A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

sub-ordinaries may be properly
OF THE SUB-ORDINARIES. 169
here treated of between the honourable ordinaries
and natural figures, and are these ; the bordure, escutcheon, orle, tressure, point,
pairle, pyle, git MI, framquarter, canton, points, cquipolles or cheque, fusils, lozenge,
mascle, rustre, fret, billet, besant, tortcaux, -vires, annulet, pappelonne, gutte, diapre ;
of all which I shall treat separately.
OF THE BORDURE.
THE bordure goes round the extremities of the shield, and, takes up the fifth parr
of the field by the English : But by our practice, sometimes less, sometimes more,
within a
accordingly as it is charged or not charged, and suits with the figures,
bordure gules. Plate VII. fig. 20.
With the French it is looked upon as an honourable ordinary, and, as other or-
dinaries, possesses the third of the field ; as Menestrier describes it,
" Bordure est
" une piece honorable qui prend tous les bords de 1'ecu en forme de ceinture selon
" le fens de 1'ecu." Monsieur Baron says, it is as a shield surrounding a shield,
diminished to a third part ; the Latins call it, bordura, linibus, margo, istjfimbta.
With us and the it is English looked upon as an additional figure or difference, for
the distinction of coats of arms of particular persons and families, descended from one
and the same house and original stock ; and not as a principal figure, or one of
the honourable ordinaries. By principal figures I understand those fixed ones used
by the stems and chiefs of families, which are transmitted to all the descendants ;
and by additional figures, those which cadets and descendants add (as marks of
cadency) to the principal hereditary fixed figures of the stem, or chief of the family,
that they may be differenced from selves.
it, and from each other among them-
The bordure, indeed, is more frequently made use of as an additional figure or
mark of cadency than any of the honourable ordinaries ; yet it is, and has been
frequently carried in arms, as a principal figure, by
the stems or chiefs of several
names, both with the French, English, and with us ; a few instances of which I
shall here mention.
In the Chronicle of Jonvil, and other French histories, we read that Charles the
Great gave arms to several of his brave officers, and to Arnold Viscount of Coze -
rans, or, a bordure gules ; where the bordure is not only the- principal, but the
only figure, and without it the shield or would not be arms. Many of such instances
I could add, but I forbear, since it is not questioned by the French, but looked
upon by them as a principal figure, and an honourable ordinary, and carried by
some chief families with us. The old Earls of DUNBAR and MARCH, without question
chief of the name and family, carried gules, a lion rampant, within a bordure
argent, charged with eight roses of the first.
The Earl of PANMURE, of whom before, has his arms within a bordure ; which is
carried by all the descendants of these families as a principal figure. And further,
it may be said, for the honour of the bordure, that it should the rather be looked
upon as a principal figure, since it has diminutives in heraldry, as the other honourable
ordinaries have, such as the orle, essonier, and tressure : With the last of
which the French would never have recompensed the Scots, for the heroic assistance
they gave them in their wars, had it been a figure that was never used but
for a brisure, as all marks of cadency are neither would the Scots have retained it
;
so carefully in their royal standards and ensigns if it had not been a principal and
honourable figure. Nor would the Kings of Portugal have carried their arms
within a bordure ; nor would Richard Earl of Poictiers and Cornwall, in the year
1 225, have placed the feudal arms of the Earldom of Cornwall, being sable, bcsantic
or, by way of bordure round the feudal arms of Poictiers, being argent, a lion
rampant gules, crowned or. So that they are mistaken, who affirm that a bordure
is never to be found in a coat of arms, but as a brisure and mark of : cadency I
am therefore to treat here of it without further consideration, than as an armorial
figure in its different forms and attributes, as I have done of the ordinaries before.
Sir ALEXANDrR CUMING of Coulter, azure, three garbs within a bordure or: crest,
a garb of the last : motto, Courage. Lyon Register.
U u