Official Arms are not hereditary.
Royal Personages, when married, bear their own arms on a separate Shield; and a second Shield bears the arms of the husband and wife conjoined.
The circumstances of every case must exercise a considerable influence in determining the Marshalling of the Accessories of any Shield, Lozenge, or Group. As a general rule, however, the Helm always rests on the chief of the Shield: Commoners, Knights, Baronets, and Peers place their Crest upon the Helm: Peers and Princes place their Helm upon the Coronet, and their Crest is placed upon the Helmet. The Sovereign places the Crest upon the Royal Crown, which is a part of the Royal Crest, and it is unusual to duplicate the Crown by repeating it below the Helmet. The Mantling is displayed from the back of the Helm: it is most effective when simple in its form and adjustment, and when it droops behind the Shield. The Motto is usually placed below the Shield; but if it has special reference to the Crest, above the Crest. A Scottish motto always goes over the Crest. Supporters are usually placed erect, as if in the act of really supporting the Shield: they ought to stand either on an appropriate ground, or on a Gothic basement to the entire Achievement. Badges, with all Official and Knightly Insignia, and all other Honourable Insignia of every kind, are rightly marshalled in an Achievement of Arms.
[5.] In [No. 251] the initial A of the word AQVITANNIE has been omitted.
[6.] In No. 319 the bordure of De Dreux in the roundle in base is charged with Lions of England, as borne by John de Dreux; but the presence of these in the Seal of the Countess is uncertain. See [No. 322].
[CHAPTER XII]
CADENCY
Marks of Cadency are temporary or permanent— The Label— The Bordure— The Bendlet, Barrulet, and Canton— Change of Tincture— Secondary Charges— Single Small Charges— Differences of Illegitimacy— Cadency of Crests, Badges, &c.— Modern Cadency.
“Merke ye wele theys questionys here, now folowying!” —Boke of St. Albans, A.D. 1486.
Amongst his comrades in arms, or in the midst of a hostile array, the last object that a mediæval Knight would expect or desire to observe, on the morning of a battle or a joust, would be an exact counterpart of himself. Occasions, indeed, might sometimes arise, when it might be highly desirable that five or six counterfeit “Richmonds” should accompany one real one to “the field”; or, when a “wild boar of Ardennes” might prefer to encounter the hunters, having about him the choice of his own “boar’s brood,” garnished at all points exactly after his own fashion. These, however, are rare and strictly exceptional cases. And the Knight, to whom distinction was as the breath of his nostrils, as he closed his vizor trusted confidently to his heraldic insignia to distinguish him, while, in the fore-front of the fray, with sword and lance and axe he would strive manfully to distinguish himself. This implies that Heraldry, besides assigning to different families their own distinct insignia, should possess the faculty of distinguishing the several members, and also the various branches of the same family, the one from the other. A faculty such as this Heraldry does possess, in its marks of Cadency.
In “marking Cadency”—that is, in distinguishing the armorial insignia of kinsmen, who are members of the very same family, or of some one of its various branches, it is a necessary condition of every system of “Differencing” that, while in itself clear and definite and significant, it should be secondary to the leading characteristics of the original Coat of Arms which denotes the senior branch of the Family, and also declares from what fountain-head all the kinsmen of all the branches have derived their common descent.