Re: First quarter of shield was The 3 Walter Griffiths of Burton Agnes ...

Come off it: The point is what, if anything, an achievement of arms
means. The answer to this is that it is a display of your own personal
arms plus those you wish to add of the families of which you are a
co-representative. If you put your personal arms in a box other than
the first you are saying that you are merely a representative of that
family, not the arms holder.

This is your understanding or interpretation, that does not make it a fact.
I have already given several examples. The first ones you claim weren't
valid, the later ones you claim you can't verify. I did make one blunder, but
the rest are accurate (I rechecked again).

Tim Powys-Lybbe...

There were two cases remaining of the three you had given, Poole the
younger and Stafford.

You have not explained what was different in the Poole arms, merely
stating that they were different. I then postulated some explanation
of what happened, that they had two arms, to which you have not replied.

Then with the Staffords I said that they might have had permission to
use the (differenced) royal arms as their personal arms, as these are
what are mentioned as such in Burke's "General Armory". And asked for
confirmation whether this was what they had done (or ignore what I had
said). As yet you have not clarified this.

Further there is the explanation that there was a convention that those
who had a (differenced) royal quartering in their achievement were to
display that first. I can well believe that was a rule at some times
though have no heard of it before. But it is not a rule now, the rule
has changed. Same as speed limits changing.

I should explain for those who don't know of differencing that the
undifferenced, plain royal arms can only be used by the sovereign.
So the royal children cannot inherit their father's (usually) arms.
So they take up some arms with an extra pattern on them to make them
different. The patterns are nomally on labels but are sometimes
on borders. So anyone who has inherited a quartering of the royal arms
has not in fact inherited the royal arms as such but only a differenced
version of those arms. People who were thought to be displaying the
royal arms were threatened with having their head chopped off and
indeed this happened to the countess of Salisbury in 1541, though the
whole thing sounded very trumped up.

Maybe you should "come off it" :) and realize that there were no "rules" for
representing your own patrilineal (not personal) arms in the first quarter.
I hope you're not going to respond that you now meant personal when it's
been apparent that you have been speaking of the male-line descent
("patrilineal") arms :)

Tim Powys-Lybbe...

Normally "personal" and patrilineal" arms are the same thing until a
chappie changes his arms to some other ones. I have explained the fact
of arms changing several times.

Shall I produce a quote from Fox-Davies' "Complete Guide to Heraldry",
1954 edition, p. 548 [the '_' signs indicate his italics and the bit
in brackets is Fox-Davies'] :

"Given your pedigree--the first quartering _must_ be _the pronominal
coat_ (I am here presuming no change of name or arms has occurred),
which is the coat of arms of the strict male line of descent."

Can't be much plainer than that.

Otherwise, we have to start all over again.

Tim Powys-Lybbe...

The beginning of this was in fact that I was saying, and not in response
to anything you had written, that the rules of (even English) heraldry
cannot be universally applied as there were always exceptions. I think
our conversation has proven beyond doubt that this is true. How then,
can we start all over again?

I think enough has been said on this and it is time, even long past the
time, to bring it to an end.

Will Johnson