on the Garter plate of Ralph, Lord Basset, in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. It is possibly more than a coincidence, for Froissart mentions them both as fighting in France ten to twenty years earlier.
Fig. 735.Fig. 735.—Seal of Sir John de Swinton, 1389.
Fig. 735.—Seal of Sir John de Swinton, 1389.
Fig. 736.Fig. 736.—Seal of Sir John de Swinton, 1475.
Fig. 736.—Seal of Sir John de Swinton, 1475.
Fig. 737.Fig. 737.—Seal of Robert Swinton, of that Ilk, 1598.
Fig. 737.—Seal of Robert Swinton, of that Ilk, 1598.
Fig. 738.Fig. 738.—Arms of Swinton. (From Swinton Church, 163-.)
Fig. 738.—Arms of Swinton. (From Swinton Church, 163-.)
Of his son, the second Sir John, "Lord of that Ilk," we have no seal. His lance it was that overthrew Thomas, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Henry V., at Beaugé in 1421, and he fell, a young man, three years later with the flower of the Scottish army at Verneuil; but in 1475 his son, a third Sir John, uses the identical crest and shield which his descendants carry to this day (Fig. 736). John had become a common name in the family, and the same or a similar seal did duty for the next three generations; but in 1598 we find the great-great-grandson, Robert Swinton of that Ilk, who represented Berwickshire in the first regularly constituted Parliament of Scotland, altering the character of the boars' heads (Fig. 737). He would also appear to have placed upon the chevron something which is difficult to decipher, but is probably the rose so borne by the Hepburns, his second wife having been a daughter of Sir Patrick Hepburn of Whitecastle.
Whatever the charge was, it disappeared from the shield (Fig. 738) erected on the outer wall of Swinton Church by his second son and eventual heir, Sir Alexander, also member for his native county; butthe boars' heads are turned the other way, perhaps in imitation of those above the very ancient effigy of the first Sir Alan inside the church.
Sir Alexander's son, John Swinton, "Laird Swinton" Carlyle calls him, wrecked the family fortunes. According to Bishop Burnet he was "the man of all Scotland most trusted and employed by Cromwell," and he died a Quaker, excommunicated and forfeited. To the circumstance that when, in 1672, the order went out that all arms were to be officially recorded, he was a broken man under sentence that his arms should be "laceret and delete out of the Heralds' Books," we probably owe it that until of late years no Swinton arms appeared on the Lyon Register.
Fig. 739.Fig. 739.—Bookplate of Sir John Swinton of that Ilk, 1707.
Fig. 739.—Bookplate of Sir John Swinton of that Ilk, 1707.
Fig. 740.Fig. 740.—Bookplate of Archibald Swinton of Kimmerghame.
Fig. 740.—Bookplate of Archibald Swinton of Kimmerghame.
Then to come to less stirring times, and turn to book-plates. His son, yet another Sir John of that Ilk, in whose favour the forfeiture was rescinded, sat for Berwickshire in the last Parliament of Scotland and the first of Great Britain. His bookplate (Fig. 739) is one of the earliest Scottish dated plates.
His grandson, Captain Archibald Swinton of Kimmerghame, county Berwick (Fig. 740), was an ardent book collector up to his death in 1804, and Archibald's great-grandson, Captain George C. Swinton (Fig. 741), walked as March Pursuivant in the procession in Westminster Abbey at the coronation of King Edward the Seventh ofEngland in 1902, and smote on the gate when that same Edward as First of Scotland claimed admission to his castle of Edinburgh in 1903.
Fig. 741.Fig. 741.—Bookplate of Captain George S. Swinton, March Pursuivant of Arms.
Fig. 741.—Bookplate of Captain George S. Swinton, March Pursuivant of Arms.
The arms as borne to-day by the head of the family, John Edulf Blagrave Swinton of Swinton Bank, a lieutenant in the Lothians and Berwickshire Imperial Yeomanry, are as given (Plate IV.).
It has been remarked that the knowledge of "the man in the street" is least incorrect when he knows nothing. Probably the only heraldic knowledge that a large number possess is summed up in the assertion that the heraldic sign of illegitimacy is the "bar sinister."
No doubt it is to the novelists—who, seeking to touch lightly upon an unpleasant subject, have ignorantly adopted a French colloquialism—that we must attribute a great deal of the misconception which exists concerning illegitimacy and its heraldic marks of indication. I assert most unhesitatingly that there are not now and never have been any unalterable laws as to what these marks should be, and the colloquialism which insists upon the "bar sinister" is a curiously amusing example of an utter misnomer. To any one with the most rudimentary knowledge of heraldry it must plainly be seen to be radically impossible to depict a bar sinister, for the simple reason that the bar is neither dexter nor sinister. It is utterly impossible to draw a bar sinister—such a thing does not exist. But the assertion of many writers with a knowledge of armory that "bar sinister" is a mistake for "bend sinister" is also somewhat misleading, because the real mistake lies in the spelling of the term. The "barre sinistre" is merely the French translation of bend sinister, the French word "barre" meaning abend. The French "barre" is not the English "bar."
