JANUARY 37 



This arrangement marks the Earl of Mar as chief of the 

 house of Erskine. But imagine another case. Suppose 

 some future rightful heir to that almost immemorial 

 title one of the seven earldoms of Scotland under her 

 Celtic kings suppose him to 'marry the heiress of 

 some great Hoggenheimer, who requires the bridegroom 

 to quarter with the paternal coat the arms which he, 

 Hoggenheimer, has been granted and transmits to his 

 daughter. Then the full evil of quarterings will be 

 apparent : the ancient shield will be for ever defaced by 

 the intrusion of the Hoggenheimer bearings. In a 

 word, an ancient coat of arms must always suffer by 

 quartering, unless with arms of superior antiquity and 

 dignity to itself: it is always desirable to maintain an 

 undivided shield as long as possible. The idea that a 

 simple coat of arms is less honourable than a multiple 

 one may be disproved by the fact that the premier 

 Marquis of the United Kingdom, Lord Winchester, dis- 

 plays only the singularly plain arms of Paulet, three 

 swords on a sable field ; and the premier Viscount, Lord 

 Hereford, the equally simple device of Devereux, a red 

 fess on a white field with three torteaux (red discs) in 

 chief. So in Scotland Lord Forbes, premier baron of 

 that realm by the creation of 1442, uses nothing but 

 the original bearings of the name three white bears' 

 heads on an azure field. 



Some families have borne quartered arms for so many 

 centuries that these could not be sundered now without 

 marring the historic association. Such is the beautiful 

 achievement of the Earls of Eglinton, wherein for nearly 

 seven hundred years the lilies of Montgomerie have 



