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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1st husband. John Williams |
= | = | 2nd husband. Henry Roberts. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ethel Smith, only child and heir. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alice Williams, only child and heir of John Williams. | = | Arthur Ellis. | Edward Roberts, heir of his mother. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Issue. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Theodore Ellis, who claims to quarter: 1 and 4, Ellis; 2. Williams; 3. Smith. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It is officially admitted (see the introduction to Burke's "General Armory") that the claim is accurately made. The process of reasoning is probably thus. John Williams places upon an escutcheon of pretence the arms of Smith, and Alice Williams succeeds in her own right to the arms of her mother because the latter was an heiress, and for herself is entitled to bear, as would a son, the arms of the two parents quarterly; and having so inherited, Alice Williams being herself an heiress, is entitled to transmit. At any rate Arthur Ellis is entitled to impale or place upon his escutcheon of pretence Williams and Smith quarterly. To admit the right for the descendants to quarter the arms Arthur Ellis so bore is no more than a logical progression, but the eventual result appears faulty, because we find Theodore Ellis quartering the arms of Smith, whilst the representation of Smith is in the line of Edward Roberts. This curious set of circumstances, however, is rare in the extreme.
It frequently happens, in devising a scheme of quarterings, that a person may represent heiresses of several families entitled to bear arms, but to whom the pedigree must be traced through an heiress of another family which did not possess arms. Consequently any claim to quarterings inherited through the non-armorial heiress is dormant, and the quarterings must not be used or inserted in any scheme drawn up. It is always permissible, however, to petition for arms to be granted to be borne for that non-armorial family for the purpose of introducing the quarterings in question, and such a grant having been made, the dormant claim then becomes operative and the new coat is introduced, followed by the dormant quartering in precisely the same manner as would have been the case if the arms granted had always existed. Grants of this character are constantly being obtained.