In order to properly understand the true significance of the marks of illegitimacy, it is necessary that the attempt should be made to transplant oneself into the environment when the laws and rules of heraldry were in the making. At that period illegitimacy was of little if any account. It has not debarred the succession of some of our own sovereigns, although, from the earliest times, the English have always been more prudish upon the point than other nations. In Ireland, even so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it is a striking genealogical difficulty to decide in many noble pedigrees which if any of the given sons of any person were legitimate, and which of the ladies of his household, if any, might be legally termed his wife. In Scotland we find the same thing, though perhaps it is not quite soblatant to so late a date, but considering what are and have been the Scottish laws of marriage, it is thefactor otherwise of marriage which has to be ascertained; and though in England the legal status was recognised from an earlier period, the social status of the illegitimate offspring of a given man depended little upon the legal legitimacy of birth, but rather upon the amount of recognition the bastard received from his father. If a man had an unquestionably legitimate son, that son undoubtedly succeeded; but if he had not, any technical stain upon the birth of the others had little effect in preventing their succession. A study of the succession to the Barony of Meinill clearly shows that the illegitimate son of the second Lord Meinill succeeded to the estates and peerage of his father in preference to his legitimate uncle. There are many other analogous cases. And when the Church juggled at its pleasure with the sacrament of marriage—dispensing and annulling or recognising marriages for reasons which we nowadays can only term whimsical—small wonder is it that the legal fact, though then admitted, had little of the importance which we now give to it. When the actual fact was so little more than a matter at the personal pleasure of the person most concerned, it would be ridiculous to suppose that any perpetuation of a mere advertisement of the fact would be considered necessary, whilst the fact itself was so often ignored; so that until comparatively recent times the Crown certainly never attempted to enforce any heraldic marks of illegitimacy. Rather were these enforced by the legitimate descendants if and when such descendants existed.
The point must have first arisen when there were both legitimate and illegitimate descendants of a given person, and it was desired to make record of the true line in which land or honours should descend. To effect this purpose, the arms of the illegitimate son were made to carry some charge or alteration to show that there was some reason which debarred inheritance by their users, whilst there remained those entitled to bear the arms without the mark of distinction. But be it noted that this obligation existed equally on the legitimate cadets of a family, and in the earliest periods of heraldry there is little or no distinction either in the marks employed or in the character of the marks, which can be drawn between mere marks of cadency and marks of illegitimacy. Until a comparatively recent period it is absolutely unsafe to use these marks as signifying or proving either legitimate cadency or illegitimacy. The same mark stood for both, the only object which any distinctive change accomplished, being the distinction which it was necessary to draw between those who owned the right to the undifferenced arms, and owned the land, and those who did not. The object was to safeguard the right of the realpossessors and their true heirs, and not to penalise the others. There was no particular mark either for cadency or for illegitimacy, the distinctions made being dictated by what seemed the most suitable and distinctive mark applicable to the arms under consideration.
When that much has been thoroughly grasped, one gets a more accurate understanding of the subject. One other point has to be borne in mind (and to the present generation, which knows so well how extensively arms have been improperly assumed, the statement may seem startling), and that is, that the use of arms was formerly evidence of pedigree. As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century evidence of this character was submitted to the Committee of Privileges at the hearing of a Peerage case. The evidence wasadmittedfor that purpose, though doubt (in that case very properly) was thrown upon its value.
Therefore, in view of the two foregoing facts, there can be very little doubt that the use of armorial marks of bastardywas not invented or instituted, nor were these marks enforced, as punishment or as a disgrace.
It is a curious instance how a careful study of words and terms employed will often afford either a clue or confirmation, when the true meaning of the term has long been overlooked.
The official term for a mark of cadency is a "difference" mark,i.e.it was a mark to show the difference between one member of a family and another. The mark used to signify a lack of blood relationship, and a mark used to signify illegitimacy are each termed a "mark of distinction,"i.e.a mark that shall make something plainly "distinct." What is that something? The fact that the use of the arms is not evidence of descent through which heirship can be claimed or proved. This, by the way, is a patent example of the advantage of adherence to precedent.
The inevitable conclusion is that a bastard was originally only required to mark his shield sufficiently that it should be distinctly apparent that heirship would never accrue. The arms had to be distinct from those borne by those members of the family upon whom heirship might devolve. The social position of a bastard as "belonging" to a family was pretty generally conceded, therefore he carried their arms, sufficiently marked to show he was not in the line of succession.
