The practice of devising armorial bearings by will is as antient as the time of Richard II. In some cases they were also transferred _by deed of gift_. In the 15th year of the same reign Thomas Grendall, of Fenton, makes over to Sir William Moigne, to have and to hold to himself, his heirs and assigns for ever, the arms which had escheated to him (Grendall) at the death of his cousin, John Beaumeys, of Sawtrey.[59] Notwithstanding the numerous traditions relative to the granting of arms by monarchs in very early times, it seems to have been the _general_ practice before the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV for persons of rank to assume what ensigns they chose.[60] But these monarchs, regarding themselves as the true "fountains of honour," granted or took them away by royal edict. The exclusive right of the king to this privilege was long called in question, and Dame Julyan Berners, so late as 1486, declares that "armys bi a mannys auctorite taken (if an other man have not borne theym afore) be of strength enogh." The same gallant lady boldly challenges the right of heralds: "And it is the opynyon of moni men that an herod of armis may gyve armys. Bot I say if any sych armys be borne ... thoos armys be of no more auctorite then thoos armys the wich be taken by a mannys awne auctorite." So strictly was the use of coat-armour limited to the military profession, that a witness in a certain cause in the year 1408, alleged that, although descended from noble blood, he had no armorial bearings, because neither himself nor his ancestors had ever been engaged in war.[61] [Illustration] It was in the reign of the luxurious Richard II that heraldric devices began to be displayed upon the civil as well as the military costume of the great; "upon the mantle, the surcoat and the just-au-corps or boddice, the charge and cognizance of the wearer were profusely scattered, and shone resplendent in tissue and beaten gold."[62] Hitherto the escocheon had been charged with the hereditary (paternal) bearing only, but now the practice of impaling the wife's arms, and quartering those of the mother, when an heiress, became the fashion. Impalement was sometimes performed by placing the dexter half of the lord's shield in juxta-position with the sinister moiety of his consort's;[63] but this mode of marshalling occasioned great confusion, entirely destroying the character of both coats,[64] and was soon abandoned in favour of the present mode of placing the full arms of both parties side by side in the escocheon. Occasionally the shield was divided horizontally, the husband's coat occupying the chief or upper compartment, and the wife's the base or lower half; but this was never a favourite practice, as the side-by-side arrangement was deemed better fitted to express the equality of the parties in the marriage relation.