Re: First quarter of achievement of arms was The 3 Walter Griffiths of Burton...

In a message dated 11/2/05 10:08:11 AM Pacific Standard Time, tim@powys.org

<< 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, >>

Did you dispose of my case for Henry Courtenay (1498-1539), Marquis of Exeter?
His shield is given as
1st) a odd hodgepodge of England and France, I really don't know how to
describe it
2nd and 3rd ) His father's 1st quarter, being three red circles on a gold
background
4th) His father's 2nd quarter, being a blue, standing, lion? on a gold
background

Next we come to Edward Stafford (1478-1521), Duke of Buckingham
His shield is given as
1st and 4th) divided into four quarters as sub1st and 4th France, sub2nd and
3rd England, all in a silver border
2nd and 3rd) a red, upside-down chevron on a gold background

This 2nd and 3rd quarter is the identical, full-shield, symbol of his
great-great-grandfather, Edmund, Earl of Stafford, so I'm assuming this is "Stafford".

mjcar...

Indeed, two and three are the patrinominal arms for Stafford, viz or, a
chevron gules, as depicted on Table 6 of Louda and Maclagan. (NB the
chevron is not inverted).

Quarters one and four are properly an impartible quartered coat or i
and iv France (modern) and ii and iii England, within the bordure used
by Thomas of Woodstock, younger son of Edward III (see Fox-Davies, p
418, including an illustration; this bordure was argent, without
further addition, as illustrated at Table 3 of Louda & Maclagan. The
Duke of Buckingham was entitled to this quarter because his great-great
grandfather, Edmund, Earl of Stafford (d 1403) married Anne, the
daughter and heiress of Thomas of Woodstock. Because of the now-long
obsolete practice of giving the Royal Arms place of honour in a
quartered arrangement, Thomas of Woodstock's arms are shown before
those of Stafford.

Again, because this is an example involving the Royal Arms, which have
always been accorded special heraldic treatment in all sorts of ways,
this is not necessarily a good example of the displacement of
pronominal arms. There are other examples in Louda & Maclagan which
are also problematic, because of the connection to royalty (for
instance, Henry VII's father Edmund Tudor dropped his pronominal arms
and used a bordured version of the English Royal Arms, despite the fact
that he was not descended from the English Royal Family, but 'only' the
son of Catherine de Valois, the Dowager Queen (widow of Henry V).
Blount and Maddison, however, are good examples of early English
pronominal arms being displaced. The Frevilles are another good
example - the Shelford and Tamworth branches used totally different
arms, because the latter decided to change from the original pronominal
coat.

In this work, it's hard to find examples that meet your exacting criteria of
"English" and "non-royal" since it's mostly a survey of European Royalty.
However they do point out, that there were so many people doing whatever they
wanted with their shields, that an office was created and enforced to standardize
the "rules", but that this started in the 14th and 15th centuries and
"gradually" took this power.