MARKS OF BASTARDY
It has been remarked that the knowledge of "the man in the street" is least
incorrect when he knows nothing. Probably the only heraldic knowledge that
a large number possess is summed up in the assertion that the heraldic sign
of illegitimacy is the "bar sinister."
No doubt it is to the novelists--who, seeking to touch lightly upon an
unpleasant subject, have ignorantly adopted a French colloquialism--that we
must attribute a great deal of the misconception which exists concerning
illegitimacy and its heraldic marks of indication. I assert most
unhesitatingly that there are not now and never have been any unalterable
laws as to what these marks should be, and the colloquialism which insists
upon the "bar sinister" is a curiously amusing example of an utter
misnomer. To any one with the most rudimentary knowledge of heraldry it
must plainly be seen to be radically impossible to depict a bar sinister,
for the simple reason that the bar is neither dexter nor sinister. It is
utterly impossible to draw a bar sinister--such a thing does not exist. But
the assertion of many writers with a knowledge of armory that "bar
sinister" is a mistake for "bend sinister" is also somewhat misleading,
because the real mistake lies in the spelling of the term. The "barre
sinistre" is merely the French translation of bend sinister, the French
word "barre" meaning a _bend_. The French "barre" is not the English "bar."
In order to properly understand the true significance of the marks of
illegitimacy, it is necessary that the attempt should be made to transplant
oneself into the environment when the laws and rules of heraldry were in
the making. At that period illegitimacy was of little if any account. It
has not debarred the succession of some of our own sovereigns, although,
from the earliest times, the English have always been more prudish upon the
point than other nations. In Ireland, even so late as the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, it is a striking genealogical difficulty to decide in many noble
pedigrees which if any of the given sons of any person were legitimate, and
which of the ladies of his household, if any, might be legally termed his
wife. In Scotland we find the same thing, though perhaps it is not quite so
{509} blatant to so late a date, but considering what are and have been the
Scottish laws of marriage, it is the _fact_ or otherwise of marriage which
has to be ascertained; and though in England the legal status was
recognised from an earlier period, the social status of the illegitimate
offspring of a given man depended little upon the legal legitimacy of
birth, but rather upon the amount of recognition the bastard received from
his father. If a man had an unquestionably legitimate son, that son
undoubtedly succeeded; but if he had not, any technical stain upon the
birth of the others had little effect in preventing their succession. A
study of the succession to the Barony of Meinill clearly shows that the
illegitimate son of the second Lord Meinill succeeded to the estates and
peerage of his father in preference to his legitimate uncle. There are many
other analogous cases. And when the Church juggled at its pleasure with the
sacrament of marriage--dispensing and annulling or recognising marriages
for reasons which we nowadays can only term whimsical--small wonder is it
that the legal fact, though then admitted, had little of the importance
which we now give to it. When the actual fact was so little more than a
matter at the personal pleasure of the person most concerned, it would be
ridiculous to suppose that any perpetuation of a mere advertisement of the
fact would be considered necessary, whilst the fact itself was so often
ignored; so that until comparatively recent times the Crown certainly never
attempted to enforce any heraldic marks of illegitimacy. Rather were these
enforced by the legitimate descendants if and when such descendants
existed.
The point must have first arisen when there were both legitimate and
illegitimate descendants of a given person, and it was desired to make
record of the true line in which land or honours should descend. To effect
this purpose, the arms of the illegitimate son were made to carry some
charge or alteration to show that there was some reason which debarred
inheritance by their users, whilst there remained those entitled to bear
the arms without the mark of distinction. But be it noted that this
obligation existed equally on the legitimate cadets of a family, and in the
earliest periods of heraldry there is little or no distinction either in
the marks employed or in the character of the marks, which can be drawn
between mere marks of cadency and marks of illegitimacy. Until a
comparatively recent period it is absolutely unsafe to use these marks as
signifying or proving either legitimate cadency or illegitimacy. The same
mark stood for both, the only object which any distinctive change
accomplished, being the distinction which it was necessary to draw between
those who owned the right to the undifferenced arms, and owned the land,
and those who did not. The object was to safeguard the right of the real
{510} possessors and their true heirs, and not to penalise the others.
