A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

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OF THE SUB-ORDINARIES.
who, in memory thereof, took, for armorial figures, five shields or escutcheons,
which he placed in cross, and charged each of them with five besants in saltier,
to represent the five victories. Some say, they represent the five wounds our Saviour
received on the cross, and Alphonsus III. King of Portugal, did since add
the bordure with castles, upon the account that his Queen was daughter of Al-
phonsus, King of Castile, and with her got the kingdom of Algarve, in the year
1278.
OF THE QUARTER, OR FRANC QUARTIER.
I DO not here mean such quarters as necessarily fall out by the partition lines
parti and coupe, in a quartered bearing, where several coats of arms are marshalled in
one shield ; but a square figure as a charge laid on the field, being formed (as
Guillim in his Display) by two lines, the one drawn from the side of the shield in
traverse to the centre, and the other perpendicularly from the chief, to meet it in
the same place. He shows us the figure which he describes, but does not tell us
by whom carried. Sylvester Petra Sancta gives us the arms of JOHN ARSIE of
Arces, Cardinal of the Empire, azure, a quarter or ; which he thus blazons. Aureus
tetrans, in solo scuti cceruleo ; others latin it, quadra, or quadrans. Menes-
trier says, " Quartier est une des quatre parties de 1'ecu ecartejie, ou en banniere,
" ou en sautoir, il fait seul une des parties honorables, et on le nomme franc quar-
" tier ;" he gives us, for instance, the bearing of LAMEIGNON in France, lozenge
d'azur et d? argent, au franc quartier (Pennine, i. e. lozenge azure and argent, a
free quarter ermine.
This quarter, says Gerard Leigh, is given to none under the degree of a Lord
Baron ; but his countryman Guillim says,
it may be granted to those of a lesser
nobility. I observe among all the figures we are treating of, it is never, or at
least seldom used in Britain ; upon what account I know not, except that, when a
field is plain, and no figures on it but a franc quartier, charged with the paternal
figures, according to some writers, it was anciently a sign of illegitimation before
the bastard-bar came in use ; as that learned anonymous author of the Observationes
EugenealogiccE, cap. 19.
lib. 2. " Erat &- olim manifestum naturalitatis & ille-
"
gitimorum naturalium indicium, s quis in primo scuti quadrante paterna ges-
"
taret insignia, reliqua parte scuti vacua relicta, postea vero naturales barram
" assumpsere."
In all the books of Blazon in Britain I have perused, I never met with a. franc
quartier but one, in Mr Thomas Crawfurd, his Manuscript of Heraldry, which he
ascribes to Sir PATRICK HAMILTON, whom he calls brother to first James, of that
name, Earl of ARRAN ; who carried gules, three cinquefoils argent, a. franc quartier
or, charged with a sword fesse-ways azure. Plate VIII. fig. 17. This Sir Patrick
is not only famous in our printed Histories, but in Manuscript, as in that of LIND-
SAY of Pitscottie, for his strength and valour in Tournaments, where he did great
feats in the reign of King James IV. of whom afterwards. I have given the quarter,
absconding the cinquefoil in the dexter chief points, as all such cantons do
of
super-charges.
OF THE CANTON.
THIS is a square figure, less than the quarter, and possesses only the third part of
the chief, as Sylvester Petra Sancta "
: Aliquando aream angulus minor tetrante,
" & qui solum continet partem tertiam scutariae? coronidis :" Here he latins the
canton angulus, but Uredus more distinctly calls it angulus quadratus, because it
is placed on the upper corners of the shield, which distinguishes it from a delph,
which is a rebatement to him that revokes his challenge, being a square figure aK.
ways placed in the centre of the shield. Others use the words quadrans or quadra
jfor a canton. The French call it a franc canton, to distinguish it from these cantons
or areas of the field, which necessarily fall out when the field is charged with
a cross or saltier, as Menestrier : " Canton est une partie quarre'e de 1'ecu, un pen