The practice of impaling official with personal arms, for instance, those of a bishopric with those of the bishop, does not appear to be of great antiquity. Provosts, mayors, the kings of arms, heads of houses, and certain professors in the universities, among others, possess this right; and it is the general practice to cede the dexter, or more honourable half of the shield to the coat of office. Nisbet mentions a fashion formerly prevalent in Spain, which certainly ranks under the category of 'Curiosities,' and therefore demands a place here. Single women frequently divided their shield per pale, placing their paternal arms on the sinister side, and leaving the dexter _blank_, for those of their husbands, as soon as they should be so fortunate as to obtain them. This, says mine author, "was the custom _for young ladies that were resolved to marry_!"[65] These were called "Arms of Expectation."[66] [Illustration] The gorgeous decoration of the male costume with the ensigns of heraldry soon attracted the attention and excited the emulation of that sex which is generally foremost in the adoption of personal ornaments. Yes, incongruous as the idea appears to modern dames, the ladies too assumed the embroidered _coat of arms_! On the vest or close-fitting garment they represented the paternal arms, repeating the same ornament, if _femmes soles_, or single women, on the more voluminous upper robe; but if married women, this last was occupied by the arms of the husband, an arrangement not unaptly expressing their condition as _femmes-covertes_. This mode of wearing the arms was afterwards laid aside, and the ensigns of husband and wife were impaled on the outer garment, a fashion which existed up to the time of Henry VIII, as appears from the annexed engraving of Elizabeth, wife of John Shelley, Esq.[67] copied from a brass in the parish church of Clapham, co. Sussex. The arms represented are those of Shelley and Michelgrove, otherwise Fauconer; both belonging, it will be seen, to the class called canting or allusive arms; those of Shelley being welk-_shells_, and those of Fauconer, a _falcon_. Quartering is a division of the shield into four or more equal parts, by means of which the arms of other families, whose heiresses the ancestors of the bearer have married, are combined with his paternal arms; and a shield thus quartered exhibits at one view the ensigns of all the houses of which he is the representative. In modern times this _cumulatio armorum_ is occasionally carried to such an extent that upwards of a hundred coats centre in one individual, and may be represented upon his shield.[68] The arms of England and France upon the great seal of Edward III, and those of Castile and Leon in the royal arms of Spain, are early examples of quartering. The first English subject who quartered arms was John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, in the fourteenth century.