There was no particular mark either for cadency or for illegitimacy, the
distinctions made being dictated by what seemed the most suitable and
distinctive mark applicable to the arms under consideration.
When that much has been thoroughly grasped, one gets a more accurate
understanding of the subject. One other point has to be borne in mind (and
to the present generation, which knows so well how extensively arms have
been improperly assumed, the statement may seem startling), and that is,
that the use of arms was formerly evidence of pedigree. As late as the
beginning of the nineteenth century evidence of this character was
submitted to the Committee of Privileges at the hearing of a Peerage case.
The evidence was _admitted_ for that purpose, though doubt (in that case
very properly) was thrown upon its value.
Therefore, in view of the two foregoing facts, there can be very little
doubt that the use of armorial marks of bastardy _was not invented or
instituted, nor were these marks enforced, as punishment or as a disgrace_.
It is a curious instance how a careful study of words and terms employed
will often afford either a clue or confirmation, when the true meaning of
the term has long been overlooked.
The official term for a mark of cadency is a "difference" mark, _i.e._ it
was a mark to show the difference between one member of a family and
another. The mark used to signify a lack of blood relationship, and a mark
used to signify illegitimacy are each termed a "mark of distinction,"
_i.e._ a mark that shall make something plainly "distinct." What is that
something? The fact that the use of the arms is not evidence of descent
through which heirship can be claimed or proved. This, by the way, is a
patent example of the advantage of adherence to precedent.
The inevitable conclusion is that a bastard was originally only required to
mark his shield sufficiently that it should be distinctly apparent that
heirship would never accrue. The arms had to be distinct from those borne
by those members of the family upon whom heirship might devolve. The social
position of a bastard as "belonging" to a family was pretty generally
conceded, therefore he carried their arms, sufficiently marked to show he
was not in the line of succession.
This being accepted, one at once understands the great variety of the marks
which have been employed. These answered the purpose of distinction, and
nothing more was demanded or necessary. Consequently a recapitulation of
marks, of which examples can be quoted, would be largely a list of isolated
instances, and as such they are useless for the purposes of deduction in
any attempt to arrive at a correct conclusion as to what the ancient rules
were. In brief, there were no {511} rules until the eighteenth, or perhaps
even until the nineteenth century. The only rule was that the arms must be
sufficiently marked in _some_ way. This is borne out by the dictum of
Menêstrier.
Except the label, which has been elsewhere referred to, the earliest marks
of either cadency or illegitimacy for which accepted use can be found are
the bend and the bordure; but the bend for the purpose of illegitimacy
seems to be the earlier, and a bend superimposed over a shield remained a
mark of illegitimate cadency until a comparatively late period. This bend
as a difference naturally was originally depicted as a bend dexter, and as
a mark of legitimate cadency is found in the arms of the _younger_ son of
Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, before he succeeded his elder
brother.
There are scores of other similar instances which a little research will
show. Whether the term "left-handed marriage" is the older, and the
sinister bend is derived therefrom, or whether the slang term is derived
from the sinister bend, it is perhaps not necessary to inquire. But there
is no doubt that from an early period the bend of cadency, when such
cadency was illegitimate, is frequently met with in the sinister form. But
concurrently with such usage instances are found in which the dexter bend
was used for the same purpose, and it is very plainly evident that it was
never at that date looked upon as a penalty, but was used merely as a
_distinction_, or for the purpose of showing that the wearer was not the
head of his house or in possession of the lordship. The territorial idea of
the nature of arms, which has been alluded to in the chapter upon marks of
cadency, should be borne in mind in coming to a conclusion.
