No. 329.— Shield of Earl Richard Beauchamp.
The husband of an Heiress or a Co-heiress, instead of impaling the arms of his wife, marshals them upon his Shield charged as an Escutcheon of Pretence. The son of an heiress, as heir to his maternal grandfather through his mother, as well as to his own father, quarters on his Shield, and transmits to his descendants, the arms of both his parents, his father’s arms generally being in the first quarter. The Shield of Richard Beauchamp, K.G., Earl of Warwick (died in 1439), is a good example of the use of an Escutcheon of Pretence; it is represented in No. 329, drawn from the garter-plate of the Earl, in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. The Earl himself, as his hereditary coat, quarters Beauchamp with Newburgh—chequée or and az., a chevron erm.: upon this, for his Countess, Isabelle, daughter and heiress of Thomas le Despencer, Earl of Gloucester, he marshals an Escutcheon of Pretence charged with De Clare, [No. 124], quartering Le Despencer—quarterly arg. and gu., in the second and third quarters a frette or, over all a bend sa. In the monument of this great Earl, at Warwick, upon the Escutcheon of Pretence the arms of Bohun are quartered with those of Clare and Despencer.
No. 330.