This being accepted, one at once understands the great variety of the marks which have been employed. These answered the purpose of distinction, and nothing more was demanded or necessary. Consequently a recapitulation of marks, of which examples can be quoted, would be largely a list of isolated instances, and as such they are useless for the purposes of deduction in any attempt to arrive at a correct conclusion as to what the ancient rules were. In brief, there were norules until the eighteenth, or perhaps even until the nineteenth century. The only rule was that the arms must be sufficiently marked insomeway. This is borne out by the dictum of Menêstrier.
Except the label, which has been elsewhere referred to, the earliest marks of either cadency or illegitimacy for which accepted use can be found are the bend and the bordure; but the bend for the purpose of illegitimacy seems to be the earlier, and a bend superimposed over a shield remained a mark of illegitimate cadency until a comparatively late period. This bend as a difference naturally was originally depicted as a bend dexter, and as a mark of legitimate cadency is found in the arms of theyoungerson of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, before he succeeded his elder brother.
There are scores of other similar instances which a little research will show. Whether the term "left-handed marriage" is the older, and the sinister bend is derived therefrom, or whether the slang term is derived from the sinister bend, it is perhaps not necessary to inquire. But there is no doubt that from an early period the bend of cadency, when such cadency was illegitimate, is frequently met with in the sinister form. But concurrently with such usage instances are found in which the dexter bend was used for the same purpose, and it is very plainly evident that it was never at that date looked upon as a penalty, but was used merely as adistinction, or for the purpose of showing that the wearer was not the head of his house or in possession of the lordship. The territorial idea of the nature of arms, which has been alluded to in the chapter upon marks of cadency, should be borne in mind in coming to a conclusion.
Soon after the recognition of the bend as a mark of illegitimacy we come across the bordure; but there is some confusion with this, bordures of all kinds being used indiscriminately to denote both legitimate and illegitimate cadency. There are countless other forms of marking illegitimacy, and it is impossible to attempt to summarise them, and absolutely impossible to draw conclusions as to any family from marks upon its arms when this point is under discussion. To give a list of these instances would rather seem an attempt to deduce a rule or rules upon the point, so I say at once that there was no recognised mark, and any plain distinction seems to have been accepted as sufficient; and no distinction whatever was made when the illegitimate son, either from failure of legitimate issue or other reason, succeeded to the lands and honours of his father. Out of the multitude of marks, the bend, and subsequently the bend sinister, emerge as most frequently in use, and finally the bend sinister exclusively; so that it has come to be considered, and perhaps correctly as regards one period, that its use was equivalent to a mark of illegitimacy in England.
But there has always remained to the person of bastard descent the right of discarding the bastardised coat, and adopting a new coat of arms, the only requirement as to the new coat being that it shall be so distinct from the old one as not to be liable to confusion therewith. And it is a moot point whether or not a large proportion of the instances which are tabulated in most heraldic works as examples of marks of bastardy are anything whatever of the kind. My own opinion is that many are not, and that it is a mistake to so consider them; the true explanation undoubtedly in some—and outside the Royal Family probably in most—being that they are new coats of arms adoptedasnew coats of arms, doubtless bearing relation to the old family coat, but sufficiently distinguished therefrom to rank as new arms, and were never intended to be taken as, and never were bastardised examples of formerly existing coats. It is for this reason that I have refrained from giving any extensive list such as is to be found in most other treatises on heraldry, for all that can be said for such lists is that they are lists of the specific arms of specific bastards, which is a very different matter from a list of heraldic marks of illegitimacy.
Another objection to the long lists which most heraldic works give of early instances of marks of bastardy as data for deduction lies in the fact that most are instances of the illegitimate children of Royal personages. It is singularly unsafe to draw deductions, to be applied to the arms of others, from the Royal Arms, for these generally have laws unto themselves.
The bend sinister in its bare simplicity, as a mark of illegitimacy, was seldom used, the more frequent form being the sinister bendlet, or even the diminutive of that, the cottise. There is no doubt, of course, that when a sinister bend or bendlet debruises another coat that that is a bastardised version of an older coat, but examples can be found of the sinister bend as a charge which has no reference whatever to illegitimacy. Two instances that come to mind, which can be found by reference to any current peerage, are the arms of Shiffner and Burne-Jones. Certainly in these cases I know of no illegitimacy, and neither coat is a bastardised version of an older existing coat. Anciently the bendlet was drawn across arms and quarterings, and an example of a coat of arms of some number of quarterings debruised for an illegitimate family is found in the registration of a Talbot pedigree in one of the Visitation Books. As a mark of distinction upon arms the bend sinister for long past has fallen out of use, though for the purpose of differencing crests a bendlet wavy sinister is still made use of, and will be again presently referred to.
