A similar contention arose about Edmund Neville, Edward Arden’s nephew (S.P.D.S. Eliz. 185, 72):
Pedigree of Neville and statement that he may bear Latimer’s arms. Richard Lord Latimer’s eldest son was John, Lord Latimer; his second son, William Neville of Latimer. John’s son John, Lord Latimer, died without male issue, leaving four daughters, his heirs, who divided his lands, and may quarter his arms. William Neville’s son was Richard Neville, who married Barbara, sister of Edward Arden of Park Hall, and their son is Edmund. By the custom and usage of England, after the decease of John, Lord Latimer, without issue male, Richard Neville, his cousin german, may bear the arms of the family, without distinction or difference.
If heraldry, therefore, has anything to say to this dispute, it is to support the claim of Thomas to being a cadet of the family of the Park Hall Ardens.
Nothing is recorded to account for Shakespeare allowing the arms of his mother, impaled on his father’s shield, to lapse from his own. It may be that, on his father’s death in 1601, he thought of the old meaning of quartering, “that it may be known whom a man hath married”; it may be that, tender of his Anne’s feelings, who had no arms to quarter, he let his spear shine alone on his shield; or it may be that, having proved his pedigree, he felt that
Honours best thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers.
—“All’s Well,” Act II, sc. iii.
“Athenæum,” 10th August 1895.