Soon after the recognition of the bend as a mark of illegitimacy we come
across the bordure; but there is some confusion with this, bordures of all
kinds being used indiscriminately to denote both legitimate and
illegitimate cadency. There are countless other forms of marking
illegitimacy, and it is impossible to attempt to summarise them, and
absolutely impossible to draw conclusions as to any family from marks upon
its arms when this point is under discussion. To give a list of these
instances would rather seem an attempt to deduce a rule or rules upon the
point, so I say at once that there was no recognised mark, and any plain
distinction seems to have been accepted as sufficient; and no distinction
whatever was made when the illegitimate son, either from failure of
legitimate issue or other reason, succeeded to the lands and honours of his
father. Out of the multitude of marks, the bend, and subsequently the bend
sinister, emerge as most frequently in use, and finally the bend sinister
exclusively; so that it has come to be considered, and perhaps correctly as
regards one period, that its use was equivalent to a mark of illegitimacy
in England. {512}
But there has always remained to the person of bastard descent the right of
discarding the bastardised coat, and adopting a new coat of arms, the only
requirement as to the new coat being that it shall be so distinct from the
old one as not to be liable to confusion therewith. And it is a moot point
whether or not a large proportion of the instances which are tabulated in
most heraldic works as examples of marks of bastardy are anything whatever
of the kind. My own opinion is that many are not, and that it is a mistake
to so consider them; the true explanation undoubtedly in some--and outside
the Royal Family probably in most--being that they are new coats of arms
adopted _as_ new coats of arms, doubtless bearing relation to the old
family coat, but sufficiently distinguished therefrom to rank as new arms,
and were never intended to be taken as, and never were bastardised examples
of formerly existing coats. It is for this reason that I have refrained
from giving any extensive list such as is to be found in most other
treatises on heraldry, for all that can be said for such lists is that they
are lists of the specific arms of specific bastards, which is a very
different matter from a list of heraldic marks of illegitimacy.
Another objection to the long lists which most heraldic works give of early
instances of marks of bastardy as data for deduction lies in the fact that
most are instances of the illegitimate children of Royal personages. It is
singularly unsafe to draw deductions, to be applied to the arms of others,
from the Royal Arms, for these generally have laws unto themselves.
The bend sinister in its bare simplicity, as a mark of illegitimacy, was
seldom used, the more frequent form being the sinister bendlet, or even the
diminutive of that, the cottise. There is no doubt, of course, that when a
sinister bend or bendlet debruises another coat that that is a bastardised
version of an older coat, but examples can be found of the sinister bend as
a charge which has no reference whatever to illegitimacy. Two instances
that come to mind, which can be found by reference to any current peerage,
are the arms of Shiffner and Burne-Jones. Certainly in these cases I know
of no illegitimacy, and neither coat is a bastardised version of an older
existing coat. Anciently the bendlet was drawn across arms and quarterings,
and an example of a coat of arms of some number of quarterings debruised
for an illegitimate family is found in the registration of a Talbot
pedigree in one of the Visitation Books. As a mark of distinction upon arms
the bend sinister for long past has fallen out of use, though for the
purpose of differencing crests a bendlet wavy sinister is still made use
of, and will be again presently referred to.
Next to the bend comes the bordure. Bordures of all kinds were used for the
purposes of cadency from practically the earliest periods {513} of heraldic
differencing. But they were used indiscriminately, as has been already
stated, both for legitimate and illegitimate cadency. John of Gaunt, as is
well known, was the father of Henry IV. and the ancestor of Henry VII., the
former being the issue of his legitimate wife, the latter coming from a son
who, as one of the old chroniclers puts it, "was of double advowtrie
begotten." But, as every one knows, John of Gaunt's children by Catherine
Roet or Swynford were legitimated by Act of Parliament, the Act of
Parliament not excepting the succession to the Throne, a disability later
introduced in Letters Patent of the Crown when giving a subsequent
confirmation of the Act, but which, nevertheless, they could not overrule.
But taking the sons of the latter family as legitimate, which (whatever may
have been the moral aspect of the case) they were undoubtedly in the eyes
of the common law after the passing of the Act referred to, they existed
concurrently with the undoubtedly senior descendants of the first marriage
of John of Gaunt with Blanche of Lancaster, and it was necessary--whether
they were legitimate or not--to distinguish the arms of the junior from the
senior branch. The result was that as legitimate cadets, and not as
bastards, the arms of John of Gaunt were differenced for the line of the
Dukes of Somerset by the addition of the bordure compony argent and
azure--the livery colours of Lancaster. It is a weird position, for these
colours were derived from the family of the legitimate wife.
