Part 65 (1/2)
If after having worked out your quarterings you find that you have more than you care to use, you are quite at liberty to make a selection, omitting any number, _but_ it is entirely _wrong_ to display quarterings without those quarterings which brought them into the paternal line.
Supposing your name to be Brown, you _must_ put the Brown arms in the first quarter, but at your pleasure you can quarter the arms of each single heiress who married an ancestor of yours in the male line (_i.e._ who herself became Mrs. Brown), or you can omit the whole or a part. But supposing one of these, Mrs. Brown (_nee_ Smith), was ent.i.tled to quarter the arms of Jones, which arms of Jones had brought in the arms of Robinson, you are not at liberty to quarter the arms of Jones without quartering Smith, and if you wish to display the arms of Robinson you _must_ also quarter the arms of Jones to bring in Robinson and the arms of Smith to bring in Robinson and Jones to your own Brown achievement. You can use Brown only: or quarterly, 1 and 4, Brown; 2 and 3, Smith: or 1 and 4, Brown; 2. Smith; 3. Jones: or quarterly, 1. Brown; 2. Smith; 3. Jones; 4.
Robinson; but you are _not_ ent.i.tled to quarter: 1 and 4, Brown; 2. Jones; 3. Robinson, because Smith, which brought in Jones and Robinson, has been omitted, and there was never a match between Brown and Jones.
Quarterings signifying nothing beyond mere representation are not compulsory, and their use or disuse is quite optional.
So much for the general rules of quartering. Let us now consider certain cases which require rules to themselves.
It is possible for a daughter to be the sole heir or coheir of her mother whilst not being the heir of her father, as in the following imaginary pedigree:--
_1st wife_ (an heiress). _2nd wife._ MARY CONYERS=JOHN DARCY=MARGARET FAUCONBERG.
------------- --------------
JOAN (only daughter), THOMAS. HENRY.
heir of her mother but not of her father.
{550} In this case Joan is not the heir of her father, inasmuch as he has sons Thomas and Henry, but she is the heir of her mother and the only issue capable of inheriting and transmitting the Conyers arms and quarterings.
Joan is heir of her mother but not of her father.
The husband of Joan can either impale the arms of Darcy as having married a daughter of John Darcy, or he can place upon an escutcheon of pretence arms to indicate that he has married the heiress of Conyers. But it would be quite incorrect for him to simply place Conyers in pretence, because he has not married a Miss Conyers. What he must do is to charge the arms of Conyers with a dexter canton of the arms of Darcy and place this upon his escutcheon of pretence.[30] The children will quarter the arms of Conyers with the canton of Darcy and inherit likewise all the quarterings to which Mary Conyers succeeded, but the Conyers arms must be always thereafter charged with the arms of Darcy on a canton, and no right accrues to the Darcy quarterings.
The following curious, but quite genuine case, which was pointed out to me by the late Ulster King of Arms, presents a set of circ.u.mstances absolutely unique, and it still remains to be decided what is the correct method to adopt:--
_1st wife._ _2nd wife._ Lady MARY, dau. and = WILLIAM ST. LAWRENCE, = MARGARET, dau. of coheir of Thomas
2nd Earl of Howth.
William Burke.
Bermingham, Earl
of Louth. Married
1777, died 1793.
----------------------
THOMAS ST. LAWRENCE,
----------------------- 3rd Earl of Howth.
Other issue.
Three other daughters
and coheirs of their
mother.
Lady ISABELLA ST. LAWRENCE, = WILLIAM RICHARD ANNESLEY, = PRISCILLA, 2nd dau. and coheir of her
3rd Earl of Annesley.
2nd dau. of mother, but not heir of her
Hugh Moore.
father, therefore ent.i.tled
to transmit the arms of
Bermingham with those of
------------------- St. Lawrence on a canton.
First wife of Earl
WILLIAM, 4th Earl HUGH, 5th Earl Annesley. Married 1803,
of Annesley. of Annesley.
died 1827.
------------
Lady MARY ANNESLEY, only child and = WILLIAM JOHN McGUIRE sole heir of her mother and of Rostrevor.
coheir of her grandmother, but not heir of her father or of her grandfather. She is therefore ent.i.tled to transmit the arms of Bermingham with St. Lawrence on a canton plus Annesley on a canton. Married 1828.
How the arms of Bermingham are to be charged with both St. Lawrence and Annesley remains to be seen. I believe Ulster favoured {551} two separate cantons, dexter and sinister respectively, but the point did not come before him officially, and I know of no official decision which affords a precedent.
The reverse of the foregoing affords another curious point when a woman is the heir of her father but not the heir of her mother:--
JOHN SMITH=MARY JONES.