A Complete Guide to Heraldry

by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

THE COMPARTMENT

A compartment is anything depicted below the shield as a foothold or resting-place for the supporters, or indeed for the shield itself. Sometimes it is a fixed part of the blazon and a constituent part of the heritable heraldic bearings. At other times it is a matter of mere artistic fancy, and no fixed rules exist to regulate or control nor even to check the imagination of the heraldic artist. The fact remains that supporters must have something to stand upon, and if the blazon supplies nothing, the discretion of the artist is allowed considerable laxity.

On the subject of compartments a great deal of diversity of opinion exists. There is no doubt that in early days and early examples supporters were placed to stand upon some secure footing, but with the decadence of heraldic art in the seventeenth century came the introduction of the gilded "freehand copy" scroll with which we are so painfully familiar, which one writer has aptly termed the heraldic gas-bracket. Arising doubtless from and following upon the earlier habit of balancing the supporters upon the unstable footing afforded by the edge of the motto scroll, the "gas-bracket" was probably accepted as less open to objection. It certainly was not out of keeping with the heraldic art of the period to which it owed its evolution, or with the style of armorial design of which it formed a part. It still remains the accepted and "official" style and type in England, but Scotland and Ireland have discarded it, and "compartments" in those countries are now depicted of a nature requiring less gymnastic ability on the part of the animals to which they afford a foothold. The style of compartment is practically always a matter of artistic taste and design. With a few exceptions it is always entirely disregarded in the blazon of the patent, and the necessity of something for the supporters to stand upon is as much an understood thing as is the existence of a shield whereon the arms are to be displayed. But as the shape of the shield is left to the fancy of the artist, so is the character of the compartment, and the Lyon Register nowadays affords examples of achievements where the supporters stand on rocks and flowery mounds

or issue from a watery abiding-place. The example set by the Lyon Register has been eagerly followed by most heraldic artists.

Fig. 672.

It is a curious commentary upon the heraldic art of the close of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries that whilst the gymnastic capabilities of animals were admitted to be equal to "tight-rope" exhibitions of balancing upon the ordinary scroll, these feats were not considered practicable in the case of human beings, for whom little square platforms were always provided. Fig. 672, which represents the sinister supporter of Lord Scarsdale (viz. the figure of Liberality represented by a woman habited argent, mantled purpure, holding a cornucopia proper) shows the method by which platform accommodation was provided for human figures when acting as supporters.

At the same time this greater freedom of design may occasionally lead to mistakes in relation to English supporters and their compartments. Following upon the English practice already referred to of differentiating the supporters of different families, it has apparently been found necessary in some cases to place the supporters to stand upon a definite object, which object is recited in the blazon and becomes an integral and unchangeable portion of the supporter. Thus Lord Torrington's supporters are each placed upon dismounted ships' guns ["Dexter, an heraldic antelope ermine, horned, tusked, maned and hoofed or, standing on a ship gun proper; sinister, a sea-horse proper, on a like gun">[, Lord Hawke's[^[27]] dexter supporter rests his sinister foot upon a dolphin, and Lord Herschell's supporters each stand upon a fasces ["Supporters: on either side a stag proper, collared azure, standing on a fasces or">[. The supporters of Lord Iveagh each rest a hind-foot upon an escutcheon ["Supporters: on either side a stag gules, attired and collared gemel or, resting the inner hoof on an escutcheon vert charged with a lion rampant of the second">[, whilst the inner hind-foot of each of Lord Burton's supporters

rests upon a stag's head caboshed proper. Probably absurdity could go no further. But in the case of the supporters granted to Cape Town (Fig. 673), the official blazon runs as follows: "On the dexter

side, standing on a rock, a female figure proper, vested argent, mantle and sandals azure, on her head an estoile radiated or, and supporting with her exterior hand an anchor also proper; and on the sinister side, standing on a like rock, a lion rampant guardant gules." In this case it will be seen that the rocks form an integral part of the supporters, and are not merely an artistic rendering of the compartment. The illustration, which was made from an official drawing supplied from the Heralds' College, shows the curious way in which the motto scroll is made to answer the purpose of the compartment.