Since ex-Presidents often serve in special capacities (such as a special envoy or on diplomatic initiatives), I would think the use of the term "Mr. President" is to keep them on "diplomatic par" with the foreign heads of state they often deal with. Not technically correct, but perhaps psychologically effective.
Getting back to Claire Boudreau I asked one of the heralds in the CHA if her arms will in fact look like this makeshift version I conjured up:
http://s2.excoboard.com/forums/3205/user/85362/392329.jpg
He responded, "yes indeed!" indicating my makeshift rendering is correct.
But, now my skills are getting rusty again and I’m curious about something. Since this is an example of arms impaled and not dimidiated why wouldn’t the orle in Dr. Boudreau’s personal arms appear in the entire impalement? I know the answer lies somewhere in the same ballpark of what happens to bordures but I wonder what the answer is. Perhaps it is not a hard and fast rule and is more of a matter of opinion? I’d appreciate it if someone could explain it to me…again.
Charles Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry, p.141 wrote:
"But in impaling a coat of arms which is surrounded by a bordure, the bordure is not continued down the centre between the two coats, but stops short top and bottom at the palar line. The same rule, by the way, applies to the tressure, but not to the orle. The curious fact, however, remains that this rule as to the dimidiation of the bordure in cases of impalement is often found to have been ignored in ancient seals and other examples."
I thought I remembered reading this somewhere…
Classic Fox-Davies.
Confronted with a written rule saying one thing and physical evidence ("ancient seals and other examples") that actual practice was something else, a historian would ask: Where did this rule come from? Is it something that was invented after the date of the examples I have in front of me? Is it a standardization of previously conflicting practice? And so on. The historian understands that the rules developed by evolution.
By contrast, Fox-Davies the barrister takes the rule to be eternal and immutable (after all, if the rules evolved in the distant past, you may have to concede that they can also evolve in the future). Thus his only recourse is to account for this interesting inconsistency in the historical evidence as a "curious" violation of the rule.
Ahem. Speaking up up for my fellow common lawyers, i.e., lawyers trained in the common law, I don’t think good barristers "takes the rule to be eternal and immutable." We argue all the time that the rule is imperfectly revealed, improvidently formulated, etc. In the common law tradition, we reason principles from cases, and it is entirely possible that a judge got the reasoning wrong way back when. (I state all this without getting into the distinction between the common law and civil law courts in England, and the fact that the law of arms is administered by a civil law court. That’s for another day.)
In this case, then, a lawyer seeking to "enforce" Fox-Davies rule could argue that the orle is not required to be severed because it lacks both the substance and the detail that would render an impaled coat so crowded that it would be unrecognizable, and thus fail to fulfill the purpose of armorial bearings. A thirck bordure or a plain tressure taking up the same amount of space fully drawn in an impaled court would likely leave little room for the charges within either; the same likely holds true for a tressure flory counter-flory. The orle is realtively thin and unobtrusive, and therefore might be capable of being fully drawn in an impaled coat without substantially impairing identification of the charges within.
I agree that Fox-Davies’s approach is less than scholarly. I do not agree that it is attributable to his legal training. The questions that Joe suggests a historian should ask when confronted with conflicting evidence are precisely the questions a good lawyer asks himself in the same situation.
So which is better (i.e. most correct)? Is there one that is "more correct" or is it a matter of opinion? Personally, I tend to like the one with the full orle intact rather than the dimidiated one.
I agree with you Fr. Guy that the full orle looks better than the dimidiated orle. My reasoning for this is that the dexter half of the shield appears to depict the entire field, and when this is placed next to the dimidiated field it just looks "off." Were the dexter half of the shield also dimidiated it might not look quite so bad, but personally I prefer impalement to dimidiation due to the fact that it preserves the whole of both original shields.
First of all, congratulations to Claire Boudreau – and to the CHA for getting a most worthy successor to Robert Watt.
Without venturing into the discussion of how lawyers do or should argue (though being one myself), I am not quite sure that I follow Fox-Davies’ logic in stating that bordures and tressures should be dimidiated in impaled arms, but orles should not. In any case, a random leafing through various armorials and other reference works seems to reveal first of all that orles are relatively rare and secondly that practice with regard to dimidiation or orles, as well as – and particularly – of bordures and tressures seems to vary over time and geography.