Next to the bend comes the bordure. Bordures of all kinds were used for the purposes of cadency from practically the earliest periodsof heraldic differencing. But they were used indiscriminately, as has been already stated, both for legitimate and illegitimate cadency. John of Gaunt, as is well known, was the father of Henry IV. and the ancestor of Henry VII., the former being the issue of his legitimate wife, the latter coming from a son who, as one of the old chroniclers puts it, "was of double advowtrie begotten." But, as every one knows, John of Gaunt's children by Catherine Roet or Swynford were legitimated by Act of Parliament, the Act of Parliament not excepting the succession to the Throne, a disability later introduced in Letters Patent of the Crown when giving a subsequent confirmation of the Act, but which, nevertheless, they could not overrule. But taking the sons of the latter family as legitimate, which (whatever may have been the moral aspect of the case) they were undoubtedly in the eyes of the common law after the passing of the Act referred to, they existed concurrently with the undoubtedly senior descendants of the first marriage of John of Gaunt with Blanche of Lancaster, and it was necessary—whether they were legitimate or not—to distinguish the arms of the junior from the senior branch. The result was that as legitimate cadets, and not as bastards, the arms of John of Gaunt were differenced for the line of the Dukes of Somerset by the addition of the bordure compony argent and azure—the livery colours of Lancaster. It is a weird position, for these colours were derived from the family of the legitimate wife.
The fight as to whether these children were legitimate or illegitimate was, of course, notorious, and a matter of history; but from the fact that they bore a bordure compony, an idea grew up both in this country and in Scotland also from the similarity of the cases of the doubtful legitimacy of the Avondale and Ochiltree Stewarts, who both used the bordure compony, that the bordure compony was a sign of illegitimacy, whereas in both countries at an earlier period it undoubtedly was accepted as a mark of legitimate cadency.
As a mark of bastardy it had subsequently some extensive use in both countries, and it still remains the only mark now used for the purpose in Scottish heraldry. Whether it was that it was not considered as of a fixed nature, or whether it was that it had become notorious and unacceptable, it is difficult to say, though the officers of arms have been blamed for making a change on the assumption that it was the latter.
Some writers who clamour strongly for thepenalisingof bastard arms, and for the plain and recognisable marking of them as such (a position adopted rather vehemently by Woodward, a singularly erudite heraldic writer), are rather uncharitable, and at the same time rather lacking in due observation and careful consideration of ancient ideasand ancient precedents. That the recognised mark has been changed at different periods, and as a consequence that to a certain extent the advertisement it conveys has been less patent is, of course, put down to the "venality" of mediæval heralds (happily their backs are broad) by those who are too short-sighted to observe that the one thing an official herald moves heaven and earth to escape from is the making of a new precedent; and that, on the score of signs of illegitimacy, the official heralds, when the control of arms passed into their hands, found no established rule. So far from having been guilty of venality, as Woodward suggests, they have erred on the other side, and by having worked only on the limited number of precedents they found they have stereotyped the advertisement, and thereby made the situation more stringent than they found it.
We have it from biblical sources that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations, and this spirit has undoubtedly crept into the views of many writers, but to get into the true perspective of the matter one needs to consider the subject from the point of view of less prudish days than our own.
I have no wish to be misunderstood. In these days much heraldic reviewing of the blatant and baser sort depends not upon the value of the work performed, a point of view which is never given a thought, but entirely upon the identity of the writer whose work is under review, and is largely composed of misquotation and misrepresentation. It may perhaps be as well, therefore, to state that I am not seeking to condone illegitimacy or to combat present opinions upon the point. I merely state that our present opinions are a modern growth, and that in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, when the fundamental principles of heraldry were in the making, it was not considered a disgrace to have an illegitimate son, nor was it considered then that to be of illegitimate birth carried the personal stigma that came later.
At any rate, the fact remains that a new mark was called into being in England about the year 1780 when in a grant to Zachary to quarter the arms of Sacheverell, from which family he was in the female line illegitimately descended, the bordure wavy was first met with as a sufficient and proper mark of illegitimacy. The curious point is that before that date in Scotland and in England the bordure wavy possessed nothing of this character, and to the present day the bordure wavy in Scotland is undoubtedly nothing more than a legitimate mark of legitimate cadency, for which mark Mr. Stodart provides a place in the scheme of differencing which he tabulated as the basis of cadency marks in Scotland (Fig. 732). Since that date the bordure wavy hasremained the mark which has been used for the purpose in England, as the bordure compony has remained the mark in Scotland.
