| No. 126.— De Chandos. | No. 127.— De Brian. | No. 128.— De Bassett. |
The probable structural origin of these Ordinaries is sufficiently apparent to render any further comment on that interesting circumstance superfluous.
[CHAPTER VII]
THE GRAMMAR OF HERALDRY
Section IV
The Subordinaries:— The Canton or Quarter: The Inescutcheon: The Orle: The Tressure: The Bordure: Flanches: The Lozenge, Mascle, and Rustre: The Fusil: The Billet: The Gyron: The Frette— The Roundles.
“The second in a line of stars.” —Idylls of the King.
The Subordinaries. This title has been assigned, but without any decisive authority, to another group of devices, second in rank to the Ordinaries. Very few writers agree as to which are ordinaries and which subordinaries; nor does there seem any reason why any distinction between them should exist. Nor, indeed, save that all are exclusively heraldic, why some of them should be regarded as anything more than ordinary charges. These Subordinaries are the Canton, the Quarter, the Inescutcheon, the Orle, the Tressure, the Bordure, Flanches, the Lozenge, Mascle and Rustre, the Fusil, the Billet, the Gyron, and the Frette. The Canton, by the early Heralds commonly styled the “Quarter,” sometimes has been grouped with the Ordinaries. And it must here be observed that the Lozenge, Fusil, Billet, Gyron, and Frette were not used as single charges by the early Heralds; but by them the fields of Shields were divided lozengy and gyronny, or they were semée of Billets, or covered over with Frette-work, from which the single charges evidently were afterwards obtained.
The Canton (H. 3), sometimes blazoned as a Quarter, cut off by two lines, the one drawn in pale and the other bar-wise, or in fesse, is either the first quarter of the field of a Shield, or about three-fourths of that quarter, but smaller if not charged. The confusion between the canton and the quarter is due to the fact that ancient arms in which the charge is now, and has been for centuries past, stereotyped as a canton and drawn to occupy one-ninth of the Shield, were uniformly drawn and blazoned in early times with the charge as a quarter. But there is a marked distinction now made between the canton and the quarter. A Canton ermine is of frequent occurrence, as in No. 128; but it is generally borne charged, and it always overlies the charges of the field of the Shield, as No. 129, for De Kyrkeby (R. 2)—Arg., two bars gu.; on a canton of the last a cross moline or; and, for Blundell (H. 3)—Az., billettée,
on a canton or a raven ppr., No. 130.
| No. 129.— De Kyrkeby. | No. 130.— Blundell. |
The Inescutcheon (H. 3) is a Shield borne as a charge, and superimposed upon another Shield larger than itself. When one Inescutcheon is borne, it is usually placed on the fesse-point; but several Inescutcheons may appear in one composition. The well-known Shield of the Mortimers supplies a good example, No. 131 (H. 3)—Barry of six or and az., an inescutcheon arg.; on a chief gold, gyroned of the second, two pallets of the same: for Darcy—Arg., an inescutcheon sa., within an orle of roses gu., No. 132 (E. 2): Arg., three inescutcheons gu., for De Wyllers (E. 2), No. 133. This is also the well-known Scottish coat of Hay.