Page:A Complete Guide to Heraldry.djvu/636

 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