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.
| Fig. 759. | Fig. 760. | 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
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.