Translations:AY Honors/Heraldry - Advanced/Answer Key/100/en

Early heraldry impaled two coats of arms by dimidiation. Instead of each being squashed to occupy half of the new shield, they were cut vertically through their centres, one half of each being brought together to form the new, rather odd design. The children would display only their father’s arms. Arms descend through a family’s male line. Consequently, upon the death of her father, a daughter does not inherit his arms unless she has no brothers in which case she becomes an ‘heraldic heiress'. Here, upon marriage, her arms are marshalled with those of her husband in escutcheon of pretence: a small version of her shield placed in the centre of her husband’s shield. This arrangement is designed to show that, although the lady is armigerous in her own right, her husband pretends to the representation of her family. Upon her death, their children are entitled to display another form of marshalling: ‘quartering’ her arms with those of their father.