Bearing in mind that the only necessity was some mark which should carry sufficientdistinctionfrom the arms of the family, it follows, as a natural consequence of human nature, that as soon as any particular mark became identified with illegitimacy (after that was considered to be a stigma), that mark was quietly dropped and some other substituted, and no one should be surprised to find the bordures wavy and compony quietly displaced by something else. If any change is to be made in the future it is to be hoped that no existing mark will be adopted, and that the marks in England and Scotland shall not conflict even if they do not coincide.
The bendlet sinister, however, survives in the form of the baton sinister, which is a bendlet couped placed across the centre of the shield. The baton sinister, however, is a privilege which, as a charge on a shield, is reserved, such as it is, for Royal bastards. The latest instance of this was in the exemplification of arms to the Earl of Munster and his brothers and sisters early in the nineteenth century. Other surviving instances are met with in the arms of the Duke of St. Albans and the Duke of Grafton. Another privilege of Royal bastards is that they may have the baton ofmetal, a privilege which is, according to Berry, denied to those of humbler origin.
According to present law the position of an illegitimate person heraldically is based upon the common law of the country, which practically declares that an illegitimate child has no name, no parentage, and no relations. The illegitimacy of birth is an insuperable bar to inheritance, and a person of illegitimate birth inherits no arms at all, the popular idea that he inherits a right to the arms subject to a mark of distinction being quite incorrect. He has none at all. There has never been any mark which, as a matter of course and of mere motion, could attach itself automatically to a shield, as is the case with the English marks of difference,e.g.the crescent of the second son or the mullet of the third. This is a point upon which I have found mistaken ideas very frequently held, even by those who have made some study of heraldry.
But a very little thought should make it plain that by the very nature of the fact there cannot be either a recognised mark, compulsory use, or anipse factosign. Illegitimacy is negative, not positive—a fact which many writers hardly give sufficient weight to.
If any one of illegitimate birth desires to obtain a right to arms he has two courses open to him. He can either (not disclosing the fact of his illegitimacy, and not attempting to prove that he is a descendant of any kind from any one else) apply for and obtain a new grant ofarms on his own basis, and worry through the College the grant of a coat as closely following in design that of the old family as he can get, which means that he would be treated and penalised with suchalterations(not "marks of distinction") as would be imposed upon a stranger in blood endeavouring to obtain arms founded upon a coat to which he had no right. The cost of such a proceeding in England is £76, 10s., the usual fees upon an ordinary grant.
The alternative course is simple. He must avow himself a bastard, and must prove his paternity or maternity, as the case may be (for in the eye of the law—common and heraldic—he bears the same relation, which is nil, and the same right to the name and arms, which is nil, of both his father and his mother).
Illegitimacy under English law affords one of the many instances in which anomalies exist, for, strange as the statement is, a bastard comes into the world without any name at all.
Legally, at birth a bastard child has then no name at all, and no arms. It must subsequently acquire such right to a name (whatever right that may amount to) as user of and reputation therein may give him. He inherits no arms at all, no name, and no property, save by specific devise or bequest. The lack of parents operates as achasmwhich it is impossible to bridge. It is not a case of a peculiar bridge or a faulty bridge; there is no bridge at all.
Names, in so far as they are matters of law, are subject to canon law; at any rate, the law upon the subject, such as it is, originated in canon law, and not in statute or common law. Canon law was made, and has never since been altered, at a time when surnames were not in existence. A bastard no more inherits the surname of the mother than it does the surname of its father; and the spirit of petty officialism, so rampant amongst the clergy, which seeks to impose upon a bastardnolens volensthe surname of its mother, has no justification in law or fact. A bastard has precisely as little right to the surname of its mother as it has to the surname of its father. Obviously, however, under the customs of our present social life, every person must have a surname of one kind or another; and it is here that the anomaly in the British law exists, inasmuch as neither statute nor canon law provide any means for conferring a surname. That the King has the prerogative, and exercises it, of conferring or confirming surnames is, of course, unquestioned, but it is hardly to be supposed that the King will trouble himself to provide a surname for every illegitimate child which may be born; and outside this prerogative, which probably is exercised about once a year, there is no method provided or definitely recognised by the law to meet this necessity. To obviate the difficulty, the surname has to be that which is conferred upon the child bygeneral custom; and as an illegitimate child is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred brought up by its mother, it is usually by the same custom which confers the surname of its owner upon a dog in so many parts of the country that a bastard child gets known by its mother's surname, and consequently has that surname conferred upon it by general custom. The only names that an illegitimate child has an inalienable right to are the names by which it is baptized; and if two names are given, and the child or its guardians elect that it should be known only by those baptismal names, and if common repute and general custom, as would be probable, uses the last of those names as a surname, there is no legal power on earth which can force upon the child any other name; and if the last of the baptismal names happens to be its father's surname, the child will have an absolute right to be known only by its Christian names, which to all intents and purposes will mean that it will be known by its father's surname.
