English Heraldry has been required to recognise another and a perfectly distinct class of “Augmentations,” which consist of additions to the blazonry of a Shield or of additional quarterings or accessories, granted as tokens of Royal favour, for heraldic display, but without any particular “merit” in the receiver, or any special historical significance in themselves. Augmentations of this order may be considered to have been first introduced by RICHARD II., when he granted, “out of his mere grace,” to his favourite ROBERT DE VERE, Earl of OXFORD, Marquess of DUBLIN and Duke of IRELAND, a differenced Coat of ST. EDMUND (No. 3)--_Az., three crowns or, within a bordure argent_, to be quartered with the DE VERE arms as the arms of IRELAND. In the same spirit, RICHARD II. granted, as similar Augmentations, the arms of the CONFESSOR to be marshalled, with Differences, on their Shields by THOMAS and JOHN HOLLAND, Dukes of SURREY and EXETER, and by THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of NORFOLK. It will be remembered that it was one of the capital charges against the then Earl of SURREY, a lineal descendant of this THOMAS MOWBRAY, the Duke of NORFOLK, in 1546, that he had assumed, without the special licence of HENRY VIII., the same arms of the CONFESSOR as an augmentation. By EDWARD IV. similar augmentations, “by grace” and not “for merit,” were granted; and by HENRY VIII. the system was carried to excess in the grants made to augment the armorial blazonry of ANNE BOLEYN, and of his English consorts, her successors. ABATEMENT is a term which was unknown until it made its appearance in certain heraldic writings of the sixteenth century, when it was used to denote such marks or devices as, by the writers in question, were held to be the reverse of honourable Augmentation--_Augmentations of dishonour_ indeed, and tokens of degradation. True Heraldry refuses to recognise all such pretended abatements, for the simple reason that they never did exist, and if they could exist at all, they would be in direct antagonism to its nature, its principles, and its entire course of action. Honourable itself, Heraldry can give expression only to what conveys honour, and it records and commemorates only what is to be honoured and held in esteem.