A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

or, over all a bend sable (Le Despencer); 4. gules, on a fess between six cross crosslets or, a crescent sable (for Beauchamp). (Add. MS. 22, 306.) But one is safe in the assertion that during the Plantagenet period no more than four quarters were ordinarily placed upon a shield. Then we come to the brief period of "squeezed in" quarterings (Figs. 757 and 758). In the early Visitations we get instances of six, eight, and even a larger number, and the start once being made, and the number of four relinquished, there was of course no reason why it should not be extended indefinitely. This appears to have rapidly become the case, and we find that schemes of quarterings are now proved and recorded officially in England and Ireland some of which exceed 200 in number. The record number of officially proved and recorded quarterings is at present held by the family of Lloyd, of Stockton in Chirbury, co. Salop, but many of the quarterings of this family are mere repetition owing to constant intermarriages, and to the fact that a single Welsh line of male descent often results in a number of different shields. Welsh arms did not originally have the hereditary unchangeability we are accustomed to in English heraldry, and moreover a large proportion are later inventions borne to denote descent and are not arms actually used by those they stand for, so that the recorded scheme {546} of the quarterings of Mr. Money-Kyrle, or of the sister Countesses of Yarborough and Powis, respectively Baroness Fauconberg and Conyers and Baroness Darcy de Knayth are decidedly more enviable. Nobody of course attempts to bear such a number. In Scotland, however, even to the present day, the system of four quarterings is still adhered to. The result is that in Scotland the system of grand quarterings is still pursued, whilst in England it is almost unknown, except in cases where coats of arms have for some reason or another become indivisible. This is a very patent difficulty when it becomes necessary to marshal indivisible Scottish coats with English ones, and the system of cadency adopted in Scotland, which has its chief characteristic in the employment of bordures, makes the matter sometimes very far from simple. The system adopted at the present time in the case of a Royal Licence, for example, to bear a Scottish name and arms where the latter is a coat of many quarterings within a bordure, is to treat such coat as made indivisible by and according to the most recent matriculation. That coat is then treated as a grand quartering of an equivalent value to the pronominal coat in England. [Illustration] FIG. 758.--Arms of Henry Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland (d. 1527): Quarterly, 1. quarterly, i. and iiii., or, a lion rampant azure (Percy); ii. and iii., gules, three lucies haurient argent (Lucy); 2. azure, five fusils conjoined in fess or (for Percy); 3. barry of six or and vert, a bendlet gules (Poynings); 4. gules, three lions passant in pale argent, a bendlet azure (FitzPayne), or three piles azure (Brian). But reverting to the earlier chart, by the aid of which heirship was demonstrated, the following were entitled to transmit the Cilfowyr arms as quarterings. Mary, Ellen, Blanche, Grace, Muriel, and Dorothy all had the right to transmit. By the death of Dorothy _v.p._ Alice and Annie both became entitled. Maria Jane and Hannah would have been entitled to transmit Sherwin and Cilfowyr, but not Cilfowyr alone, if there had been no arms for Sherwin, though they could have transmitted Sherwin alone if there had been arms for Sherwin and none for Cilfowyr. Harriet would have transmitted the arms of Cilfowyr if she had survived, and Ada would, each subject to differences as has been previously explained. As has been already explained, every woman is entitled to bear upon a lozenge in her own lifetime the arms, quarterings, and difference marks which belonged to her father. If her mother were an heiress she adds her mother's arms to her father's, and her mother's quarterings also, marshalling the whole into a correct sequence, and placing the said sequence of quarterings upon a lozenge. Such are the armorial bearings of a daughter. If the said daughter be not an heraldic heiress in blood she _cannot_ transmit either arms or quarterings to her descendants. Needless to say, no woman, heiress or non-heiress, can now transmit a crest, and no woman can bear either crest, helmet, mantling, or motto. A daughter not being an heiress simply confers the right upon her husband to _impale_ upon his shield such arms and difference marks as her father bore in his own right. If an heiress possessing arms marry a man with illegal arms, or a man making no pretensions to arms, her children have no arms at all, and really inherit {547} nothing; and the rights, such as they are, to the arms of the mother as a quartering remain, and must remain, _dormant_ unless and until arms are established for their father's line, inasmuch as they can only inherit armorially from their mother _through_ their father. In England it is always optional for a man to have arms assigned to him to fill in any blanks which would otherwise mar his scheme of quarterings. Let us now see how various coats of arms are marshalled as quarterings into one achievement. [Illustration: FIG. 759.] [Illustration: FIG. 760.] [Illustration: FIG. 761.] The original theory of quartering upon which all rules are based is that after a marriage with an heiress, necessitating for the children the combination of the two coats, the shield is divided into four quarters. These four are numbered from the top left-hand (the dexter) corner (No. 1) across towards the sinister (No. 2) side of the shield; then the next row is numbered in the same way (Nos. 3 and 4). This rule as to the method of numbering holds good for any number of quarterings. In allocating the position of the