The fight as to whether these children were legitimate or illegitimate was,
of course, notorious, and a matter of history; but from the fact that they
bore a bordure compony, an idea grew up both in this country and in
Scotland also from the similarity of the cases of the doubtful legitimacy
of the Avondale and Ochiltree Stewarts, who both used the bordure compony,
that the bordure compony was a sign of illegitimacy, whereas in both
countries at an earlier period it undoubtedly was accepted as a mark of
legitimate cadency.
As a mark of bastardy it had subsequently some extensive use in both
countries, and it still remains the only mark now used for the purpose in
Scottish heraldry. Whether it was that it was not considered as of a fixed
nature, or whether it was that it had become notorious and unacceptable, it
is difficult to say, though the officers of arms have been blamed for
making a change on the assumption that it was the latter.
Some writers who clamour strongly for the _penalising_ of bastard arms, and
for the plain and recognisable marking of them as such (a position adopted
rather vehemently by Woodward, a singularly erudite heraldic writer), are
rather uncharitable, and at the same time rather lacking in due observation
and careful consideration of ancient ideas {514} and ancient precedents.
That the recognised mark has been changed at different periods, and as a
consequence that to a certain extent the advertisement it conveys has been
less patent is, of course, put down to the "venality" of mediæval heralds
(happily their backs are broad) by those who are too short-sighted to
observe that the one thing an official herald moves heaven and earth to
escape from is the making of a new precedent; and that, on the score of
signs of illegitimacy, the official heralds, when the control of arms
passed into their hands, found no established rule. So far from having been
guilty of venality, as Woodward suggests, they have erred on the other
side, and by having worked only on the limited number of precedents they
found they have stereotyped the advertisement, and thereby made the
situation more stringent than they found it.
We have it from biblical sources that the sins of the fathers shall be
visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations, and this
spirit has undoubtedly crept into the views of many writers, but to get
into the true perspective of the matter one needs to consider the subject
from the point of view of less prudish days than our own.
I have no wish to be misunderstood. In these days much heraldic reviewing
of the blatant and baser sort depends not upon the value of the work
performed, a point of view which is never given a thought, but entirely
upon the identity of the writer whose work is under review, and is largely
composed of misquotation and misrepresentation. It may perhaps be as well,
therefore, to state that I am not seeking to condone illegitimacy or to
combat present opinions upon the point. I merely state that our present
opinions are a modern growth, and that in the thirteenth, fourteenth,
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, when the fundamental principles of
heraldry were in the making, it was not considered a disgrace to have an
illegitimate son, nor was it considered then that to be of illegitimate
birth carried the personal stigma that came later.
At any rate, the fact remains that a new mark was called into being in
England about the year 1780 when in a grant to Zachary to quarter the arms
of Sacheverell, from which family he was in the female line illegitimately
descended, the bordure wavy was first met with as a sufficient and proper
mark of illegitimacy. The curious point is that before that date in
Scotland and in England the bordure wavy possessed nothing of this
character, and to the present day the bordure wavy in Scotland is
undoubtedly nothing more than a legitimate mark of legitimate cadency, for
which mark Mr. Stodart provides a place in the scheme of differencing which
he tabulated as the basis of cadency marks in Scotland (Fig. 732). Since
that date the bordure wavy has {515} remained the mark which has been used
for the purpose in England, as the bordure compony has remained the mark in
Scotland.
Bearing in mind that the only necessity was some mark which should carry
sufficient _distinction_ from the arms of the family, it follows, as a
natural consequence of human nature, that as soon as any particular mark
became identified with illegitimacy (after that was considered to be a
stigma), that mark was quietly dropped and some other substituted, and no
one should be surprised to find the bordures wavy and compony quietly
displaced by something else. If any change is to be made in the future it
is to be hoped that no existing mark will be adopted, and that the marks in
England and Scotland shall not conflict even if they do not coincide.
