Arms and the family
by Mike Oettle
brisures / Black Prince / border / label / Stodart
A PERSONAL coat of arms belongs, at any given time, to only one person in any given country or region.
Forget the notion that a coat of arms can belong to an entire family. It is called a family coat of arms because one can trace connections between different members of that family by noting the differences between a number of similar shields of arms.
This is not merely a matter of custom, but one of armorial law.
So here we have Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, with his son and heir. Young Talbot, being the eldest son, wears a label of three points (this one happens to be black) at the top of his arms. (In Scotland, whoever is next in succession to a particular coat of arms wears the label, even if he is a distant relative.)
Now comes a tragedy: the Earl is killed by an arrow, and is carried away by his men-at-arms.
(Note that the men-at-arms wear a livery that is different from the colours in the Talbot arms. They also wear a punning or canting badge on their chests and backs: a breed of dog called a talbot.)
Now the title Earl of Shrewsbury (2nd Earl) passes to to the son, who (even while mourning his father) signifies his succession by removing the label and bearing the plain arms of Talbot.
The uniqueness of a coat of arms is limited to a single country. Go to this article to see how the Hay family has heads in four countries who bear the same arms, while other members of the family must vary the plain family coat.
Since the time of the Tudor monarchs, the English heralds have varied arms within a family by adding marks according to a set pattern.
The eldest son, as already mentioned, adds his label. The second son adds a crescent, the third son a mullet (a five-pointed star), the fourth son a martlet (a traditional heraldic bird, based on the swallow or the swift, that has neither beak nor feet), the fifth son an annulet, the sixth a fleur-de-lys, the seventh a rose, the eighth a cross moline (see here for an example of a cross moline) and the ninth an octofoil (a formally drawn flower of eight petals).
These difference marks or brisures can be of any colour (but they must obviously contrast with whatever part of the shield they are on). They should be small (so as not to be confused with any major charge), and can appear in different parts of the shield, although they should preferably be near the middle line.
Unlike the label, which falls away on the death of the father, the difference marks of younger sons remain.
The label (sometimes called lambel in English; in Afrikaans, baresteel; in Dutch, barensteel) is a curious charge, because it has two completely different uses in heraldry. Its origin is a little obscure, but its German name, Turnierkrage (tournament collar), gives some hint of how it first was used.
It appears most commonly as the brisure of the eldest son or heir, and has done since it was adopted by Edward, the Black Prince (*1330 †1376), eldest son of King Edward III of England and the first English Prince of Wales, but is also encountered as a permanent charge. (Edward’s name of “Black Prince” comes from the arms he used to wear when competing in tournaments. See here for an illustration.)
The label also occurs in royal heraldry to indicate younger sons or daughters. Mediæval English princes would follow the practices of their Continental cousins and add, for instance, a label of France (blue with gold fleurs-de-lys) or Brittany (ermine, or white with black tails) – or combinations of these or other arms within the label – partly to indicate a familial connection with those realms, but partly also to demonstrate that they were not the next in succession to the English arms (the lions of England alone, or France and England quartered) which made up most of the shield. Also used, although not in England, was the label of Castile (red with gold castles). Shown here are the arms of Edmund Crouchback (*1257 †1296, second son of King Henry III), Earl of Lancaster and also styled King of Sicily, who added a label of France; Crouchback’s father-in-law, Robert I (*1216 †1250, second son of King Louis VIII), Count of Artois, who added a label of Castile to France Ancient; and John, Duke of Bedford (*1389 †1435, eldest son of King Henry IV) Regent of France from 1422 to ’35, who added a label of Brittany and France.
In modern British practice, each royal is assigned a white label of the appropriate number of points (the Prince of Wales’s eldest son, exceptionally, has three points) with additional symbols in most instances. See here for the arms of Prince William of Wales and his brother, Prince Harry.)
