Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/88

 LADY OF QUALITY 70 their day than trousers are in ours. The sex is not, however, debarred from bearing arms, but it must wear them on a diamond-shaped object technically called a lozenge. Women are entitled to a motto, which is an even more personal thing than the arms. Supporters — the beasts, men, or angels who stand on either side of the shield — belong only to peers, to the knights grand cross of the older orders, and to the heads of certain families. CRESTS AND MOTTOES The charge and colour upon a shield is the same for all descendants of the original bearer, but crests and mottoes have varied with different branches of the same family. An armigerous person, or one entitled to bear arms, can adopt any crest or motto he chooses without a grant from his sovereign. But a shield used without a grant comes under the head of those " bogus arms " which excite the derision of all heralds. The laws of heraldry are slightly different in different countries. Thus, in England all the descendants of an armigerous person are entitled to bear his arms ; whereas in Scot- land his eldest son alone is presumed to do so, and his younger sons must have a fresh grant, or as it is called, " matriculate their arms," at the Lyon Office. Comparatively few Scottish families take the trouble to do this, and there- fore a great majority of the arms used by Scotsmen must, however, reluctantly be characterised as " bogus." A bachelor bears his father's arms covering the whole shield. A married man divides his shield in half, and bears on one side of the line his own arms, and on the other side the arms of his wife, which is called impaling. If he has had more than one wife, he has to place their arms one above the other on their half of his shield ; or, if he chooses, he can use as many shields as he has had wives, each with a separate wife's arms impaled with his ; but this is very cumbersome. THE ARMS OF AN HEIRESS If the wife is an heiress, he bears her arms not impaled in the usual way, but on a small shield, called an escutcheon of pretence, in the middle of his own. An heiress, in the heraldic sense, does not mean a lady possessed of wealth ; it merely means an only daughter. A co-heiress is a woman who has sisters, but no brother. The children of an heiress or co-heiress are entitled to quarter her arms — that is to say, they divide their shield or lozenge into four equal portions, on the first and fourth of which they bear their father's arms, and on the second and third their mother's. A married woman or a widow bears her arms impaled with her husband's, exactly as he does, only on a lozenge. If a married man is a member of an order of knighthood he uses two shields, one of them bearing his own arms only, decorated with the insignia of the order, whatever it may be, and the other bearing his own arms and his wife's impaled in the ordinary way. This is because the order is a personal thing, and one in which the wife does not share. Bishops, in the same way, bear the arms of their see on a separate shield. All this doubtless sounds to the neophyte very intricate, and perhaps unworthy of attention, and to the experienced herald so hackneyed as to be unnecessary to repeat. There may, however, be some readers who will not be above glancing at this expla- nation, which I have made as plain and simple as I can. To be continued in Part 2 of Every Woman's Encyclopedia. THE COLLEQE OF ARMS, OR HERALDS' COLLEQE Endowed by Richard III. in 1484, to be pre- ■^ sided over by the Earl Marshal (an office held by the Dukes of Norfolk), the Heralds' College had its first home in Pulteney's Inn. Queen Mary granted to the college in 1554 the present site in Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C., and the building, as it stands now, was erected after the Great Fire. Here the searcher for armorial bearings must go, and here she will find the largest and most comprehensive heraldic collection in the world. Entering the office at the Heralds' College, the personal applicant will be charged 5s. for an ordinary search, which, however, may be made by correspondence if a fee of los. 6d. be paid. A general search of the records costs (2. 2s., and a general search through both records and the collections each generation transcribed, with a sum over and above this for a sketch of the arms, varying according to the work involved. The cost of a Grant of Arms is ^'j'S los., but designs or " pic- tures " of arms are extra, ranging from l is. to should be made clear in reference to the fee of £z 28. already referred to for a general search. It is that people owning names such as "Smith" or "Jones," or some other equally general name, cannot avail themselves of this two guinea search. The heralds say that there aie so many families of these names upon the records that a sum of £10 at least would be charged in place of the £7. 2S. Dealing with the Heralds' College it would be well to correct the mistaken idea which many people have, that in order to make a change of name, such as may be required under the directions of a will, it is necessary to obtain a Royal Licence or an Act of Parlia- ment. This may be done by deed enrolled in Chancery, supplemented by an advertisement in the " Times," at a figure much lower than the ;^ioo -which it costs through the Heralds' College.
 * ^5 5s. A transcript of a pedigree costs 5s. for
 * ^5 5s. each. One point of interest to inquirers