The bendlet sinister, however, survives in the form of the baton sinister,
which is a bendlet couped placed across the centre of the shield. The baton
sinister, however, is a privilege which, as a charge on a shield, is
reserved, such as it is, for Royal bastards. The latest instance of this
was in the exemplification of arms to the Earl of Munster and his brothers
and sisters early in the nineteenth century. Other surviving instances are
met with in the arms of the Duke of St. Albans and the Duke of Grafton.
Another privilege of Royal bastards is that they may have the baton of
_metal_, a privilege which is, according to Berry, denied to those of
humbler origin.
According to present law the position of an illegitimate person
heraldically is based upon the common law of the country, which practically
declares that an illegitimate child has no name, no parentage, and no
relations. The illegitimacy of birth is an insuperable bar to inheritance,
and a person of illegitimate birth inherits no arms at all, the popular
idea that he inherits a right to the arms subject to a mark of distinction
being quite incorrect. He has none at all. There has never been any mark
which, as a matter of course and of mere motion, could attach itself
automatically to a shield, as is the case with the English marks of
difference, _e.g._ the crescent of the second son or the mullet of the
third. This is a point upon which I have found mistaken ideas very
frequently held, even by those who have made some study of heraldry.
But a very little thought should make it plain that by the very nature of
the fact there cannot be either a recognised mark, compulsory use, or an
_ipse facto_ sign. Illegitimacy is negative, not positive--a fact which
many writers hardly give sufficient weight to.
If any one of illegitimate birth desires to obtain a right to arms he has
two courses open to him. He can either (not disclosing the fact of his
illegitimacy, and not attempting to prove that he is a descendant of any
kind from any one else) apply for and obtain a new grant of {516} arms on
his own basis, and worry through the College the grant of a coat as closely
following in design that of the old family as he can get, which means that
he would be treated and penalised with such _alterations_ (not "marks of
distinction") as would be imposed upon a stranger in blood endeavouring to
obtain arms founded upon a coat to which he had no right. The cost of such
a proceeding in England is £76, 10s., the usual fees upon an ordinary
grant.
The alternative course is simple. He must avow himself a bastard, and must
prove his paternity or maternity, as the case may be (for in the eye of the
law--common and heraldic--he bears the same relation, which is nil, and the
same right to the name and arms, which is nil, of both his father and his
mother).
Illegitimacy under English law affords one of the many instances in which
anomalies exist, for, strange as the statement is, a bastard comes into the
world without any name at all.
Legally, at birth a bastard child has then no name at all, and no arms. It
must subsequently acquire such right to a name (whatever right that may
amount to) as user of and reputation therein may give him. He inherits no
arms at all, no name, and no property, save by specific devise or bequest.
The lack of parents operates as a _chasm_ which it is impossible to bridge.
It is not a case of a peculiar bridge or a faulty bridge; there is no
bridge at all.
Names, in so far as they are matters of law, are subject to canon law; at
any rate, the law upon the subject, such as it is, originated in canon law,
and not in statute or common law. Canon law was made, and has never since
been altered, at a time when surnames were not in existence. A bastard no
more inherits the surname of the mother than it does the surname of its
father; and the spirit of petty officialism, so rampant amongst the clergy,
which seeks to impose upon a bastard _nolens volens_ the surname of its
mother, has no justification in law or fact. A bastard has precisely as
little right to the surname of its mother as it has to the surname of its
father. Obviously, however, under the customs of our present social life,
every person must have a surname of one kind or another; and it is here
that the anomaly in the British law exists, inasmuch as neither statute nor
canon law provide any means for conferring a surname. That the King has the
prerogative, and exercises it, of conferring or confirming surnames is, of
course, unquestioned, but it is hardly to be supposed that the King will
trouble himself to provide a surname for every illegitimate child which may
be born; and outside this prerogative, which probably is exercised about
once a year, there is no method provided or definitely recognised by the
law to meet this necessity. To obviate the difficulty, the surname has to
be that which is conferred upon the child by {517} general custom; and as
an illegitimate child is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred brought up
by its mother, it is usually by the same custom which confers the surname
of its owner upon a dog in so many parts of the country that a bastard
child gets known by its mother's surname, and consequently has that surname
conferred upon it by general custom. The only names that an illegitimate
child has an inalienable right to are the names by which it is baptized;
and if two names are given, and the child or its guardians elect that it
should be known only by those baptismal names, and if common repute and
general custom, as would be probable, uses the last of those names as a
surname, there is no legal power on earth which can force upon the child
any other name; and if the last of the baptismal names happens to be its
father's surname, the child will have an absolute right to be known only by
its Christian names, which to all intents and purposes will mean that it
will be known by its father's surname.
