of Abergavenny, and as it will be seen on the Garter plate of William Nevill, Lord Fauconberg. An elder brother of Lord Fauconberg had married the heiress of the Earl of Salisbury, and was summoned to Parliament in her earldom. He quartered her arms, which appear upon his Garter plate and seal, in the first and fourth quarters of his shield, and adopted her crest. A younger son of Sir Richard Nevill, Earl of Salisbury, bore the same crest differenced by two annulets conjoined, which was the difference mark added to the shield. The crest of Bourchier was a soldan's head crowned, and with a pointed cap issuing from the crown, but when the barony of Bourchier passed to the family of Robsart, as will be seen from the Garter plate of Sir Lewis Robsart, Lord Bourchier, the crest of Bourchier was adopted with the inheritance of the arms and Barony of Bourchier.
I am aware of no important case in English heraldry where the change has been due to mere caprice, and it would seem therefore an almost incontrovertible assertion that changes were due to inheritance, and if that can be established it follows even more strongly that until the days when armory was brought under rigid and official control, and even until a much later date, say up to the beginning of the Stuart period, crests were heritable through heiresses equally with quarterings. The fact that we find comparatively few changes considering the number of crests in existence is by no means a refutation of this theory, because a man had but one helmet, and was forced therefore to make a selection. Unless, therefore, he had a very strong inclination it would be more likely that he would select the crest he was used to than a fresh one. I am by no means certain that to a limited extent the German idea did not hold in England. This was, and is, that the crest had not the same personal character that was the case with the arms, but was rather attached to or an appanage of the territorial fief or lordship. By the time of the Restoration any idea of the transmission of crests through heiresses had been abandoned. We then find a Royal License necessary for the assumption of arms and crests. Since that date it has been and at the present time it is stringently held, and is the official rule, that no woman can bear or inherit a crest, and that no woman can transmit a right to one. Whilst that is the official and accepted interpretation of heraldic law upon the point, and whilst it cannot now be gainsaid, it cannot, however, be stated that the one assertion is the logical deduction of the other, for whilst a woman cannot inherit a lordship of Parliament, she undoubtedly can transmit one, together with the titular honours, the enjoyment of which is not denied to her.
In Scotland crests have always had a very much less important position than in England. There has been little if any continuity