In fact, one of the most well-known academic coats of arms in England, that of Balliol College, Oxford, contains a dimidiated orle. The shield consists of the arms of Dervorguilla de Balliol (d. 1290) (Azure a lion rampant argent, crowned or, for Galloway) and those of her husband John de Balliol (Gules a voided escutcheon, or an orle, argent, for de Balliol). Note that her arms occupy the dexter side of the marital arms – probably because of her position as coheiress to the prominent lordship of Galloway.
Conversely, a seal of Princess Margaret of Scotland, Countess of Douglas (d. 1451) shows her husbands quartered arms impaling the Royal Arms of Scotland, but with the tressure flory counter flory intact. Similarly, in the arms of the contemporary Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1430-1467) one sees quarterings containing the arms of Old Burgund impaling Brabant and Limburg respectively, also with the bordure intact.
On the Iberian Peninsula (or at least in Spain), the same practice seems to have been followed, with bordures in impaled arms remaining intact, i.e. not being dimidiated. Two examples that I have are woodcuts of the marital arms of the Duke and Duchess of Ossuna from 1577 and the arms of Francisco Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Almaçan from 1589.
Returning to the British Isles, bookplates belonging to the King George III and King George IV respectively show the arms of Scotland, impaling to the dexter the arms of England in the first quarter, variously with a full tressure and a dimidiated one. In one example, a bookplate from the Library of the Duchy of Cornwall, from the time of George IV as Prince of Wales, the tressure is even dimidiated along the sinister edge!
All in all, I would say that it is one of those things that ultimately come down to aesthetics. Personally, I think I would dimidiate the orle in an impaled achievement, as Fr. Guy did in his first example, and as I would dimidiate a bordure or a tressure. It just seems more pleasing to the eye. Continuing the orle along the pale line just seems emphasizes what is essentially an odd shape of the field caused by the impalement. But I am divided (dimidiated?) on this.
June 26, 2007 at Rideau Hall, (l. to r.) Dr. Boudreau, the Governor-General, Mr. Watt (now Rideau Herald Emeritus)
joe, so why did they call him denis? and no not offended.. was his name denis? or does this mean something else?
as to the orle, well, i like it dimidiating…though i cant give a good reason why other than appearance…it reminds me of the borders that are like this in the same situations…even though they are different.
also, why is the baton so small? i know it shouldnt be huge, but in the pic it looks kind of small to me. are all heraldic batons used in official capacities this small?
Donnchadh;46738 wrote:
So why did they call him Denis? Was his name Denis or does this mean something else?
His given name was Denis, Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt, MBE. He was succeeded by his son the Honourable Sir Mark Thatcher, Bt in 2003.
Donnchadh;46738 wrote:
As to the orle, I like the dimidiation though I cannot give a good reason why other than [general] appearance..
As do I.
David Pritchard;46739 wrote:
His given name was Denis, Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt, MBE. He was succeeded by his son the Honourable Sir Mark Thatcher, Bt in 2003.
Although, if I’m not mistaken, he did not receive his baronetcy until Mrs. (now Lady) Thatcher was several years out of office. When she was PM, he was simply Mr. Denis Thatcher (and habitually referred to by all and sundry by his first name). If Hilary Clinton becomes President, her husband should be addressed as Mr. Clinton, or, more formally as The Honorable William Clinton. "The Honorable" goes with being a former President—or, for that matter, a former governor.
The silliness of the title First Lady would be highlighted by the election of a woman President, because it was originally a description of the protocol standing of the President’s wife—which she derived from her husband—not a title. Since a woman President would have the highest protocol rank of any woman in the United States, she would simultaneously be both President and First Lady.
The term Second Lady for the Vice President’s wife is even more inappropriate, because outside the District of Columbia the VP is not second in protocol rank, and thus his wife is not second socially. The governor of a state outranks everyone except the President while within his own state.
Question for David: on what basis does Mark Thatcher rate "Honourable"? As the son of a baroness? Do children of life peers get such courtesy titles?
Donnchadh;46738 wrote:
also, why is the baton so small? i know it shouldnt be huge, but in the pic it looks kind of small to me. are all heraldic batons used in official capacities this small?
Most are smaller (i.e. thinner). I was thinking that the Canadian baton looks "huge".
http://www.congress2006.com/StAndrewsLyonbaton.jpg
http://www.congress2006.com/StAndrewsIreland.jpg
Joseph McMillan;46741 wrote:
Do children of life peers get such courtesy titles?
Yes, they do.
