QUARTERING AND MARSHALLING

In these "Peeps at Heraldry," we can only glance at much that should still be mentioned if space permitted.

We must say something, however, about quartering and marshalling, two very important departments in heraldry.

Hitherto, we have dealt with shields bearing only one coat of arms, but now we must speak of those which bear more than one.

Quartering means dividing the shield into quarters, so that several coats of arms may be represented on the same escutcheon. Fig. 54 shows the simplest form of quartering—viz., by two lines, fess-wise and pale-wise. This arrangement gives room for four different coats of arms, but if it is necessary to represent more than four, the shield is further cut up into the requisite number of divisions, then blazoned according to that number—e.g., "quarterly by eight," "by twelve," and so forth. It also sometimes happens that in a shield already quartered, each quarter has to be quartered again, and this arrangement is known in heraldry as "compound quartering." The four original quarters are then blazoned as "grand quarters," the secondary ones as "quarterly quarterings."

(The arms of the Duke of Portland afford a good example of a shield bearing a record of such alliances. For in the first and fourth grand quarters quarterly we find the arms of the Bentincks—the original family arms; in the second and third quarterlies the Cavendish arms appear; whilst on the second and third grand quarters the arms of Scott are represented, thus recording the alliance of the house of Bentinck with those of Cavendish and Scott.)

A husband may only add the arms of his wife's family to his own when she is heiress or co-heiress of her own line. He then bears those arms on what is called an "escutcheon of pretence," which he charges on his own family coat. All the sons of an heiress or co-heiress may use their mother's arms after she is dead as quarterings with those of their father, dividing the shield as in Fig. 54 and placing their paternal arms in the first and fourth quarters and their maternal in the second and third.

When three coats of arms are to be represented on a shield, the most important occupies the first and fourth quarters. A familiar example of this is furnished by the royal arms of Great Britain, where we see the lions of England in the first and fourth quarters, the lion rampant of Scotland in the second, and the harp of Ireland in the third.

The Earl of Pembroke, in 1348, was the first subject, so Mr. Hulme tells us, who quartered his arms.

When a great number of quarterings are charged upon the shield, the order in which these quarterings are marshalled¹ or arranged is very important, the original arms being always placed in the upper dexter of the field—that being the most honourable point—and the other arms following in the sequence in which they were introduced into the family coat of arms.

1: Marshalling means the art of grouping or arranging various coats of arms on one and the same shield.

There were two methods of marshalling in early heraldry. One was known as "dimidation," which means cutting a coat of arms in half, pale-wise, and matching it with another half of another coat of arms, so as to make one achievement of the two joined halves. Thus, when a wife's arms were to be represented on the same shield as her husband's, both coats were halved, and then placed upon the shield, the husband's arms occupying the right side, and those of the wife the left.

As you can imagine, however, the result of this chopping and joining was seldom satisfactory and sometimes very comical, as, for example, in the arms of Yarmouth, where half a lion is running to join half a herring!

The second method of marshalling was by impalement. This term means the joining together of different coats of arms by a pale.

In this arrangement the shield was divided pale-wise as before (Fig. 55 shows the shield divided ready to receive the two coats), but the whole of each coat was crowded respectively into each side of the shield, the right side being charged with the husband's arms, the left with his wife's. Naturally, however, in order to suit this arrangement, the arms suffered a certain amount of alteration.

Nowadays, according to Mr. Fox-Davies, the following rules are observed with regard to the arms of man and wife—viz.: "If the wife is not an heraldic heiress the two coats are impaled. If the wife be an heraldic heiress or co-heir, in lieu of impalement, the arms of her family are placed on an escutcheon, being termed an 'escutcheon of pretence,' because ... the husband pretends to the representation of her family."

A widow may have the coat of arms borne by her husband and herself marshalled, not on a shield, but on a lozenge, whilst an unmarried daughter may bear her father's arms on a lozenge also, but without a crest.

Finally, under the head of marshalling comes the arrangement of all the accessories, of the shield of which we spoke in our last chapter.