340 



Notes on the Arms of Cardinal Pole. 



It is, however, plain that the task of presenting the arms of 

 England, to say nothing of the quartered coat of Le Despencer, in 

 their proper proportions within the very small space at his disposal 

 proved too great for the engraver's skill, and he accordingly com- 

 promised by drawing the Cardinal's eight quarters of the varying 

 widths which give so puzzling an appearance to this shield. 



Even more remarkable is the order in which the quarters are 

 given. It is obvious that the order is not in accordance with the 

 laws of marshalling as they obtain at present ; but the drawing 

 must have been made during Cardinal Pole's lifetime, since the 

 book was published in the year before his death, so that it is a fair 

 presumption that the arms as given are those which he bore, even 

 though the order of the quarterings be irregular. It will be shown 

 presently that he had a precedent for the order. 



He naturally bore Clarence in his first quarter, since his mother 

 was the unhappy Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the last of the 

 Plantageriets, and precedence is properly given to her armorials as 

 those of a princess of the blood royal ; and this coat is duly 

 followed by his own paternal arms. It is in the remaining six 

 quarters, which, as the accompanying genealogical table 1 shows, he 

 inherited from his mother, that the apparent anomaly occurs. 



The order of the matches from which Margaret Plantagenet 

 descended is : — Clarence — Neville — Montacute — Monthermer — 

 Beauchamp — Newburgh, — Le Despencer — De Clare, 2 and that is 

 the order in which Reginald Pole, her son, would be expected to 

 have borne these armorials on his quartered shield. But from the 

 drawing in the " Epitome " it is quite clear that he bore Beauchamp 

 and Newburgh immediately after Neville and before Montacute 

 and Monthermer. 



1 This, as a glance will show, is only an extract. It only contains names 

 enough to make the descent clear. 



2 "With regard to the last two it must be observed, however, that precedence 

 is always, in accordance with ancient custom, given to De Clare ; since the 

 De Clare heiress, being of royal descent, was a more important personage 

 than her husband, Hugh Le Despencer. A precisely parallel instance of De 

 Clare precedence is given in the arms of Clare College, Cambridge. 



