In order to distinguish the various members of a family among themselves certain additions to the shield called marks of cadency are employed; and in the earliest days of the heraldic system a son charged the arms that he derived from his father with such a mark of difference as he thought fit and effectual, but by the middle of the fourteenth century some amount of regularity was arrived at, and by the end of the sixteenth century the present method had become usual. In this system the eldest son is distinguished by a file or label of three points, which consists of a horizontal part from which depend the lambeaux (Fig. 286 et seq.). Its origin is extremely obscure, and whether it represents the points of garments, or tongues or labels threaded on a cord, no one can say with certainty. It seems probable that it may have originally been a favour or distinction whose history and original significance have been lost. The effigy at Artois of Charles Count d’Eu has a label which passes round the shoulders, exactly as other collars did, and consists of large labels charged with castles and suspended from what appears to be a narrow cord (Fig. 288).
On a shield the label is borne in chief and passes over any charges that may be in that part of the arms. In early examples the pendant parts are wider than the rest, in some cases much wider, as in the Garter Plate of Gaston de Foix, Comte de Longueville and Captal de Buch, whose label is charged with a complete coat of arms repeated on each point, a cross charged with five escallop shells, which are the arms of John de Grielly, a previous Captal de Buch who married Blanche de Foix. In later times the points of labels were widened at the ends as in Fig. 289, a form which in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had become as squat and ugly as the still common type (Fig. 290). In ordinary cadency the label which extends from side to side of the shield is no longer used, being reserved for members of the Blood Royal, and a shortened form takes its place in ordinary coats of arms. Distinctions of cadency are provided to the number of nine, and no regular provision is made beyond the ninth son; not because others are to go undifferenced, but because in old heraldic treatises great importance is ascribed to that mystic figure 9. There were nine tinctures (including the rare colours tenné and sanguine), nine ordinaries, nine partitions, or methods of displaying charges with ordinaries, and so forth. The differences are as follows:—
A mark of cadency is borne on any part of a coat that may be found most suitable for its conspicuous display, but always in such a manner that it may not be mistaken for a charge. It is generally placed somewhere in chief or sometimes in the centre of the shield, and its colour may be any that is well seen. Bossewell says (1572): “Every difference ought to be placed in the moste evidente part of the coat armour, videlicit, in the place where the same maie soonest be scene or perceived.” And another early writer indicates the distance at which a difference should be easily perceived on a banner or other flag as eighteen yards.
The sons of the eldest son bear each his own difference charged upon the label of his father, and in similar manner the sons of the second son of the head of the family charge their differences on their father’s crescent, and so forth. As marking the degree of nearness to the headship of the family such distinctions are disused or changed as circumstances dictate, but in some cases a second or other junior son continues to use his difference after his father’s death in order to prevent confusion with his elder brother who has in due course succeeded to the undifferenced coat, and in spite of the inevitable clashing with the second son of that elder brother, who would also bear a crescent for difference. Such a method of distinguishing “Houses” as well as sons would, of course, become impossible in a very few generations, and this points to the superiority of the mediaeval method of differencing as well as to what is the principal weakness of modern heraldry in England as a system, namely, the want of distinction between the branches of a family. That, however, is more a matter for the scientific herald. The mark of cadency may be placed on the crest as well as on the arms, but it is not commonly done, except when the crest is used alone.
It should be noted here that though daughters (other than Princesses of the Blood) do not difference their arms personally, for they rank equally among themselves, they do bear their father’s difference so long as he bears it.
When by impalement or other means the individuality of the bearer is sufficiently pointed out, marks of cadency are frequently considered to be redundant, and are therefore omitted; but their inclusion is preferable.
Royal cadency follows a method apart, and when arms are assigned by the Sovereign to the various members of the Royal Family, as is done by warrant on their arrival at full age, the proper individual mark of cadency is assigned at the same time. At the present day it always takes the form of a label; which is plain for the Prince of Wales, and charged in some distinctive manner for other members of the Blood Royal.
The labels of the other living Princes and Princesses to whom arms have been assigned are as follows: and it should be noted that all these various labels are Argent. The Princess Royal (Duchess of Fife) bears over the Royal Arms a label of five points charged with three crosses gules alternating with two thistles ppr.
The Princess Victoria differences her arms with a label of five points charged with three roses alternately with two crosses gules.
The Princess Maud (Queen of Norway) bears a label of five points charged with three hearts and two crosses gules.
The Duke of Connaught has a label of three points, charged on the centre point with St. George’s Cross and on each of the others with a fleur-de-lis Azure.
The Princess Christian, of Schleswig-Holstein, bears a label of three points, the centre of which is charged with St. George’s Cross and each of the others with a rose gules.
The Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll) bears a label of three points, the centre point charged with a rose, each of the others with a canton gules.
The Princess Beatrice (Princess Henry of Battenberg) bears a label of three points, the centre one charged with a heart and each of the others with a rose.
In Royal Achievements the labels are charged on the crest and supporters as well as the arms, and in these positions are usually couped at the ends, though there is no reason why they should be so; on the contrary, remembering that these figures are “in the round” it would be preferable to follow the ancient usage.
A further distinction from the arms of the Sovereign is made by substituting for the Imperial Crown, which is borne on the heads of the lion crest and supporter and also encircles the throat of the unicorn, the coronet which is proper to the personage concerned.