THE ARMORIAL BEARINGS OF A LADY
Bearing in mind that armory was so deeply interwoven with all that was best
in chivalry, it is curious that the armorial status of a woman should have
been left so undefined. A query as to how a lady may bear arms will be
glibly answered for her as maid (Fig. 749) and as widow (Figs. 750, 751,
and 752) by the most elementary heraldic text-book. But a little
consideration will show how far short our knowledge falls of a complete or
uniform set of rules.
Let what is definitely known be first stated. In the first place, no woman
(save a Sovereign) can inherit, use, or transmit crest or motto, nor may
she use a helmet or mantling. All daughters, if unmarried, bear _upon a
lozenge_ the paternal arms and quarterings of their father, with his
difference marks. If their mother were an heiress, they quarter her arms
with those of her father. In England (save in the Royal Family, and in this
case even it is a matter of presumption only) there is no seniority amongst
daughters, and the difference marks of all daughters are those borne by the
father, and none other. There are no marks of distinction as between the
daughters themselves. In Scotland, however, seniority does exist, according
to priority of birth; and, though Scottish heraldic law provides no marks
of cadency as between sister and sister, the laws of arms north of the
Tweed recognise seniority of birth in the event of a certain set of
circumstances arising.
In Scotland, as doubtless many are aware, certain untitled Scottish
families, for reasons which may or may not be known, have been permitted to
use supporters to their arms. When the line vests in coheirs, the eldest
born daughter, as heir of line, assumes the supporters, unless some other
limitation has been attached to them. Scottish supporters are peculiar
things to deal with, unless the exact terms of the patent of grant or
matriculation are known.
The lozenge of an unmarried lady is frequently surmounted by a true lover's
knot of ribbon, usually painted blue (Fig. 749). It has no particular
meaning and no official recognition, though plenty of official {573} use,
and practically its status is no more than a piece of supposedly artistic
ornament.
Concerning the law for unmarried ladies, therefore, there is neither doubt
nor dispute. A widow bears arms upon a lozenge, this showing the arms of
her late husband impaled with those of her own family (Fig. 750), or with
these latter displayed on an escutcheon of pretence if she be an heir or
coheir (Fig. 751).
The other state in the progress of life in which a lady may hope or expect
to find herself is that of married life. Now, how should a married lady
display arms? Echo and the text-books alike answer, "How?" Does _anybody_
know? This "fault," for such it undoubtedly is, is due to the fact that the
laws of arms evolved themselves in that period when a married woman was
little accounted of. As an unmarried heiress she undoubtedly was a
somebody; as a widowed and richly-jointured dowager she was likewise of
account, but as a wedded wife her identity was lost, for the Married
Women's Property Act was not in existence, nor was it thought of. So
completely was it recognised that all rights and inheritance of the wife
devolved of right upon the husband, that formerly the husband enjoyed any
peerage honours which had descended to the wife, and was summoned to
Parliament as a peer in his wife's peerage. Small wonder, then, that the
same ideas dominated the rules of armory. These only provide ways and
methods for the husband to bear the wife's arms. This is curious, because
there can be no doubt that at a still earlier period the practice of
impalement was entirely confined to women, and that, unless the wife
happened to be an heiress, the husband did not trouble to impale her arms.
But a little thought will show that the two are not at variance, for if
monuments and other matters of _record_ are ignored, the earliest examples
of impalement which have come down to us are all, almost without exception,
examples of arms borne by widows. One cannot get over the fact that a wife
during coverture had practically no legal status at all. The rules
governing impalement, and the conjunction of the arms of man and wife, as
they are to be borne by the husband, are recited in the chapter upon
Marshalling, which also details the ways in which a widow bears arms in the
different ranks of life. Nothing would be gained by repeating them here.
It may be noted, however, that it is not considered correct for a widow to
make use of the true lover's knot of blue ribbon, which is sometimes used
in the case of an unmarried lady. A divorce puts matters _in statu quo
ante_.
