R. J. Allen.
Ladies' Arms in a Lozenge (Vol. viii., pp. 37. 83.).—Broctuna has a theory that ladies bear their arms in a lozenge, because hatchments are of that shape; and it is probably that widows in old time "would vie with each other in these displays of the insignia of mourning." It has, however, escaped his memory, that maids with living fathers also use the lozenge, and that in a man's hatchment it is the frame only, and not the shield at all, which has the lozenge shape. The man's arms in the hatchment not being on a lozenge, it is scarcely possible his widow could thence have adopted it. He suggests that the shape was adopted for hatchments as being the most convenient for admitting the arms of the sixteen ancestors.
I wish to insert a Query, as to whether the sixteen quarters ever were made use of this way in English heraldry? Perhaps your readers will be willing to allow that the lozenge is surely a fitting emblem for the sweeter sex; but is not the routine reason the true one after all? The lozenge has a supposed resemblance to the distaff, the emblem of the woman. We have spinster from the same idea; and, though I cannot now turn to the passage, I am sure I have seen the Salic law described as forbidding "the holder of the distaff to grasp the sceptre."
P. P.
Burial in unconsecrated Ground (Vol. vi., p. 448.; Vol. viii., p. 43.).—The late elegant and accomplished Sir W. Temple, though he laid not his whole body in his garden, deposited the better part of it (his heart) there; "and if my executors will gratify me in what I have desired, I wish my corpse may be interred as I have bespoke them; not at all out of singularity, or for want of a dormitory (of which there is an ample one annexed to the parish church), but for other reasons not necessary here to trouble the reader with, what I have said in general being sufficient. However, let them order as they think fit, so it be not in the church or chancel." (Evelyn's Sylva, book iv.)
"In the north aisle of the chancel [of Wotton Church] is the burying-place of the Evelyns (within which is lately made, under a decent arched chapel, a vault). In the chancel on the north side is a tomb, about three feet high, of freestone, shaped like a coffin; on the top, on white marble, is this inscription:
'Here lies the Body
of John Evelyn, Esq.'"[[8]]
This inscription commemorates the author of Sylva, and evinces how unobsequiously obsequies are sometimes solemnised.
Evelyn mentions Sumner On Garden Burial, probably "not circulated."
Bibliothecar. Chetham.
Footnote 8:[(return)]