Page:A Complete Guide to Heraldry.djvu/471

Rh is placed upon an inescutcheon superimposed over the arms of Cumming.

In Scotland the arms, and the arms only, constitute the mark of a given family, and whilst due difference is made in the respective shields, no attempt is made as regards crest or supporters to impose any distinction between the figures granted to different families even where no blood relationship exists. The result is that whilst the same crests and supporters are duplicated over and over again, they at any rate remain in Scotland simple, graceful, and truly heraldic, even when judged by the most rigid mediæval standard. They are, of course, necessarily of no value whatever for identification. In England the simplicity is relinquished for the sake of distinction, and it is held that equivalent differentiation must be made, both in regard to the crests and the supporters, as is made between the shields of different families. The result as to modern crests is truly appalling, and with supporters it is almost equally so, for by their very nature it is impossible to design adequate differences for crests and supporters, as can readily be done in the charges upon a shield, without creating monstrosities. With regret one has to admit that the dangling shields, the diapered chintz-like bodies, and the fasces and other footstools so frequently provided for modern supporters in England would seem to be pedantic, unnecessary, and inartistic strivings after a useless ideal.

In England the right to bear supporters is confined to those to whom they have been granted or recorded, but such grant or record is very rigidly confined to peers, to Knights of the Garter, Thistle, and St. Patrick, and to Knights Grand Cross, or Knights Grand Commanders (as the case may be) of other Orders. Before the Order of the Bath was divided into classes, Knights of the Bath had supporters. As by an unwritten but nowadays invariably accepted law, the Orders of the Garter, Thistle, and St. Patrick are confined to members of the peerage, those entitled to claim (upon their petitioning) a grant of supporters in England are in practice limited to peers and Knights Grand Cross or Knights Grand Commanders. In the cases of peers, the grant is always attached to a particular peerage, the "remainder" in the limitations of the grant being to "those of his descendants upon whom the peerage may devolve," or some other words to this effect. In the cases of life peers and Knights Grand Cross the grant has no hereditary limitation, and the right to the supporters is personal to the grantee. There is nothing to distinguish the supporters of a peer from those of a Knight Grand Cross. Baronets of England, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom as such are not entitled to claim grants of supporters, but there are some number of cases in which, by special favour of the sovereign, specific Royal Warrants have been