(Vol. vii., p. 571.)
CEYREP is informed, 1st, That a shield in the form of a lozenge was
appropriated exclusively to females, both spinsters and widows, in order to
distinguish the sex of the bearer of a coat of arms. It is of doubtful
origin, though supposed, from the form, to symbolise the spindle with yarn
wound round it; of good authority, and not of very modern date. Many
instances may be seen in Fuller, in the coats of arms appended to the
dedications of the various chapters of his _Church History_. In sect. ii.
book vi. p. 282. ed. 1655, he has separated the coats of man and wife, and
placed them side by side; that of the latter upon a lozenge-shaped
shield--Party per pale arg. and gules, two eagles displayed,
counterchanged.
2ndly, No one has a right to inscribe a motto upon a garter or riband,
except those dignified with one of the various orders of knighthood. For
any other person to do so, is a silly assumption. The motto should be upon
a scroll, either over the crest, or beneath the shield.
3rdly, I cannot find that it was ever the custom in this country for
ecclesiastics to bear their paternal coat on an oval or circular shield.
Forbidden, as they were, by the first council of {38} Mascon, Bingham, vi.
421., in the Excerptions of Ecgbright, A.D. 740, Item 154., and the
Constitutions of Othobon, A.D. 1268, can. 4., to bear arms for the purposes
of warfare, it is a question whether any below the episcopal order ought,
in strict right, to display any armorial ensigns at all. Archbishops and
bishops bear the arms of their sees impaled (as of their spouse) with their
own paternal coats; the latter probably only in right of their baronies. It
is worthy of remark that, since the Reformation, and consequent marriage of
bishops, there has been no official decision as to the bearing the arms of
their wives, nor has any precedence been granted to the latter.