I vaguely recall something in which the illegitimate son of an English king was granted arms as any other son would, but with a negotiated difference of a wavy pallet or something. Just something I recall very vaguely. Maybe someone else knows what that was.
Perhaps illegitimacy gives us some good parallels, in that it may sometimes pit the father not wanting to acknowledge to son, against the son demanding the rights of his other children.
I like David’s idea. Or perhaps you could switch the colors and metals or counterchange the arms per pale or bend.
Kenneth Mansfield;72727 wrote:
Or to his father. A father disowning a son can be a one-way or a two-way street. My guess is that if the son wanted no connection to his father, parting with the arms, regardless of how much he likes them, would be easy and not an issue.
I was thinking the same thing.
I would think perhaps reverse the tinctures as Jacob sugested, if that would work.
Why does this make me think of Ivanhoe? " Sir Disinherited "
Ivanhoe did have particularly attractive arms by the way. lol
As far as I know, there is no such thing as absolute heraldic disinheritance. The right to inherit the arms of one’s father is an absolute right due to descent. A father cannot take this away, just as he cannot take away the son’s paternity.
The most he could do is take away inherited property, and in some jurisdictions, like Scotland, he could also designate another primary heir to receive the undifferenced arms. However, the right to the arms, albeit a differenced version, would be inviolate.
This is really a matter of cadency, and the practice of cadency varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In Scotland it would up to Lyon to assign a difference to the disinherited son. However, such rules do not exist here, as there is no authority to do the assignment.
In general, cadency is rare in American heraldry, therefore any difference an disinherited son might adopt would be totally voluntary. It could be discretionary, ranging from something totally different to something completely identical.
/Charles
The answer is obvious. The precedent is for the son to bear an oak sapling eradicated proper. Motto: "Desdichado."
thank you all very much for the thoughts.
desdichado would describe the son i believe. while he appears to be angry in kind at his foc, i can tell he is indeed feeling unhappy, unfortunate and miserable over it all…even though he’s asking me how to resolve this for him (speaking of heraldry of course) i can tell he would rather it all go away and not have to do it. which makes me very uncomfortable in this whole thing…i feel like i need to take a shower when dealing with this one.
and Joe that shield design is a great idea in and of itself given this whole mess! 
as another aside to this topic…does this sort of thing happen much in heraldic history in any nation? it certainly caught me off guard.
Donnchadh;72752 wrote:
and Joe that shield design is a great idea in and of itself given this whole mess!
I can’t take credit—that belongs to Sir Walter Scott.
ah…i didn’t know that. sadly…i’m not that familiar with the Sir Walter Scott…sigh (sad i know). still, it is clever.
His suit of armour was formed of steel, richly inlaid with gold, and the device on his shield was a young oak-tree pulled up by its roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited. ‘Have you confessed yourself, brother,’ said the Templar, ‘...that you peril your life so frankly?’ ‘I am fitter to meet death than thou art,’ answered the Disinherited Knight; for by this name the stranger had recorded himself in the books of the tourney…
- Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
Denny, you come up with some of the oddest situations.
Donnchadh;72692 wrote:
i have a question for everyone. if an armiger is disowned by his father and both are armigerous (son taking his father’s arms etc) should, or even could, the disowned son disavow his familial arms and seek a new one?
or is that bad form?
Well, of course he could. This is the United States and we have no laws (or even customs ... although we hope to change that) that regulate the use of arms. He could and/or should seek new arms if it is his desire. Even if he was not disinherited. As there is no real customary form, per se, here in the USA, who’s to say what would be the most appropriate action?
Donnchadh;72692 wrote:
if he is disowned does he have a right to the arms of his father or not?]
In this country he has no RIGHT to arms whatsoever. At least, not legally. But for the purposes of this conversation, let’s imagine for a moment that his disinheritance did mean that he had no right to the arms. After his father’s death he most certainly could challenge the will in a court of law, and depending on the findings of the court, he could have his inheritance (including arms) restored to him. Keep in mind, however, that this is just for the purposes of conversation. Again - in the USA today, he can pretty much do whatever he wants to with those arms and there really is no legal remedy for it.