There still remains, however, the question of the bearing of arms in her
own right by a married woman under coverture at the present day. {574}
The earliest grant of arms that I can put my hands upon to a woman is one
dated 1558. It is, moreover, the only grant of which I know to one single
person, that person being a _wife_. The grant is decidedly interesting, so
I print it in full:--
"TO ALL AND SINGULAR as well kinges heraldes and officers of armes as
nobles gentlemen and others which these presents shall see or here
Wyllyam Hervye Esquire otherwise called Clarencieux principall heralde
and kinge of armes of the south-east and west parties of England
fendith due comenda[=c]ons and greting fforasmuch as auncientlye ffrom
the beginnynge the valyant and vertuous actes off excellent parsons
have ben comended to the worlde with sondry monumentes and remembrances
off theyr good desertes among the which one of the chefist and most
usuall hath ben the beringe of figures and tokens in shildes called
armes beinge none other thinges then Evidences and demonstra[=c]ons of
prowes and valoure diverselye distributed accordinge to the quallyties
and desertes of the parsons. And for that Dame Marye Mathew daughter
and heyre of Thomas Mathew of Colchester in the counte of Essex esquire
hath longe contynued in nobylyte she and her auncestors bearinge armes,
yet she notwithstandinge being ignorant of the same and ffor the
advoydinge of all inconvenyences and troubles that dayleye happeneth in
suche cases and not wyllinge to preiudyce anye person hath instantlye
requyred me The sayde Clarencieux kinge of armes accordinge to my
registers and recordes To assigne and sett forthe ffor her and her
posterite The armes belonging and descendinge To her ffrom her saide
auncesters. In considera[=c]on whereof I have at her ientle request
assigned geven and granted unto her and her posterite The owlde and
auncient armes of her said auncesters as followeth. That is to
saye--partye per cheveron sables and argent a Lyon passant in chefe off
the second the poynt goutey[31] of the firste as more plainly aperith
depicted in this margent. Which armes I The Saide Clarencieux kinge of
Armes by powre and authorite to myne office annexed and graunted By the
Queenes Majesties Letters patentes under The great Seale of England
have ratefyed and confirmed and By These presentes do ratefye and
confyrme unto and for the saide dame marye Mathew otherwise called dame
Mary Jude wiffe to Sir Andrew Jude Knight late Mayor and Alderman off
London and to her posterite To use bear and show for evermore in all
places of honour to her and theyr wourshipes at theyr Lybertie and
pleasur without impediment lett or interup[=c]on of any person or
persons.
"IN WITNESS WHEREOF the saide Clarencieux Kinge of Armes have signed
these presentes with my hand and sett thereunto The Seale off {575}
myne office and The Seale of myne armes geven at London The x^{th} daye
off October in the Yeare of owre Lord Godd 1558 and in the ffourth and
ffifth yeares off the reignes off owre Souereignes Lorde and Layde
Phellip and Marye by the grace of God Kinge and Queene of England
france both cycles Jerusalem Irland deffendors of the faythe Archedukes
of Austrya Dukes of Burgoyne myllain & braband erles of haspurgie,
Flanders and Tyrrell.
"W. HERVEY AL[=S] CLARENCIEUX
"King of Armes.
"Confirmation of Arms to Dame Mary Mathew, 'otherwise called Dame Marye
Jude, wyffe to Sir Andrew Jude, Knight, Late Lord Mayor and Alderman
off London,' 1558."
In this grant the arms are painted upon a _shield_. The grant was made in
her husband's lifetime, but his arms are not impaled therewith. Evidently,
therefore, the lady bears arms _in her own right_, and the presumption
would seem to be that a married lady bears her arms without reference to
her husband, and bears them upon a shield. On the other hand, the grant to
Lady Pearce, referred to on an earlier page, whilst not blazoning the
Pearce arms, shows the painting upon the patent to have been a lozenge of
the arms of Pearce, charged with a baronet's hand impaled with the arms
then granted for the maiden name of Lady Pearce. On the other hand, a grant
is printed in vol. i. of the Notes to the "Visitation of England and
Wales." The grant is to Dame Judith Diggs, widow of Sir Maurice Diggs,
Bart., now wife of Daniel Sheldon, and to Dame Margaret Sheldon, her
sister, relict of Sir Joseph Sheldon, Knight, late Alderman, and sometime
Lord Mayor of the City of London, daughters and coheirs of Mr. George Rose,
of Eastergate. The operative clause of the grant is: "do by these Presents
grant and assign to y^e said Dame Judith and Dame Margaret the Armes
hereafter mentioned Viz^t: Ermine, an Eagle displayed Sable, membered and
beaked Gules, debruised with a Bendlet Componè Or and Azure, as in the
margin hereof more plainly appears depicted. To be borne and used for ever
hereafter by them y^e said Dame Judith Diggs and Dame Margaret Sheldon, and
the descendants of their bodies respectively, lawfully begotten, according
to the Laws, Rules and practice of Armes."