In the same way that an illegitimate child inherits no surname at all, it equally inherits no arms. Consequently it has no shield upon which to carry a mark of bastardy, if such a mark happened to be in existence. But if under a will or deed of settlement an illegitimate child is required to assume the name and arms of its fatheror of its mother, a Royal Licence to assume such name and arms is considered to be necessary. It may be here noted that voluntary applications to assume a name and arms in the case of an illegitimate child are not entertained unless it can be clearly shown (which is not always an easy matter) what the parentage really was.
It will be noticed that I have said he will be required to prove his paternity. This is rigorously insisted upon, inasmuch as it is not fair to penalise the reputation of a dead man by inflicting upon him a record of bastard descendants whilst his own life might have been stainless. An illegitimate birth is generally recorded under the name of the mother only, and even when it is given, the truth of any statement as to paternity is always open to grave suspicion. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent a person asserting that he is the son of a duke, whereas his real father may have been in a very plebeian walk in life; and to put the arms of the duke's family at the mercy of any fatherless person who chose to fancy a differenced version of them would be manifestly unjust, so that without proof in a legal action of the actual paternity, or some recognition under a will or settlement, it is impossible to adopt the alternative in question. But if such recognition or proof is forthcoming, the procedure is to petition the Sovereign for a Royal Licence to use (or continue to use) the name desired and to bear the arms of the family. Such a petition is always granted, onproper proof of the facts, if made in due form through the proper channels. The Royal Licence to that effect is then issued. But the document contains two conditions, the first being that the arms shall be exemplified according to the laws of arms "with due and proper marks of distinction," and that the Royal Licence shall be recorded in the College of Arms, otherwise "to be void and of none effect." The invariable insertion of this clause puts into the hands of the College one of the strongest weapons the officers of arms possess.
Under the present practice the due and proper marks of distinction are, for the arms, a bordure wavy round the shield of the most suitable colour, according to what the arms may be, but if possible of some colour or metal different from any of the tinctures in the arms. The crest is usually differenced by a bendlet sinister wavy, but a pallet wavy is sometimes used, and sometimes a saltire wavy, couped or otherwise. The choice between these marks generally depends upon the nature of the crest. But even with this choice, the anomaly is frequently found of blank space being carefully debruised. Seeing that the mark of the debruising is not a tangible object or thing, but a mark painted upon another object, such a result seems singularly ridiculous, and ought to be avoided. Whilst the ancient practice certainly appears to have been to make some slight change in the crest, it does not seem to have been debruised in the present manner. There are some number of more recent cases where, whilst the existing arms have been charged with the necessary marks of distinction, entirely new, or very much altered crests have been granted without any recognisable "marks of distinction." There can be no doubt that the bendlet wavy sinister upon the crest is a palpable penalising of the bearer, and I think the whole subject of the marks of bastardy in the three kingdoms might with advantage be brought under official consideration, with a view to new regulations being adopted. A bendlet wavy sinister is such an absolute defacement of a crest that few can care to make use of a crest so marked. It carries an effect far beyond what was originally the intention of marks of distinction.
A few recent bastardised exemplifications which have issued from Ulster's Office have had the crest charged with a baton couped sinister. The baton couped sinister had always hitherto been confined to the arms of Royal bastards, but I am not aware of any Royal crest so bastardised. Of course no circumstances can be conceived in which it is necessary to debruise supporters, as under no circumstances can these be the subject of a Royal Licence of this character, except in a possible case where they might have been granted as a simple augmentation to a man and his descendants, without further limitation. I know of no bastardised version consequent upon such a grant.Supporters signify some definite honour which cannot ordinarily survive illegitimacy.
The bordure wavy is placed round the pronominal arms only, and no right to any quarterings the family may have enjoyed previously is conferred, except such right to a quarterly coat as might ensue through the assumption of a double name. Quartering is held to signify representation which cannot be given by a Royal Licence, but a quartering of augmentation or a duplicate coat for the pronominal name which had been so regularly used with the alternative coat as to constitute the two something in the nature of a compound coat, would be exemplified "all within a bordure wavy." Each illegitimate coat stands on its own basis, and there is a well-known instance in which a marriage was subsequently found to be illegal, or to have never taken place, after which, I believe, some number of brothers and sisters obtained Royal Licences and exemplifications. The descendants of one of the brothers will be found in the current Peerage Books, and those who know their peerage history well will recognise the case I allude to. All the brothers and sisters had the same arms exemplified, each with a bordure wavyof a different colour. If there were descendants of any of the sisters, those descendants would have been entitled to quarter the arms, because the illegitimacy made each sister an heiress for heraldic purposes. This is a curious anomaly, for had they been legitimate the descendants would have enjoyed no such right.
