A Complete Guide to Heraldry

by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

remained 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 sufficient distinction from 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 of metal, 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 an ipse facto sign. 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 of

arms 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 such alterations (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 a chasm which it is impossible to bridge. It is not a case of a peculiar bridge or a faulty bridge; there is no bridge at all.