It is sometimes stated that the white/silver label may in England only be used for royals. I can find no substantiation for this, but in Scotland this is certainly not the case – any appropriate (contrasting) colour is acceptable.
When the label is used as a permanent charge, it need not have the three, five or seven points prescribed for an eldest son, his eldest son and his eldest son. It occasionally appears as the mark of a disinherited branch of a family.
In civic arms, for instance, it occasionally appears with four or six points. As a permanent charge in a family coat of arms – an example being the family of Sir George Grey – it requires an additional label to indicate an eldest son. Schools in two South African centres, Grey High and Junior Schools in Port Elizabeth, and Grey College in Bloemfontein, have arms derived from Sir George’s and so display a label.
(In the 19th century, the sons of British royals would often use their father’s arms with an additional label. Shown above right is the shield of Prince George of Cambridge, eldest son of the Duke of Cambridge, who was a Knight of the Garter in the 1820s.)
For another example of a label as a charge, see the arms of the US Army’s Institute of Heraldry here.
The label is also encountered in several different forms. Its horizontal component (technically a riband or barrulet enhanced) can go from side to side, or it can be couped (cut short on both sides). The points can be rectangular, dovetail-shaped or even teardrop-shaped. (The Grey arms traditionally have a couped barrulet with dovetailed points.)
In mediæval examples it is sometimes found so enhanced that it runs along the top edge of the shield, or even disappears altogether, leaving the points hanging from the top edge. This underlines the tournament origin of the label, which an eldest son might have worn when competing in a tournament wearing his father’s armour and carrying his father’s shield, and bearing the label on both surcoat and shield as a temporary indication that he was not in fact the owner of the arms.
Shown here are the arms of Prince Edward, heir to King Henry III and later himself King Edward I, whose label sits right on the top edge of the shield, and William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke (†1296), whose label of England shows only the points, not the riband at all. Edward and his successors Edward II and III all bore blue labels of three or five points before becoming king, but blue became an unsuitable colour when England’s arms were quartered with those of France, and the Black Prince turned to silver (or white).
White (silver) labels of three points were borne, before the Black Prince’s time, on the arms of England to indicate a junior branch, and in France such a label was borne by several Dukes of Orléans.
The points can also bear charges, and especially in Spanish and Portuguese heraldry, quite elaborate points are found that require the point to be a small rectangle bulging out from the pallet (narrow vertical stripe) by which it hangs. Two examples from the Portuguese royal house are shown here: Fernando, Duke of Viseu (*1433 †1470), who bore a label of two points, each charged with the arms of the Aragonese Kings of Sicily; and Eduardo, Duke of Guimarães (*1515 †1540), who bore three points, each with a different coat: Aragon, Hungary/Jerusalem and Sicily.
The drawback of the English system with its little difference marks is that, after a few generations, it tends to get messy. So in Scotland the same marks form part of a more complex system, devised by Robert Riddle Stodart, appointed Lyon Clerk Depute in 1864, that involves a few more methods of differencing according to laid-down pattern.
None of the methods of differencing in the Stodart system was new: every last one had been in use in Scotland – and indeed in other countries – for centuries. But this was the first time it had been reduced to a system.
Here we have another of Don Pottinger’s marvellous drawings, showing the family tree of Erskine. At the bottom of the tree stands old Erskine, his arms being argent, a pale sable.
Next up the ladder is his eldest son, wearing a red label of three points . . . arguing with his next brother. Note that the three younger brothers all have added a border to their arms: the second son has a gold border, the third a border chequy of silver and black, the fourth son a red border.
Next up the ladder is the eldest son’s eldest son, whose label (still red) has five points. In his generation the younger sons vary the lines of partition, so his brothers have their pales engrailed and invected.
The same rule of varying partition lines has been applied to his cousins: the gent with the red border has two sons, the elder of whom wears a label, but the younger one has an engrailed border (the charge or partition most recently added receives the change in its partition line).