different coats to their places in the scheme of quarterings, the pronominal coat must _always_ be in the first quartering. In a simple case (the exceptions will presently be referred to) that places the arms of the father in the first and fourth quarters, and the arms of the mother in the second and third; such, of course, being on the assumption that the father possessed only a simple coat without quarterings, and that the mother was in the same position. The children therefore possess a coat of four quarters (Fig. 759). Suppose a son of theirs in his turn marries another heiress, also possessing only a simple coat without quarterings, he bears arms as Fig. 760, and the grandchildren descending from the aforesaid marriage put that last-mentioned coat in the third quarter, and the coat, though still of only four quarters, is: 1 and 4, the pronominal coat; 2, the first heiress; 3, the second (Fig. 761). If another single quartering is brought in, in a later generation, that takes the place of No. 4. So far it is all plain sailing, but very {548} few text-books carry one beyond this point. Another single quartering inherited gives five quarterings to be displayed on one shield. The usual plan is to repeat the first quartering, and gives you six, which are then arranged in two rows of three. If the shield be an impaled shield one sometimes sees them arranged in three rows of two, but this is unusual though not incorrect. But five quarterings are sometimes arranged in two rows, three in the upper and two in the lower, and with a shield of the long pointed variety this plan may be adopted with advantage. Subsequent quarterings, as they are introduced by subsequent marriages, take their places, Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and so on _ad infinitum_. In arranging them on one shield, the order in which they devolve (according to the _pedigree_ and _not_ necessarily according to the _date_ order in which they are inherited) must be rigidly adhered to; but a person is perfectly at liberty (1) to repeat the _first_ quartering at the end to make an even number or not at his pleasure, but no more than the first quartering must be repeated in such cases; (2) to arrange the quarters in any number of rows he may find most convenient according to the shape of the space the quarterings will occupy. Upon the Continent it is usual to specify the number and position of the lines by which the shield is divided. Thus, while an English herald would say simply, _Quarterly of six_, and leave it to the painter's or engraver's taste to arrange the quarterings in three rows of two, or in two rows of three, a French or German herald would ordinarily specify the arrangement to be used in distinct terms. If a man possessing only a simple coat of arms without quarterings marry an heiress with a number of quarterings (_e.g._ say twenty), he himself places the arms and quarterings of his wife in pretence. Their children eventually, as a consequence, inherit twenty-one quarterings. The first is the coat of their father, the second is the first coat of the mother, and the remaining nineteen follow in a regular sequence, according to their position upon their mother's achievement. To sum the rule up, it is necessary first to take _all_ the quarterings inherited from the father and arrange them in a proper sequence, and then follow on _in the same sequence_ with the arms and quarterings inherited from the mother. The foregoing explanations should show how generation by generation quarterings are added to a paternal shield, but I have found that many of those who possess a knowledge of the laws to this extent are yet at a loss, given a pedigree, to marshal the resulting quarterings in their right order. Given your pedigree--the first quartering _must_ be _the pronominal coat_ (I am here presuming no change of name or arms has occurred), which is the coat of the strict male line of descent. Then follow this male line back as far as it is known. The second quartering is the {549} coat of the _first_ heiress who married your earliest ancestor in the male line who is known to have married an heiress. Then after her coat will follow all the quarterings which she was entitled to and which she has "brought in" to your family. Having exhausted these, you then follow your male line _down_ to the next heiress, adding her arms as a quartering to those already arranged, and following it by her quarterings. The same plan must be pursued until you arrive at your own name upon the pedigree. Unless some exceptional circumstance has arisen (and such exceptions will presently be found detailed at length), all the quarterings are of equal heraldic value, and must be the same size when displayed. If after having worked out your quarterings you find that you have more than you care to use, you are quite at liberty to make a selection, omitting any number, _but_ it is entirely _wrong_ to display quarterings without those quarterings which brought them into the paternal line. Supposing your name to be Brown, you _must_ put the Brown arms in the first quarter, but at your pleasure you can quarter the arms of each single heiress who married an ancestor of yours in the male line (_i.e._ who herself became Mrs. Brown), or you can omit the whole or a part. But supposing one of these, Mrs. Brown (_née_ Smith), was entitled to quarter the arms of Jones, which arms of Jones had brought in the arms of Robinson, you are not at liberty to quarter the arms of Jones without quartering Smith, and if you wish to display the arms of Robinson you _must_ also quarter the arms of Jones to bring in Robinson and the arms of Smith to bring in Robinson and Jones to your own Brown achievement. You can use Brown only: or quarterly, 1 and 4, Brown; 2 and 3, Smith: or 1 and 4, Brown; 2. Smith; 3. Jones: or quarterly, 1. Brown; 2. Smith; 3. Jones; 4. Robinson; but you are _not_ entitled to quarter: 1 and 4, Brown; 2. Jones;