In the same way that an illegitimate child inherits no surname at all, it
equally inherits no arms. Consequently it has no shield upon which to carry
a mark of bastardy, if such a mark happened to be in existence. But if
under a will or deed of settlement an illegitimate child is required to
assume the name and arms of its father _or of its mother_, a Royal Licence
to assume such name and arms is considered to be necessary. It may be here
noted that voluntary applications to assume a name and arms in the case of
an illegitimate child are not entertained unless it can be clearly shown
(which is not always an easy matter) what the parentage really was.
It will be noticed that I have said he will be required to prove his
paternity. This is rigorously insisted upon, inasmuch as it is not fair to
penalise the reputation of a dead man by inflicting upon him a record of
bastard descendants whilst his own life might have been stainless. An
illegitimate birth is generally recorded under the name of the mother only,
and even when it is given, the truth of any statement as to paternity is
always open to grave suspicion. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent a
person asserting that he is the son of a duke, whereas his real father may
have been in a very plebeian walk in life; and to put the arms of the
duke's family at the mercy of any fatherless person who chose to fancy a
differenced version of them would be manifestly unjust, so that without
proof in a legal action of the actual paternity, or some recognition under
a will or settlement, it is impossible to adopt the alternative in
question. But if such recognition or proof is forthcoming, the procedure is
to petition the Sovereign for a Royal Licence to use (or continue to use)
the name desired and to bear the arms of the family. Such a petition is
always granted, on {518} proper proof of the facts, if made in due form
through the proper channels. The Royal Licence to that effect is then
issued. But the document contains two conditions, the first being that the
arms shall be exemplified according to the laws of arms "with due and
proper marks of distinction," and that the Royal Licence shall be recorded
in the College of Arms, otherwise "to be void and of none effect." The
invariable insertion of this clause puts into the hands of the College one
of the strongest weapons the officers of arms possess.
Under the present practice the due and proper marks of distinction are, for
the arms, a bordure wavy round the shield of the most suitable colour,
according to what the arms may be, but if possible of some colour or metal
different from any of the tinctures in the arms. The crest is usually
differenced by a bendlet sinister wavy, but a pallet wavy is sometimes
used, and sometimes a saltire wavy, couped or otherwise. The choice between
these marks generally depends upon the nature of the crest. But even with
this choice, the anomaly is frequently found of blank space being carefully
debruised. Seeing that the mark of the debruising is not a tangible object
or thing, but a mark painted upon another object, such a result seems
singularly ridiculous, and ought to be avoided. Whilst the ancient practice
certainly appears to have been to make some slight change in the crest, it
does not seem to have been debruised in the present manner. There are some
number of more recent cases where, whilst the existing arms have been
charged with the necessary marks of distinction, entirely new, or very much
altered crests have been granted without any recognisable "marks of
distinction." There can be no doubt that the bendlet wavy sinister upon the
crest is a palpable penalising of the bearer, and I think the whole subject
of the marks of bastardy in the three kingdoms might with advantage be
brought under official consideration, with a view to new regulations being
adopted. A bendlet wavy sinister is such an absolute defacement of a crest
that few can care to make use of a crest so marked. It carries an effect
far beyond what was originally the intention of marks of distinction.
