Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/866

* HERALDRY. 798 HERALDRY. niulation of coats, including the several coats to Mliich eacli heiress may, in a similar way, have become entitled. In Germany, sometimes twenty or thirty coats are found marshaled in one escutcheon; but in British heraldry, families entitled to a number of quarterings generally select some of the most important. Sovereigns quarter the ensigns of their several States, giving precedence to the most ancient, unless it be inferior to the others in importance. In the royal escutcheons of the United Kingdom, England is jilaced in the first and fourth quar- ters, Scotland in the second, and Ireland in the third; tlic relative positions of Scotland and England being, however, reversed on the official seals of Scotland. Spain bears the arms of Leon in the first and fourth quarters, and Castile in the second and third. An elected king gen- erally places his arms surtout on an escutcheon of pretense. Nation.l Coats of Arms. The coats of arms whose use has obtained official sanction by na- tional governments present in most cases the family heraldic insignia of their sovereigns. The English arms, for instance, have reflected every claim of family inheritance of the royal line since the origin of coats of arms in the twelfth century. They were, under Richard Coeur de Lion and his immediate successors, the three leopards of the Plantagenet House. When Ed- ward III. laid claim to the crown of France he quartered with his arras the lilies of the royal house of that country. The Irish harp was added when Henry VIII. took the title of king of that country. Similarly, when the Stuart line succeeded they placed the rampant lion of Scotland in the tipper right-hand field. William III. placed a scutcheon with the line of the House of Orange in the centre of the British shield, and the Hanoverian sovereigns replaced tliis by their family scutcheon. The lilies of France were removed with the disuse of the French title, in 1801, and the scutcheon of the House of Hanover on the accession of Queen Vic- toria in 18.37. Since that time the British coat of arms in its full form has consisted of the shield with four fields, two occupied with the golden leopards of England, the other two occu- pied by the old arms of Scotland and Ireland respectively, .bove the shield is a helmet, and still above this the crown with a golden crowned lion. Surroiuiding the shield is the Order of the Charter with its legend. Below the shield are two clusters of branches, made up of the English rose, the Scotch thistle, and the Irish shamrock intertwined, and the motto Dieii ct Mon Droii. As supporters, there are dexter, a golden crowneil lion, and sinister, a silver unicorn with a crown around his neck and a chain hanging from this. France, after having used at various times the oriflamme, the lilies, the Napoleonic eagle, and other emblems, possesses, imder the present re- jjublic. no authoritative or universally applicable coat of arms. By a decree passed in 1870. how- ever, a seal was adopted consisting of a seated female figure holding a bundle of lictor's rods. In 1896 a decorative emblem was authorized consisting of tfie initials 'R. F.' {R^puiUque francaise) surroiinded by a crown of laurel leaves, with French flags crossed at the back, oak and huuel branches below, the Order of the Legion of Honor and the fasces at the back. A common device, too, is a shield bearing the na- tional colors in three vertical bars, with the fasces in the central space and the letters R and F on olive branches to right and left. The arms of the Cierman Empire consist of the great double-lieaded black eagle of the Empire, surmounted by the Imperial crown and bearing on its breast the Prussian coat of arms. This is a silver sliield with a single-headed eagle holding in its claws the royal ball and sceptre, with the Hohenzollern arms on its breast. The silver sliield is .surrounded by the chain and pendant of the Order of the Black Eagle. Russia and Austria-Hungary also use the double-headed eagle, in both eases both head* being crowned, and in both with an Imperial crown above. In the Russian arms the eagle bears on its breast a shield with Saint George; in the Austrian a shield with the arms of Haps- burg, Austria, and Lorraine. The coat of arms of Spain consists of a shield on which the arms of Castile and Leon are quar- tered, a point below bearing the pomegranate of Granada, and a small central shield bearing the arms of Bourbon-Anjou. The coat of arms of Italy is a shield with the silver cross on a red field, covered with a red ermine-lined baldaquin, surmounted by the Ital- ian crown. The cross was granted to the counts of Savoy by the Ivnights Hospitalers in the four- teenth century as an acknowledgment of help- given to them against the Turks. Similarly, the coats of arms of other European coimtries represent in most cases the origin and fortunes of their royal families. The newly formed nations of America found it necessary to adopt coats of arms deliberately instead of using the personal devices of their rulers. The Congress of the United States ap- pointed a committee to prepare a coat of arms and a seal for the new nation on July 4, 1776, the very day of the Declaration of Independence. The devices renorted by this and by several suc- ceeding committees were not, however, satisfac- tory, and it was not till June 20, 17S2. that the coat of arms was finally approved. Since that time it has not Ijoen changed. It consists of the -American eagle with a shield tipon its breast showing thirteen stripes, alternately silver and red, and thirteen white stars on a blue ground to indicate the original States, holding in it.s talons an olive branch and a sheaf of arrows, and in its beak a scroll with the motto E Pluri- bus T'num. It is surmotmted by a group of stars appearing through a cloud, to indicate the emer- gence of a new nation in the world. Each State of the .American Union has its own coat of arms, though none of them has adopted an individual flag, all using the national flag. Most of the republics of Central and South America adopted coats of arms on the attain- ment of their independence, usually introducing into them some objects of local as well as sym- bolical significance. Jlexico, for instance, in 1823, adopted as its national coat of arms a fig- ure of an eagle tearing a snake in its beak, and jioised ujion a 'nopal' or cacttis growing on a rock. The rock and the nopal are both con- nected with the old name of the city and prov- ince of Mexico. TciiochtitJan. This coat of arms was afterwards changed by Maximilian, but was restored on the downfall of his empire. The coat of arms of Peru contains a figure of the llama, the national beast of burden, and of the