The main purpose of armory is to so present simple patches of vivid colors as to be rec ognized at a great distance. The tinctures used in Great Britain are seven — two metals, or and argent (gold and silver) ' • five colors, gales (red) ; azure (blue) ; sable (black), vent (green), purpure (purple)'; though this last is very rare and green is not very common. There are also two furs, which are represented by curious conventional patterns supposed to rep resent the patchwork of small skins sewed to-, gether which make a garment or the lining of a garment. These furs are ermine and vain, but each has many curious variations known by different names. Thus °ermine' shows black tails on a white field, or in modern times a flowerlike pattern suggested by the real ermine; but erminois has the same pattern in black op a gold field.
Dimidiation and impaling, mentioned above, are varieties of the great general subject of marshaling. The more elaborate form of mar sbaling is to divide an escutcheon into quar ters. Thus, the son of a married pair who have borne their arms impaled, may divide the escutcheon into four quarters and will put his father's arms on the first and fourth quarters (dexter chief and sinister base) and those of his mother on the second and third quarters. This quartering may be quartered again, and so on indefinitely. Thus, the escutcheon of the Prince of Wales during the reign of Queen Victoria (of him who became King Edward VII) is too elaborate to describe fully here. This is because his bearings as Duke of Roth say, Lord of the Isles, Duke of Cornwall, Baron Renfrew, and the like were all charged together, so that the number of small sub divisions is remarkable. Now, there are different ways of charging these. Those which his escutcheon must bear are the royal arms of England differenced with the label of the heir apparent, which is a label of three points argent, and this escutcheon will bear in the middle a small shield with the arms of Saxony. Even in this the inescutcheon is out of place when we are considering his arms as heir to the Crown. It is held by many that the Prince of Wales should display two shields; the first as simple as possible, with only the quarters for England, Scotland and Ireland; while the second should display all his primary and secondary arms, including those of his wife, who, in the case assumed above, was the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Again, a system is adopted by which a large shield bears those royal arms upon it, an ines cutcheon with the secondary arms of Cornwall, Rothsay, Chester, Dublin, Lordship of the Isles, Carrick, Renfrew, Wales as a principal ity, and over all a small escutcheon of pretense charged with the arms of Saxony for Saxe Coburg-Gotha. But even these do not include
the arms of the Princess, his wife, which should rightly occupy the sinister side of the shield, while all the achievement described above should be charged upon the dexter side. It is evident, then, that a person whose family has formed many dignified alliances may have an indefinitely great number of quarterings. But let us take the escutcheon of a king of the House of Hanover, as George IV, and we shall find that the four quarters of the shield are charged in this way: the first quarter (dexter chief) in gales, bearing three lions passant gar dant, and the fourth quarter (sinister base) exactly the same. These two quarters are Eng land. The second quarter (sinister chief) is Scotland, a field or with a lion rampant gales, framed in a bordure fieur-de-lisee, alsogules. The third quarter (dexter base) is Ireland, the Irish harp or on a ground azure. Upon this shield is set an inescutcheon, divided in a curi ous way into three parts, for Hanover, and having above it a royal crown. Upon this in escutcheon is still a second inescutcheon, very small, simply pules with a bearing or, which is supposed to stand for the imperial crown of Charlemagne this in commemoration of the electoral dignity of the sovereign of Hanover, who was called the Elector until after the Na poleonic wars. It is a rule never to place metal upon metal or color upon color. Thus, if your shield is argent, any bearing put upon it must be in one of the colors — never in or.
But there are several curious exceptions; as that of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (which lasted only from 1099 to 1187, but which is per petuated by the addition of its bearings to many private shields) was argent, a cross potent between four crosslets or. This means a large gold cross, at the end of each arm of which is a cross head like the handle of a crutch; and in the little corners left by the cross, four small Greek crosses; all these in gold on a silver ground.
No two persons should bear the same arms at the same time, therefore a distinction is made between the escutcheons of younger children. Even the heir may distinguish his bearings from his father's by a special mark, apart from the quartering described above. The term marks of cadency is• used for these differences. Many varying plans have been followed, and one which has been much accepted is the label. This is a band with pendant strips hanging from it, usually three; and this is laid right upon the escutcheon near its head, and crosses it, partly concealing all the bearings. This label will be plain for the eldest son, differenced by a bearing like a crescent for a second son, a mullet for the third son, a martlet for the fourth son, and so on.