During the sanguinary struggle between the Houses of Lancaster and York "arms were universally used, and most religiously and pertinaciously maintained." Sometimes, however, when the different branches of a family espoused opposing interests they varied their arms either in the charges or colours, or both. The antient family of Lower of Cornwall originally bore "... a cheveron between three _red_ roses," but espousing, it is supposed, the Yorkist, or white-rose side of the question, they changed the tincture of their arms to "sable, a cheveron between three _white_ roses,"[75] the coat borne by their descendants to this day. The interest taken by the Cornish gentry in these civil dissensions may account for the frequency of the rose in the arms of Cornwall families. The _red rose_ in the centre of the arms of Lord Abergavenny was placed there by his ancestor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, "better known as the king-maker," "to show himself the faithful homager and soldier of the House of Lancaster."[76] The non-heraldric reader will require a definition of what, in the technical phrase of blazon, are called =differences=. These are certain marks, smaller than ordinary charges, placed upon a conspicuous part of the shield for the purpose of distinguishing the sons of a common parent from each other. Thus, the eldest son bears a label; the second a crescent; the third a mullet; the fourth a martlet; the fifth an annulet; and the sixth a fleur-de-lis. The arms of the six sons of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died 30{o} Edward III, were, in the window of St. Mary's Church, Warwick, _differenced_ in this manner.[77] These distinctions are carried still further, for the sons of a second son bear the label, crescent, mullet, &c. upon a crescent; those of a third son the same upon a mullet, respectively. In the third generation the mark of cadency is again superimposed upon the two preceding differences, producing, at length, unutterable confusion. Dugdale published a work, in 1682, on the differences of arms, in which he condemns this system, and suggests a return to the antient mode, which consisted in varying the colours and charges of the field, though preserving the general characteristics of the hereditary bearing. For example, Beauchamp of Elmley branched out into four lines; the eldest line bore the paternal arms, _Gules a fess, or_; the other three superadded to this bearing a charge _or_, six times repeated, namely, II, Beauchamp of Abergavenny, 6 cross-crosslets III, Beauchamp of Holt, 6 billets, and IV, Beauchamp of Bletshoe, 6 martlets, [Illustration] and among the further ramifications of the family we find V, Beauchamp of Essex 6 trefoils slipped VI, Beauchamp of ---- 6 mullets VII, Beauchamp of ---- 6 pears,