It has always been the practice for the daughters of a house to bear, without difference or alteration, the arms of their father. This practice has been departed from only in quite modern times, by the addition of distinctive labels to the arms borne by our princesses. To the manner in which married ladies have arranged or 'marshalled' their arms reference will be made later, but it is necessary here to call attention to the fact that it has been customary for a long time to place the arms of widows and single ladies upon shields that are lozenge-shaped. A good early example is that from the monument in Westminster abbey church of Frances Brandon duchess of Suffolk (ob. 1559), shown in fig. [51].
Fig. 51. Lozenge of arms from the monument at Westminster of Frances Brandon duchess of Suffolk (ob. 1559).
This singularly inconvenient form of shield, upon which it is often impossible to draw the arms properly, began to be used early in the fourteenth century.
It was not, however, used for or restricted to the arms of ladies, since the evidence of seals shows that it was at first used to contain the armorial bearings of men. There can likewise be little doubt that it and the roundel, which was also charged with arms, were contemporaneously invented by the seal engravers as variants from the ordinary form of shield; and it is interesting to note that the majority of the examples occur on seals which have a background or setting of elaborate tracery.
The roundel seems to have originated in the covering of the entire field of a circular seal with the arms of its owner, such as the leopards of England which are so disposed in a counterseal of Edward of Carnarvon as prince of Wales. Two seals of John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster, engraved probably in 1372, show a similar treatment: the one bearing his arms impaling, and the other his arms impaled with, those of Castile and Leon (pl. [VII] B). The former commemorates his marriage with Constance of Castile, and the latter the duke's claim in right of his wife to the kingdom of Castile itself.
A large enamelled roundel, party gules and azure with a gold charbocle, accompanies the shield and crested helm which, with it, form the stall-plate of Ralph lord Bassett (c. 1390) at Windsor.
One of the lesser seals appended to the Barons' Letter, that of Robert FitzPain, is an oval filled with the owner's arms (fig. [52]).