In Scotland the mark of illegitimacy for the arms is the bordure compony, which is usually but not always indicative of the same. The bordure counter-compony has been occasionally stated to have the same character. This is hardly correct, though it may be so in a few isolated cases, but the bordure chequy has nothing whatever of an illegitimate character. It will be noticed that whilst the bordure compony and the bordure counter-company have their chequers or "panes," to use the heraldic term, following the outline of the shield, by lines parallel to those which mark its contour, the bordure chequy is drawn by lines parallel to and at right angles to the palar line of the shield, irrespective of its outline. A bordure chequy must, of course, at one point or another show three distinct rows of checks.
The bastardising of crests even in England is a comparatively modern practice. I know of no single instance ancient or modern of the kind in Scottish heraldry, though I could mention scores of achievements in which the shields carry marks of distinction. This is valuable evidence, for no matter how lax the official practice of Scottish armory may have been at one period, the theory of Scottish armory far more nearly approaches the ancient practices and rules of heraldrythan does the armory of any other country. That theory is much nearer the ideal theory than the English one, but unfortunately for the practical purposes of modern heraldic needs, it does not answer so well. At the present day, therefore, a Scottish crest is not marked in any way.
Most handbooks refer to a certain rule which is supposed to exist for the differencing of a coat to denote illegitimacy when the coat is that of the mother and not the father, the supposed method being to depict the arms under a surcoat, the result being much the same as if the whole of the arms appeared in exaggerated flaunches, the remainder of the shield being left vacant except for the tincture of the surcoat. As a matter of fact only one instance is known, and consequently we must consider it as a new coat devised to bear reference to the old one, and not as a regularised method of differencing for a particular set of circumstances.
In Ireland the rules are to all intents and purposes the same as in England, with the exception of the occasional use of a sinister baton instead of a bendlet wavy sinister upon the crest. In Scotland, where Royal Licences are unknown, it is merely necessary to prove paternity, and rematriculate the arms with due and proper marks of distinction.
It was a very general idea during a former period, but subsequently to the time when the bend and bendlet sinister and the bordure were recognised as in the nature of the accepted marks of bastardy, and when their penal nature was admitted, that whatever mark was adopted for the purpose of indicating illegitimacy need only be borne for three generations. Some of the older authorities tell us that after that length of time had elapsed it might be discarded, and some other and less objectionable mark be taken in its place. The older writers were striving, consciously or unconsciously, to reconcile the disgrace of illegitimacy, which they knew, with heraldic facts which they also knew, and to reconcile in certain prominent families undoubted illegitimacy with unmarked arms, the probability being that their sense of justice and regard for heraldry prompted them to the remark that some other mark of distinctionoughtto be added, whilst all the time they knew it never was. The arms of Byron, Somerset, Meinill, and Herbert are all cases where the marks of illegitimacy have been quietly dropped, entire reversion being had to the undifferenced original coat. At a time when marks of illegitimacy, both in fact and in theory, were nothing more than marks of cadency and difference from the arms of the head of the house, it was no venality of the heralds, but merely the acceptance of current ideas, that permitted them to recognise the undifferenced arms for the illegitimate descendants when there were no legitimate owners from whose claim the arms of the others neededto be differentiated, and when lordships and lands had lapsed to a bastard branch. To this fact must be added another. The armorial control of the heralds after the days of tournaments was exercised through the Visitations and the Earl Marshal's Court. Peers were never subject to the Visitations, and so were not under control unless their arms were challenged in the Earl Marshal's Court by the rightful owner. The cases that were notorious are cases of the arms of peers.
The Visitations gave the officers of arms greater control over the arms of Commoners than they had had theretofore, and the growing social opinions upon legitimacy and marriage brought social observances more into conformity with the technical law, and made that technical law of no inheritance and no paternity an operative fact. The result is that the hard legal fact is now rigidly and rightly insisted upon, and the claim and right to arms of one of illegitimate descent depends and is made to depend solely upon the instruments creating that right, and the conditions of "due and proper marks of distinction" always subject to which the right is called into being. Nowadays there is no release from the penalty of the bordures wavy and compony save through the avenue of a new and totally different grant and the full fees payable therefor. But, as the bearer of a bordure wavy once remarked to me, "I had rather descend illegitimately from a good family and bear their arms marked than descend from a lot of nobodies and use a new grant." But until the common law is altered, if it ever is, the game must be played fairly and the conditions of a Royal Licence observed, for the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children.