In each case it will be noted that the sisters were respectively wife and
widow of some one of the name of Sheldon; and it might possibly be supposed
that these were arms granted for the name of Sheldon. There seems, however,
to be very little doubt that these are the arms for Rose. The painting is,
however, of the single coat of Rose, and one is puzzled to know why the
arms are not painted in {576} conjunction with those of Sheldon. The same
practice was followed in the patent which was granted to Nelson's Lady
Hamilton. This patent, which both heraldically and historically is
excessively interesting, was printed in full on p. 168, vol. i. of the
_Genealogical Magazine_. The arms which in the grant are specifically said
to be the arms of Lyons (not of Hamilton) are painted upon a lozenge, with
no reference to the arms of Hamilton. In each of these cases, however, the
grantee of arms has been an heiress, so that the clause by which the arms
are limited to the descendants does not help. An instance of a grant to a
man and his wife, where the wife was not an heiress, is printed in "The
Right to Bear Arms"; and in this case the painting shows the arms impaled
with those of the husband. The grant to the wife has no hereditary
limitations, and presumably her descendants would never be able to quarter
the arms of the wife, no matter even if by the extinction of the other
issue she eventually became a coheir. The fact that the arms of man and
wife are herein granted together prevents any one making any deduction as
to what is the position of the wife alone.
There was a patent issued in the year 1784 to a Mrs. Sarah Lax, widow of
John Lax, to take the name and arms of Maynard, such name and arms to be
borne by herself and her issue. The painting in this case is of the arms of
Maynard alone upon a lozenge, and the crest which was to be borne by her
male descendants is quite a separate painting in the body of the grant, and
not in conjunction with the lozenge. Now, Mrs. Maynard was a widow, and it
is manifestly wrong that she should bear the arms as if she were unmarried,
yet how was she to bear them? She was bearing the name of Lax because that
had been her husband's name, and she took the name of Maynard, which
presumably her husband would have taken had he been alive; she herself was
a Miss Jefferson, so would she have been entitled to have placed the arms
of Jefferson upon an escutcheon of pretence, in the centre of the arms of
Maynard? Presumably she would, because suppose the husband had assumed the
name and arms of Maynard in his lifetime, he certainly would have been
entitled to place his wife's arms of Jefferson on an escutcheon of
pretence.
On March 9, 1878, Francis Culling Carr, and his second wife, Emily Blanche,
daughter of Andrew Morton Carr, and niece of the late Field-Marshal Sir
William Maynard Gomm, G.C.B., both assumed by Royal Licence the additional
surname and arms of Gomm. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Carr-Gomm appear to have had
any blood descent from the Gomm family; consequently the Gomm arms were
granted to both husband and wife, and the curious part is that they were
not identical, the marks (showing that there was no blood relationship)
being a {577} canton for the husband and a cross crosslet for the wife. In
this case the arms were impaled. One is puzzled to know why the grant to
the wife was necessary as well as the grant to the husband.
In 1865 Mrs. Massy, widow of Hugh Massy, assumed the name and arms of
Richardson in lieu of Massy. Mrs. Massy was the only child of Major
Richardson Brady, who had previously assumed by Royal Licence the arms of
Brady only. The painting upon the patent is a lozenge, bearing the arms of
Massy, and upon an escutcheon of pretence the arms of Richardson. Of
course, the arms of Mrs. Massy, as a widow, previously to the issue of the
Royal Licence were a lozenge of the arms of Massy, and on an escutcheon of
pretence the arms of Brady.
A few years ago a Grant of Arms was issued to a Mrs. Sharpe, widow of Major
Sharpe. The arms were _to be borne by herself_ and the descendants of her
late husband, and by the other descendants of her husband's father, so that
there is no doubt whatever that these were the arms of Sharpe. I have no
idea who Mrs. Sharpe was, and I do not know that she possessed any arms of
her own. Let us presume she did not. Now, unless a widow may bear the arms
of her late husband on a lozenge, whether she has arms to impale with them
or not, how on earth is she to bear arms at all? And yet the grant most
distinctly was primarily to Mrs. Sharpe.
After the death of General Ross, the victor of Bladensburg, a grant of an
augmentation was made to be placed upon the monument to the memory of the
General (Plate II.). The grant also was for the augmentation to be borne by
his widow during her widowhood. But no mention appears of the arms of Mrs.
Ross, nor, as far as I can ascertain, was proof officially made that Mrs.
Ross was in her own right entitled to arms; consequently, whether she
really was or was not, we may assume that as far as the official
authorities officially knew she was not, and the same query formulated with
regard to the Sharpe patent holds good in this case. The painting on the
patent shows the arms upon a shield, and placed above is a helmet
surmounted by the crest of augmentation and the family crest of Ross.
