Heraldry is essentially not a science which can interest the many. So few recognise its significance. To an ordinary person a coat-of-arms means nothing. To a herald it tells the whole story of the life of a man. In days when few knew how to read, all could understand a coat-of-arms, and read off glibly the information it afforded. Time has passed, and now everyone reads, and looks down, no doubt, on those ancestors of theirs who could merely blazon. If they could come to life again, those poor forebears, whom their descendants consider so benighted, it is not impossible that they might in their turn be amazed at present-day ignorance. Who knows ?

The science of heraldry, as we know it, is not very ancient. A badge is one of the earliest things in history. It meant individuality, and in the first emergence from barbarism individuality was the first thing man claimed. Badges generally ended by being appropriated by a whole tribe or nation, but they began as the ensign of one man, usually a leader. As the old Roman systems were wiped out by the barbarians, and as the nations grew farther and farther away from primeval savagery, it became necessary for them to have means of identification of their own. So grew up by slow degrees the science of heraldry.

Full coat'of-arms

Husband of an heiress