Arms of the Crawleys, Earls of Grantham, of Downton Abbey

[b***@gmail.com]

From the pub sign of the Grantham Arms:
See http://downtonabbey.wikia.com/wiki/Grantham_Arms

Azure, a chevron or between three lion's faces of the second, impaling Quarterly, 1 and 4 gules, a lion rampant or, 2 and 3 or, a bend gules between two crosses pattee fitchy sable.

I think they mostly get it right, but are not quite clear about whether the impalement is due to the dowager countess being an armigerous heiress or not. If she wasn't, the impalement must be due to an earlier heiress, right?

[Richard Smith]

Post by b***@gmail.com
I think they mostly get it right, but are not quite clear about whether the impalement is due to the dowager countess being an armigerous heiress or not. If she wasn't, the impalement must be due to an earlier heiress, right?

No. I think you're confusing impalement with an escutcheon of pretence
or perhaps with quartering. Impalement represents the marriage between
two armigerous people when the woman was not an heraldic heiress. If
she was an heiress an escutcheon of pretence would properly be used
instead, but you do sometimes find impalements in this case; in future
generations her arms would become a quartering.

Richard

[Tim Powys-Lybbe]

Post by b***@gmail.com
See http://downtonabbey.wikia.com/wiki/Grantham_Arms
Azure, a chevron or between three lion's faces of the second, impaling Quarterly, 1 and 4 gules, a lion rampant or, 2 and 3 or, a bend gules between two crosses pattee fitchy sable.
I think they mostly get it right,

I'm not so sure they got their arguments right at all.

The site author states that an American merchant almost certainly did
not have arms. But in the USA arms are totally legal when created by
the armiger. The fact that the arms are on the pub sign shows us what
her arms might be.

The author then goes on to say that a baronet must have had a coat of
arms. There is no reason why this is true, the letters patent for a
baronetcy are not the same thing as a grant of arms and are issued by
different bodies. I will agree that many baronets will have a coat
granted by The College of Arms or The Lord Lyon as certainly the former
will make it their business to blandish new knights, peers and the very
occasional new baronet to have a coat, but it is not automatic.

Post by b***@gmail.com
but are not quite clear about whether the impalement is due to the
dowager countess being an armigerous heiress or not. If she wasn't,
the impalement must be due to an earlier heiress, right?

Impalement has nothing to do with being an heiress or not. Impalement
is merely the juxtaposition of two inter-twined roles, like husband and
wife or bishop and bishopric or herald and his realm.