Teach Yourself Heraldry  Module 3

Women and Heraldry

Unless granted arms in her own right, a woman uses her father’s arms undifferenced. Until the late medieval period, these would be displayed on a shield, but from the 15th/16th century women’s arms were increasingly placed on a lozenge. This frequently proved to be quite unsatisfactory artistically, often calling for adjustments to be made to the design in order to fit the shape.

On the monuments of wives who have died before their husbands, their joint arms are displayed either on a shield or on a lozenge.

Unless granted arms in her own right, a widow continues to use the joint arms she had with her husband, but places them on a lozenge.

Inheriting Coats of Arms

This section explains the generally accepted laws of inheritance of arms in England, as these became formalised towards the end of the medieval period. A personal coat of arms is the property of an individual and, like any other property, it can be inherited. But there are strict rules. Unlike most property, the owner of a coat of arms is neither at liberty to dispose of it during his lifetime, nor has he any control over who inherits it on his death. Generally speaking a coat of arms descends to a man’s eldest son. Very rarely a grant of arms may allow for an alternative, or more extensive, possibility of descent.

As we’ve already noted, younger brothers were expected to difference their arms from those of the head of the family. Sisters could use their father’s arms undifferenced, though they did not own them. If a man’s eldest son dies before him, his coat of arms would descend to that son’s eldest surviving son (ie the man’s grandson) rather than to another of his sons. The situation becomes more complicated when, at a man’s death, he leaves no surviving male descendants in the male line. In that case all his surviving daughters become heraldic heiresses with the right to pass on their arms to their children.

The Most Common Situation

A man with coat of arms A marries a wife whose father has coat of arms B. They impale A & B together as their joint arms.

The lady has a brother who uses his father’s arms, duly differenced. If that brother is alive at the time of their father’s death, he will inherit his father’s arms and his sister will not.

Consequently the eldest son of the marriage will only inherit his father’s arms.

The Heraldic Heiress

In this case the wife has no brothers. On her marriage her husband would impale A & B together as in the case above.

On her father’s death, however, she  becomes an heraldic heiress, personally owning coat of arms B. At this point her husband stops impaling B with A and, instead he places B on a small shield in the middle of his own arms. This is called an escutcheon of pretence. He does not own the arms B himself, but he is representing them in the right of his wife.

The eldest son of their marriage then inherits both A and B which are quartered together, his father’s arms normally being placed in quarters 1 & 4 and his mother’s in 2 & 3. This ensures that the male surname remains associated with quarter 1.

NB On their father’s death without surviving sons, or sons of his sons, all his daughters become heraldic heiresses equally and their family arms may thus become a new quartering on the shield of several different families.

More and More Heiresses

As generation succeeds generation, the head of the family will sometimes marry a wife who is not an heraldic heiress but that, of course, has no effect on the family coat of arms.

We look here at the way successive marriages to heiresses affects the family coat of arms. In each case remember that, initially, the husband and wife’s arms will be impaled (unless her father has already died). On her father’s death the husband will place her arms in pretence in the centre of his own, and it is their eldest son who will incorporate the new arms into the existing design.

The diagram shows how each new coat of arms is incorporated in the next generation with A being repeated in the final quarter if needed. By the time E arrives it is necessary to extend to quarterly of six. Note that the quarterings are normally placed in the order in which they have been acquired.

More Complications

Frequently an heiress’s arms will themselves be quartered. Her arms B & C will be placed by her husband on a shield of pretence as usual.

In English practice, their eldest son will normally split up his mother’s quartered arms and place them in separate quarters on his own shield, giving preference to B rather than C. This effectively disguises how B & C have come into the arms. Indeed one might easily assume that B & C have arrived in different generations.

The practice in Scotland avoids this problem by treating the heiress’s arms as indivisible. So their eldest son uses grand quarters, his arms being Quarterly 1&4 A; 2&3 B quartering C. While it solves one problem, however, it tends to result in a more complicated design.

Over the centuries the aristocracy tended to acquire more and more quarterings. By the 19th century it became quite fashionable to show them off. Frequently the same coat of arms would be repeated in several positions.

You don’t have to use all your quarterings

The fact that you have lots of quarterings doesn’t mean that you have to use them all. It would be quite acceptable for the 11th Duke of Norfolk just to use the Howard arms, as shown in quarter 1 of his shield above.

Robert Dudley (d1588) earl of Leicester, and Ambrose Dudley (d1590) earl of Warwick, were brothers. So, apart from any cadency differences they might display, their coats of arms should be identical – that is to say they were entitled to use all the same quarterings. In reality they made selections from their quarterings. Not only did they vary the number of quarterings displayed, but they sometimes altered which ones they chose.

Ambrose Dudley with 8 quarterings in the Burrell Collection.

Robert Dudley with 16 quarterings in the Burrell Collection.

Robert Dudley with a different selection and arrangement of 16 quarterings from his Garter plate.

Ambrose Dudley with 20 quarterings from his Garter plate.

The dexter half shows the arms of Robert Dudley with 55 quarterings from his memorial at Warwick.

There’s just one rule

When making a selection from all your available quarterings, the rule is that a particular quartering cannot be included unless you also include any quartering(s) that ‘brought it in’. Looking at the mother’s coat of arms opposite, we’ll assume that the quarterings D, E and F have all been added to C in that order. So C & D were on the mother’s ancestor’s arms before E, for instance, and so they have ‘brought E in’ to the new combined arms.

A man may wish to include, or leave out, specific quarterings from his mother’s shield depending on their relative prestige. In this case, if he wants to include D, he must also include C, or if he wants to include F he must also include C, D & E.

But there are many exceptions to the rule

There are several reasons why the quarterings on a shield may not follow the rule above:

• the quarterings on the shield may have been in place since before this rule was formalised;
• in the 16th century the collection of quarterings may have been ‘sold’ as a set by the College of Arms, to an applicant like Sir Henry Sidney KG (d1586) who felt he needed them;
• a recent marriage may be perceived to be so important socially and heraldically that the new quartering is given greater status than it would otherwise have. When John Radcliffe (d1496) inherited the 13th century barony of Fitzwalter from his mother, he understandably gave due prominence to the arms of Fitzwalter.

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