A few recent bastardised exemplifications which have issued from Ulster's
Office have had the crest charged with a baton couped sinister. The baton
couped sinister had always hitherto been confined to the arms of Royal
bastards, but I am not aware of any Royal crest so bastardised. Of course
no circumstances can be conceived in which it is necessary to debruise
supporters, as under no circumstances can these be the subject of a Royal
Licence of this character, except in a possible case where they might have
been granted as a simple augmentation to a man and his descendants, without
further limitation. I know of no bastardised version consequent upon such a
grant. {519} Supporters signify some definite honour which cannot
ordinarily survive illegitimacy.
The bordure wavy is placed round the pronominal arms only, and no right to
any quarterings the family may have enjoyed previously is conferred, except
such right to a quarterly coat as might ensue through the assumption of a
double name. Quartering is held to signify representation which cannot be
given by a Royal Licence, but a quartering of augmentation or a duplicate
coat for the pronominal name which had been so regularly used with the
alternative coat as to constitute the two something in the nature of a
compound coat, would be exemplified "all within a bordure wavy." Each
illegitimate coat stands on its own basis, and there is a well-known
instance in which a marriage was subsequently found to be illegal, or to
have never taken place, after which, I believe, some number of brothers and
sisters obtained Royal Licences and exemplifications. The descendants of
one of the brothers will be found in the current Peerage Books, and those
who know their peerage history well will recognise the case I allude to.
All the brothers and sisters had the same arms exemplified, each with a
bordure wavy _of a different colour_. If there were descendants of any of
the sisters, those descendants would have been entitled to quarter the
arms, because the illegitimacy made each sister an heiress for heraldic
purposes. This is a curious anomaly, for had they been legitimate the
descendants would have enjoyed no such right.
In Scotland the mark of illegitimacy for the arms is the bordure compony,
which is usually but not always indicative of the same. The bordure
counter-compony has been occasionally stated to have the same character.
This is hardly correct, though it may be so in a few isolated cases, but
the bordure chequy has nothing whatever of an illegitimate character. It
will be noticed that whilst the bordure compony and the bordure
counter-company have their chequers or "panes," to use the heraldic term,
following the outline of the shield, by lines parallel to those which mark
its contour, the bordure chequy is drawn by lines parallel to and at right
angles to the palar line of the shield, irrespective of its outline. A
bordure chequy must, of course, at one point or another show three distinct
rows of checks.
The bastardising of crests even in England is a comparatively modern
practice. I know of no single instance ancient or modern of the kind in
Scottish heraldry, though I could mention scores of achievements in which
the shields carry marks of distinction. This is valuable evidence, for no
matter how lax the official practice of Scottish armory may have been at
one period, the theory of Scottish armory far more nearly approaches the
ancient practices and rules of heraldry {520} than does the armory of any
other country. That theory is much nearer the ideal theory than the English
one, but unfortunately for the practical purposes of modern heraldic needs,
it does not answer so well. At the present day, therefore, a Scottish crest
is not marked in any way.
Most handbooks refer to a certain rule which is supposed to exist for the
differencing of a coat to denote illegitimacy when the coat is that of the
mother and not the father, the supposed method being to depict the arms
under a surcoat, the result being much the same as if the whole of the arms
appeared in exaggerated flaunches, the remainder of the shield being left
vacant except for the tincture of the surcoat. As a matter of fact only one
instance is known, and consequently we must consider it as a new coat
devised to bear reference to the old one, and not as a regularised method
of differencing for a particular set of circumstances.
In Ireland the rules are to all intents and purposes the same as in
England, with the exception of the occasional use of a sinister baton
instead of a bendlet wavy sinister upon the crest. In Scotland, where Royal
Licences are unknown, it is merely necessary to prove paternity, and
rematriculate the arms with due and proper marks of distinction.