So that from the cases we have mentioned instances can be found of the arms
of a wife upon a shield alone, and of a widow having arms depicted upon a
lozenge, such arms being on different occasions the impaled arms of her
husband and herself, or the arms of herself alone or of her husband alone;
and we have arms granted to a wife, and depicted as an impalement or upon a
lozenge. So that from grants it seems almost impossible to deduce any
decided and unquestionable rule as to how wife or widow should bear a coat
of arms. There is, {578} however, one other source from which profitable
instruction may be drawn. I refer to the methods of depicting arms upon
hatchments, and more particularly to the hatchment of a married woman. Now
a hatchment is strictly and purely personal, and in the days when the use
of such an article was an everyday matter, the greatest attention was paid
to the proper marshalling of the arms thereupon. There are so many varying
circumstances that we have here only space to refer to the three simple
rules, and these uncomplicated by any exceptional circumstances, which
governed the hatchments of maid, wife, and widow. In the first case, the
hatchment of an unmarried lady showed the whole of the background black,
the paternal arms on a lozenge, and this suspended by a knot of blue
ribbon. In the hatchment of a widow the background again was all black, the
arms were upon a lozenge (but without the knot of ribbon), and the lozenge
showed the arms of husband and wife impaled, or with the wife's in
pretence, as circumstances might dictate. The hatchment of a wife was
entirely different. Like the foregoing, it was devoid, of course, of
helmet, mantling, crest, or motto; but the background was white on the
dexter side (to show that the husband was still alive), and black on the
sinister (to show the wife was dead). But the impaled arms were not
depicted upon a lozenge, but upon a shield, and the shield was surmounted
by the true lover's knot of blue ribbon.
I have already stated that when the rules of arms were in the making the
possibility of a married woman bearing arms in her own right was quite
ignored, and theoretically even now the husband bears his wife's arms for
her upon his shield. But the arms of a man are never depicted suspended
from a true lover's knot. Such a display is distinctly feminine, and I
verily believe that the correct way for a married woman to use arms, if she
desires the display thereof to be personal to herself rather than to her
husband, is to place her husband's arms impaled with her own upon a shield
suspended from a true lover's knot, and without helmet, mantling, crest, or
motto. At any rate such a method of display is a correct one, it is in no
way open to criticism on the score of inaccuracy, it has precedent in its
favour, and it affords a very desirable means of distinction. My only
hesitation is that one cannot say it is the only way, or that it would be
"incorrect" for the husband. At any rate it is the only way of drawing a
distinction between the "married" achievements of the husband and the wife.
The limitations attached to a lady's heraldic display being what they are,
it has long been felt, and keenly felt, by every one attempting heraldic
design, that artistic treatment of a lady's arms savoured almost of the
impossible. What delicacy of treatment can possibly be added to the hard
outline of the lozenge? The substitution of curvilinear for {579} straight
lines in the outline, and even the foliation of the outline, goes but a
little way as an equivalent to the extensive artistic opportunities which
the mantling affords to a designer when depicting the arms of a man.
To a certain extent, two attempts have been made towards providing a
remedy. Neither can properly claim _official_ recognition, though both have
been employed in a quasi-official manner. The one consists of the knot of
ribbon; the other consists of the use of the cordelière. In their present
usage the former is meaningless and practically senseless, whilst the use
of the latter is radically wrong, and in my opinion, little short of
imposture. The knot of ribbon, when employed, is usually in the form of a
thin streamer of blue ribbon tied in the conventional true lover's knot
(Fig. 749). But the imbecility and inconsistency of its use lies in the
fact that except upon a hatchment it has been denied by custom to married
women and widows, who have gained their lovers; whilst its use is
sanctioned for the unmarried lady, who, unless she be affianced, neither
has nor ought to have anything whatever to do with lovers or with their
knot. The women who are fancy-free display the tied-up knot; women whom
love has fast tied up, unless the foregoing opinion as to the correct way
to display the arms of a married lady which I have expressed be correct,
must leave the knot alone. But as matters stand heraldically at the moment
the ribbon may be used advantageously with the lozenge of an unmarried
lady.
With reference to the cordelière some writers assert that its use is
optional, others that its use is confined to widow ladies. Now as a matter
of fact it is nothing whatever of the kind. It is really the insignia of
the old French Order of the Cordelière, which was founded by Anne of
Bretagne, widow of Charles VIII., in 1498, its membership being confined to
widow ladies of noble family. The cordelière was the waist girdle which
formed a part of the insignia of the Order, and it took its place around
the lozenges of the arms of the members in a manner similar to the armorial
use of the Garter for Knights of that Order. Though the Order of the
Cordelière is long since extinct, it is neither right nor proper that any
part of its insignia should be adopted unaltered by those who can show no
connection with it or membership of it. {580}