A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

88
OF THE BEND.
JOHN CALI.ENDER of Kincardine, descended of Callender of Mayners, sable, -A
bend cheque, or and gules, betwixt six billets of the second; crest, a hand holding
11 billet or ; with the motto, I mean well. N. R.
The ancient Earls of Marr carried azure, a bend betwixt six cross croslets fitched
or ; which was afterwards quartered by other families honoured with the title of
Earls of Marr : But more examples of the bend, accompanied with figures, towards
the end of this chapter.
A bend is said to surmount, when it lies over other ordinaries or other figures,
keeping its just length and breadth ; but by the French it is said to be brochante.
SPENCE of Wormiston, an ancient family with us, said to be descended of the
old Earls of Fife, has been in use to carry the lion of M'DufF, Earls of Fife, with
an addition thus : fig. 10. or, a lion rampant gules, surmounted with a bend sable,
charged with a buckle, between two mascles argent, as in Mr Font's Manuscript of
Blazons. Sir James Spence of Wormiston was Ambassador for King James I. of
Great Britain to the King of Sweden, to effectuate a peace betwixt that King and
the King of Denmark.
The bend, as is said, is subject to all the accidental forms, as to be ingrailed, in-
vected, waved, nebule, and counter-embattled, to be couped and counter-changed, to
be parted of divers tinctures, and carried :
quarterly Of which accidental forms I
have given already several instances and the like will occur ; again in this Treatise,
in other figures which I am to speak to in all their various forms, according to the
practice of Great Britain.
In Germany, sometimes the ordinaries, or proper figures, are put under very odd
fantastical forms, with which I forbear to fatigue my reader, and to swell my book
beyond its designed bulk, but refer the curious to the Wapen Book of Germany,
to Sylvester Petra Sancta, the Italian, and others ; and shall proceed now to the
diminutives of the bend, and the multiplication of them in one field, with their various
blazons, by a few examples, to show their general practice and use with us.
The first diminutive of the bend is called a bendlet, w r hich possesseth in breadth
fhe sixth part of the field diagonally. The French call it a bend en divine ; as Menestrier,
in his blazon of the arms of Toure in 1
France, d argent, a une bande en demise
d'azur, enfilee dans trois couronnes dueales d'or ; i. e. argent, a bendiet azure,
invironed with three ducal crowns or, fig. n. Plate V.
The bendlet, says Feme in his Lacies' Nobility, page 102. does represent a scarf
which soldiers wore over their shoulder, from one side to the other under the arm.
When there is but one in a field of arms, it is blazoned, by inadvertent heralds, a
bend, and that is the reason, says he, we do rarely meet with a bctullet mentioned
in a blazon. In Sir James Balfour's Blazons I have frequently met with a bendlet
mentioned, as in the arms of the surname of LANTON, azure, an eagle with two
heads displayed or, surmounted of a bendlet sable ; and in the blazon of the arnv;
the name of PORTERFIELD, in Sir George Mackenzie's Science of Heraldry, or, a
bendlet betwixt a stag's head erased in chief, and a hunting-horn in base sable, garnished
gules ; so recorded in the Lyon Register for the arms of ALEXANDER POKTER-
fiELD of that Ilk ; and for his crest, a branch of palm : with the motto, Sub po'.-dew
sursum.
I find no instance of a single bendlet carried in any arms of England except this,
given us by Guillim, in his Display of Heraldry, fig. 12. Plate V. and the same by
Handle Holmes, in his Academy of Armories. And though they give us the figure
of a bendlet, yet they do not tell us by whom it is carried, because they suppose
that u bendlet is not carried singly ; for, says Holmes, if the field contains more
than one bend, then they are not called bends, but bendlcts : Notwithstanding of
which, Ashmole, in his Institutions of the Order of the Garter, gives us a bendlet
in the arms of Sir EDWARD POXNINGS, Knight, and one of the most honourable Order
of the Garter, in the reign c King Henry VII. barry of six, or and vert, surmounted
of a bendlet gules.
Sandford, in his Genealogical History, gives us the arms of HENRY of LANCASTER,
Lord MONMOUTH, second son of Edmond Earl of Lancaster, second son of Henry 111.
of England, thus : gules, three leopards or, surmounted of a bendlet azure, as upon
his seals, tombs, and other pieces given us by this author ; who tells us, when he
became Earl of Lancaster, by succeeding to his elder brother Thomas, in the reigr*