Next up the ladder are the great-grandsons: the eldest son in right line of descent still has a red label, but this now has seven points. His brothers have added brisures in the English fashion: a crescent and a mullet.
And their cousins (sons of the gent with the invected pale) now fall under the rule of adding a border. The elder son again has a label (as with his uncle with the red border, this label has three points, indicating an heir of the first generation), while his infant brother is in a cradle with a gold border.
Note that this gold border is the same as that of the second son in the first generation – but there can be no confusion between the two, since the infant’s pale is invected, as in his brother’s and father’s arms.
Sir Iain Moncreiffe notes, however: “But latitude is allowed where some other difference seems more appropriate.”
In the Middle Ages, borders were used as brisures in much the same way as the labels mentioned above. English royals would, for instance, add borders of France or Brittany, or others relating to English titles. King Afonso III of Portugal (*1210 †1279) marked his marriage to Beatriz of Castile in 1254 by adding a border of Castile . . . a brisure borne to this day by the Portuguese Republic. (Afonso was himself half Castilian, since his mother was Urraca of Castile.) The two Portuguese royal dukes whose arms appear above, being descendants of Afonso, also have the border of Castile.
Shown here are the arms of John of Eltham (*1316 †1336, second son of King Edward II), Earl of Cornwall, who added a border of France (as did at least three other English royals, Dukes of Exeter in the 15th century); Thomas de Beaufort, Earl of Dorset, second son of John of Gaunt’s third marriage; and Jasper Tudor. The Beauforts, legitimised following the marriage of their mother, Catherine Roelt, to John of Gaunt, bore France quartering England within a border compony of silver and blue (for more on this family, see here). Thomas changed the silver segments of the border to ermine. The brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor, half-brothers to King Henry VI and sons of Queen Catherine (daughter of King Charles VI of France), were given arms as if they were members of the royal house – because of a shortage of men in the House of Lancaster – and Edmund’s son actually became king as Henry VII. Edmund had a blue border of alternating martlets and fleurs de lys (the martlets alluding to the arms of King Richard II [see this page for an explanation, and here for an illustration of the arms of Edward the Confessor, additionally borne by Richard]). Jasper’s border had only martlets.
The border, when it is used as a brisure, is usually the mark of a younger son, but it has also been used as the mark of an heir. From 1871 to 1918 the heir to the Prussian throne bore his father’s arms (the eagle of the Empire, with on its breast a shield of the Prussian eagle, and on its breast the silver-and-black quartered shield of Hohenzollern – signifying a personal union between Hohenzollern, Prussia and the Empire) in a red border.
All the difference marks mentioned here apply to legitimate offspring. Illegitimate sons fall under another set of rules, and these vary considerably, not only from country to country, but from period to period. This are dealt with in this article.
No orderly system such as the Stodart or even the English method exists on the European Continent, where differencing is more like that shown in the article on the Hay family, but does not follow any rigid pattern.
Many South African families hail from Germany, which has but a short history as a single country but which was once a major part of the Holy Roman Empire. Within the Empire, the heraldic principle of uniqueness was acknowledged in various regions, but the application of that principle is not always apparent to anyone familiar with the heraldic practices of countries further west.
Sometimes a family settled in more than one region will difference its arms by changing the colours (the shield contents remaining otherwise identical). An example of this is given at right, where the arms of the Bavarian family of Parteneck (argent, an axe sable in bend charged with a cross paty argent) appear in various colours. The black crosses on the red and blue axes do not seem right, but they appeared in this form in the black-and-white illustration from which this is taken. These branches have taken their names from their estates, hence the lack of uniformity of name.
What is also encountered in the heraldry of German-speaking countries is that the heads of the same family in two different regions will bear the same shield of arms, in the same colours, and difference the device by changing the crest.
This article has not touched on marshalling, where the arms of more than one family are brought together – this is discussed here. German methods of marshalling also differ from those practised elsewhere.
Comments, queries: Mike Oettle