It was a very general idea during a former period, but subsequently to the
time when the bend and bendlet sinister and the bordure were recognised as
in the nature of the accepted marks of bastardy, and when their penal
nature was admitted, that whatever mark was adopted for the purpose of
indicating illegitimacy need only be borne for three generations. Some of
the older authorities tell us that after that length of time had elapsed it
might be discarded, and some other and less objectionable mark be taken in
its place. The older writers were striving, consciously or unconsciously,
to reconcile the disgrace of illegitimacy, which they knew, with heraldic
facts which they also knew, and to reconcile in certain prominent families
undoubted illegitimacy with unmarked arms, the probability being that their
sense of justice and regard for heraldry prompted them to the remark that
some other mark of distinction _ought_ to be added, whilst all the time
they knew it never was. The arms of Byron, Somerset, Meinill, and Herbert
are all cases where the marks of illegitimacy have been quietly dropped,
entire reversion being had to the undifferenced original coat. At a time
when marks of illegitimacy, both in fact and in theory, were nothing more
than marks of cadency and difference from the arms of the head of the
house, it was no venality of the heralds, but merely the acceptance of
current ideas, that permitted them to recognise the undifferenced arms for
the illegitimate descendants when there were no legitimate owners from
whose claim the arms of the others needed {521} to be differentiated, and
when lordships and lands had lapsed to a bastard branch. To this fact must
be added another. The armorial control of the heralds after the days of
tournaments was exercised through the Visitations and the Earl Marshal's
Court. Peers were never subject to the Visitations, and so were not under
control unless their arms were challenged in the Earl Marshal's Court by
the rightful owner. The cases that were notorious are cases of the arms of
peers.
The Visitations gave the officers of arms greater control over the arms of
Commoners than they had had theretofore, and the growing social opinions
upon legitimacy and marriage brought social observances more into
conformity with the technical law, and made that technical law of no
inheritance and no paternity an operative fact. The result is that the hard
legal fact is now rigidly and rightly insisted upon, and the claim and
right to arms of one of illegitimate descent depends and is made to depend
solely upon the instruments creating that right, and the conditions of "due
and proper marks of distinction" always subject to which the right is
called into being. Nowadays there is no release from the penalty of the
bordures wavy and compony save through the avenue of a new and totally
different grant and the full fees payable therefor. But, as the bearer of a
bordure wavy once remarked to me, "I had rather descend illegitimately from
a good family and bear their arms marked than descend from a lot of
nobodies and use a new grant." But until the common law is altered, if it
ever is, the game must be played fairly and the conditions of a Royal
Licence observed, for the sins of the fathers are visited upon the
children.
Although I have refrained from giving any extended list of bastardised
coats as examples of the rules for indicating illegitimacy, reference may
nevertheless be made to various curious examples.
The canton has occasionally been used. Sir John de Warren, a natural son of
John, Earl of Surrey, Sussex, and Warenne (d. 1347), bore a canton of the
arms of his mother, Alice de Nerford ["Gules, a lion rampant ermine"], over
the chequy shield of Warren. A similar instance can be found in modern
times, the arms of Charlton of Apley Castle, co. Salop, being bastardised
by a sinister canton which bears two coats quarterly, these coats having
formerly been quarterings borne in the usual manner.
The custom of placing the paternal arms upon a bend has been occasionally
adopted, but this of course is the creation of a _new_ coat. It was
followed by the Beauforts before their legitimation, and by Sir Roger de
Clarendon, the illegitimate son of the Black Prince. The Somerset family,
who derived illegitimately from the Beauforts, Dukes of Somerset, first
debruised the Beaufort arms by {522} a bendlet sinister, but in the next
generation the arms were placed upon a wide fess, this on a plain field of
or. Although the Somersets, Dukes of Beaufort, have discarded all signs of
bastardy from their shield, the version upon the fess was continued as one
of the quarterings upon the arms of the old Shropshire family of Somerset
Fox. One of the most curious bastardised coats is that of Henry Fitz-Roy,
Duke of Richmond and Somerset, illegitimate son of Henry VIII. This shows
the Royal Arms within a bordure quarterly ermine and counter-compony or and
azure, debruised by a baton sinister argent, an inescutcheon quarterly
gules and vairé, or and vert [possibly hinting at the Blount arms of his
mother, barry nebuly or and sable], over all a lion rampant argent, on a
chief azure a tower between two stags' heads caboshed argent, attired or.
{523}