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HE present official rules are that crests must be upon, or must issue from, a wreath (or torse), a coronet, or a chapeau. It is not at the pleasure of the wearer to choose which he will, one or other being specified and included in the terms of the grant. If the crest have a lawful existence, one or other of them will unchangeably belong to the crest, of which it now is considered to be an integral part.

In Scotland and Ireland, Lyon King of Arms and Ulster King of Arms have always been considered to have, and still retain, the right to grant crests upon a chapeau or issuing from a crest. But the power is (very properly) exceedingly sparingly used; and, except in the cases of arms and crests matriculated in Lyon Register as of ancient origin and in use before 1672, or "confirmed" on the strength of user by Ulster King of Arms, the ordinary ducal crest coronet and the chapeau are not now considered proper to be granted in ordinary cases.

Since about the beginning of the nineteenth century the rules which follow have been very definite, and have been very rigidly adhered to in the English College of Arms.

Crests issuing from the ordinary "ducal crest coronet" are not now granted under any circumstances. The chapeau is only granted in the case of a grant of arms to a peer, a mural coronet is only granted to officers in the army of the rank of general or above, and the naval coronet is only granted to officers in his Majesty's Royal Navy of the rank of admiral and above. An Eastern coronet is now only granted in the case of those of high position in one or other of the Imperial Services, who have served in India and the East.

The granting of crests issuing from the other forms of crest coronets, the "crown-vallary" and the "crown palisado," is always discouraged, but no rule exists denying them to applicants, and they are to be obtained if the expectant grantee is sufficiently patient, importunate, and pertinacious. Neither form is, however, particularly ornamental, and both are of modern origin.