(Vol. vii., p. 571.)
The subject of the Query put by your correspondent is one that has
frequently occurred to me, but which is involved in obscurity. Heraldic
writers generally have contented themselves with the mere statement of
ladies' arms being thus borne; and where we do find an opinion hazarded, it
is more in the form of a quotation from a nameless author, or of a timid
suggestion, than an attempt to elucidate the question by argument or from
history.
By some this form of shield is said to have descended to us from the
Amazons, who bore such: others say, from the form of their tombstones! Now
we find it to represent the ancient spindle so much used by ladies; and
again to be a shield found by the Romans unfit for use, and therefore
transferred to the weaker sex, who were "allowed to place their ensigns
upon it, with one corner always uppermost." {84}