quarterly coat which together would only occupy the first quarter in a shield of quarterings. Then the second one would be the arms of Grosvenor alone, which would be followed by the quarterings previously inherited.
If under a Royal Licence a name is assumed and the Royal Licence makes no reference to the arms of the family, the arms for all purposes remain unchanged and as if no Royal Licence had ever been issued. If the Royal Licence issued to a family simply exemplifies a single coat of arms, it is quite wrong to introduce any other coat of arms to convert this single coat into a sub-quarterly one.
To all intents and purposes it may be stated that in Scotland there are still only four quarters in a shield, and if more than four coats are introduced grand quarterings are employed. Grand quarterings are very frequent in Scottish armory. The Scottish rules of quartering follow no fixed principle, and the constant rematriculations make it impossible to deduce exact rules; and though roughly approximating to the English ones, no greater generalisation can be laid down than the assertion that the most recent matriculation of an ancestor governs the arms and quarterings to be displayed.
A royal quartering is never subdivided.
In combining Scottish and English coats of arms into one scheme of quartering, it is usual if possible to treat the coat of arms as matriculated in Scotland as a grand quartering equivalent in value to any other of the English quarterings. This, however, is not always possible in cases where the matriculation itself creates grand quarterings and sub-quarterings; and for a scheme of quarterings in such a case it is more usual for the Scottish matriculation to be divided up into its component parts, and for these to be used as simple quarterings in succession to the English ones, regardless of any bordure which may exist in the Scottish matriculation. It cannot, of course, be said that such a practice is beyond criticism, though it frequently remains the only practical way of solving the difficulty.
Until comparatively recent times, if amongst quarterings inherited the Royal Arms were included, it was considered a fixed, unalterable rule that these should be placed in the first quarter, taking precedence of the pronominal coat, irrespective of their real position according to the date or pedigree place of introduction. This rule, however, has long since been superseded, and Royal quarterings now take their position on the same footing as the others. It very probably arose from the misconception of the facts concerning an important case which doubtless was considered a precedent. The family of Mowbray, after their marriage with the heiress of Thomas de Brotherton, used either the arms of Brotherton alone, these being England differenced
