Page:A Complete Guide to Heraldry.djvu/546

 the number of points on a label is a matter of rule, this is far from having been always the case, and prior to the Stuart period no deductions can be drawn with certainty from the number of the points in use. It seems a very great pity that no warrants were issued for the children of the then Duke of York during the lifetime of Queen Victoria, as labels for great-grandchildren would have been quite unique.

If the eldest son succeeds through the death of his mother to her arms and quarterings during his father's lifetime, he must be careful that the label which he bears as heir-apparent to his father's arms does not cross the quartering of his mother's arms.

If his father bears a quarterly shield, the label is so placed that it shall apparently debruise all his father's quarterings, i.e. in a shield quarterly of four the label would be placed in the centre chief point, the centre file of the label being upon the palar line, and the other files in the first and second quarters respectively, whilst the colour would usually depend, as has been above indicated, upon the tinctures of the pronominal arms. Due regard, however, must be had that a label of gules, for example, is not placed on a field of gules. A parti-coloured label is not nowadays permissible, though instances of its use can occasionally be met with in early examples. Supposing the field of the first quarter is argent, and that of the second azure, in all probability the best colour for the label would be gules, and indeed gules is the colour most frequently met with for use in this purpose.

If the father possess the quarterly coat of, say, four quarterings, which are debruised by a label by the heir-apparent, and the mother die, and the heir-apparent succeed to her arms, he would of course, after his father's death, arrange his mother's quarterings with these, placing his father's pronominal arms 1 and 4, the father's quartering in the second quarter, and the mother's arms in the third quarter. This arrangement, however, is not permissible during his father's lifetime, because otherwise his label in chief would be held to debruise all the four coats, and the only method in which such a combination could be properly displayed in the lifetime of the father but after the death of his mother is to place the father's arms in the grand quartering in the first and fourth quarters, each being debruised by the label, and the mother's in the grand quartering in the second and third quarters without any interference by the label.

The other marks of difference are: For the second son a crescent; for the third son a mullet; for the fourth son a martlet; for the fifth son an annulet; for the sixth son a fleur-de-lis; for the seventh son a rose; for the eighth son a cross moline; for the ninth son a double quatrefoil (Fig. 699).

Of these the first six are given in "Workes of