Although I have refrained from giving any extended list of bastardised coats as examples of the rules for indicating illegitimacy, reference may nevertheless be made to various curious examples.
The canton has occasionally been used. Sir John de Warren, a natural son of John, Earl of Surrey, Sussex, and Warenne (d.1347), bore a canton of the arms of his mother, Alice de Nerford ["Gules, a lion rampant ermine"], over the chequy shield of Warren. A similar instance can be found in modern times, the arms of Charlton of Apley Castle, co. Salop, being bastardised by a sinister canton which bears two coats quarterly, these coats having formerly been quarterings borne in the usual manner.
The custom of placing the paternal arms upon a bend has been occasionally adopted, but this of course is the creation of anewcoat. It was followed by the Beauforts before their legitimation, and by Sir Roger de Clarendon, the illegitimate son of the Black Prince. The Somerset family, who derived illegitimately from the Beauforts, Dukes of Somerset, first debruised the Beaufort arms bya bendlet sinister, but in the next generation the arms were placed upon a wide fess, this on a plain field of or. Although the Somersets, Dukes of Beaufort, have discarded all signs of bastardy from their shield, the version upon the fess was continued as one of the quarterings upon the arms of the old Shropshire family of Somerset Fox. One of the most curious bastardised coats is that of Henry Fitz-Roy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, illegitimate son of Henry VIII. This shows the Royal Arms within a bordure quarterly ermine and counter-compony or and azure, debruised by a baton sinister argent, an inescutcheon quarterly gules and vairé, or and vert [possibly hinting at the Blount arms of his mother, barry nebuly or and sable], over all a lion rampant argent, on a chief azure a tower between two stags' heads caboshed argent, attired or.
The science of marshalling is the conjoining of two or more coats of arms upon one shield for the purpose of indicating sovereignty, dominion, alliance, descent, or pretension, according to recognised rules and regulations, by the employment of which the story of any given achievement shall be readily translatable.
The methods of marshalling are (1) dimidiation, (2) impalement, (3) quartering, (4) superimposition.
Instances of quartered shields are to be met with possibly before impalements or dimidiation. The earliest attempt at anything like a regularised method of procedure to signify marriage was that usually malesquarteredthe arms of their wives or ancestresses from whom they acquired their lands; whilst impaled coats were to all intents and purposes the armorial bearings of married women, or more frequently of widows who took an immediate interest in their husbands' property. This ancient usage brings home very forcibly the former territorial connection of arms and land. The practice of the husband impaling the wife's arms, whether heiress or not, probably arose near the close of the fifteenth century. Even now it is laid down that the arms of a wife should not in general be borne upon the husband's banner, surcoat, or official seal.
But impalement as we now know it was preceded by dimidiation. Dimidiation, which was but a short-lived method, was effected by the division of the shield down the centre. On the dexter side was placed the dexter half of the husband's arms, and on the sinister side was placed the sinister half of the wife's arms. With some coats of arms no objection could be urged against the employment of this method. But it was liable to result (e.g.with two coats of arms having the same ordinary) in the creation of a design which looked far more like one simple coat than a conjunction of two. The dimidiation of "argent, a bend gules" and "argent, a chevron sable" would simply result in a single coat "argent, a bend per pale gules and sable." This fault of the system must have made itself manifest at an early period, for we soon find it became customary to introduce about two-thirds ofthe design of each coat for the sake of demonstrating their separate character. It must soon thereafter have become apparent that if two-thirds of the design of a coat of arms could be squeezed into half of the shield there was no valid reason why the whole of the design could not be employed. This therefore became customary under the name of impalement, and the practice has ever since remained with us. Few examples indeed of dimidiation are to be met with, and as a practical method of conjunction, the practice was chiefly in vogue during the earlier part of the fourteenth century.
Occasionally quartered coats were dimidiated, in which case the first and third quarters of the husband's coat were conjoined with the second and fourth of the wife's. As far as outward appearance went, this practice resulted in the fact that no distinction existed from a plain quartered coat. Thus the seal of Margaret of Bavaria, Countess of Holland, and wife of John, Count de Nevers, in 1385 (afterwards Duke of Burgundy), bears a shield on which is apparently a simple instance of quartering, but really a dimidiated coat. The two coats to the dexter side of the palar line are: In chief Burgundy-Modern ("France-Ancient, a bordure compony argent and gules"), and in base Burgundy-Ancient. On the sinister side the coat in chief is Bavaria ("Bendy-lozengy argent and azure"); and the one in base contains the quartered arms of Flanders ("Or, a lion rampant sable"); and Holland ("Or, a lion rampant gules"); the lines dividing these latter quarters being omitted, as is usually found to be the case with this particular shield.