Donnchadh;72692 wrote:
if the father disowns him can he demand that his son not use his arms?
Sure, he can demand that if he wants to. It doesn’t change the fact that because we have no laws regulating the use of arms that the disinherited son can continue to use them, unchanged, as long as he wishes to, but dad can demand all he wants.
Donnchadh;72692 wrote:
this has come up with someone i know…i have no idea how to answer them on it…it all seems a mess to me…so all ideas are appreciated here. thank you in advance.
I would imagine, in the face of the situation as you present it, that (perhaps) the honorable thing to do might be to change the tincture and/or charges on the arms to distance the armiger from his father a bit. Assuming, of course, that he wants to remain associated with those particular arms.
Denny, I’ve just come up with a new idea: tell your client to have his father’s arms tattooed on his hiney, and tattooed LARGE. Then, whenever Dad gets froggy, son can jump and show Dad just what he thinks by displaying the ‘family arms’ for all to see.
lol Patrick. too funny.
i’m leaning towards recommending a change in tincture and metal since he seems to like the arms themselves. i had just never read of such a thing to be honest.
David, thanks for that. i really need to read this work. i will go get one from the library when done with the book i’m currently reading. it is kinda lame i’ve not read it before. oh well. thanks again.
It may be clever to bear the family arms with some unusual brisure…
Du Guesclin debruised his arms after the conflict with his father - a famous case of a family scandal heraldically reflected.
Patrick Williams;72777 wrote:
This is the United States and we have no laws (or even customs ... although we hope to change that) that regulate the use of arms.
No customs? Of course we have. The fact that people who don’t know them make use of heraldry anyway is the problem.
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As there is no real customary form, per se, here in the USA, who’s to say what would be the most appropriate action?
Ummm…we are! http://americanheraldry.org/pages/index.php?n=Guide.Guidelines
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In this country he has no RIGHT to arms whatsoever. At least, not legally.
Of course he does! Whether he has a right to a particular coat of arms is another question, not whether he has a right to arms at all.
It’s not clear that there’s any real law on this subject (armorial disinheritance) anywhere; it would be interesting if someone could turn something up. As far as anyone seems to know, the concept doesn’t exist in the Anglo-Scoto-Irish area of heraldic law, even though disinheritance of children as to money and property is relatively easy under the common law—it’s basically a matter of writing them out of the will. Yet an heir who gets none of the parent’s money or land is still entitled to the arms, just as were younger sons in the days of primogeniture.
So if English heraldic law doesn’t provide for armorial disinheritance, it’s even less likely to exist on the continent, where as far as I can tell disinheritance with respect to property is traditionally very difficult (in some countries impossible) and can only be done at all with adequate justification (e.g., "he tried to kill me," "she conspired to concoct a forged will," etc.).
But let’s leave aside the question of legality and see what our guidelines would imply.
We say:
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3.4.1. All legally recognized children are entitled to inherit the arms of the parent whose surname they bear, as well as to use those arms by courtesy during the parent’s lifetime.
Disinheritance is not de-recognition, so this would seem to apply even to a disinherited child. On the other hand,
Quote:
3.4.8. Persons assuming arms in the United States may specify different rules for inheritance than those set forth above if they so desire. We recommend that any desires on this matter be stated in writing and that all potential heirs be made aware of them.
This would be in accordance with a point made earlier, that if the arms in question originated earlier than the present-day father, he can do nothing to affect their inheritance; the disinherited son is as fully entitled to them as the father himself. But if the father is the original "founder" of the arms, then he can direct that the disinherited son be excluded from their inheritance. (The son can’t be compelled to obey, but it would be the graceful thing to respect the father’s wishes.)
It seems to me that this is a good common-sense outcome, even though I’m sure there are an infinite number of permutations in details depending on the circumstances, emotions, etc., etc.
On using a differenced version: I would suggest not. I would start over again from scratch. If the estrangement is that total, then why symbolically preserve the connection. If the son thinks the father will change his mind at some point, he can just go arms-less for the time being. After all, he’s not going to be challenged by the Black Knight at the stream crossing and actually need a shield.
Joseph McMillan;72789 wrote:
No customs? Of course we have. The fact that people who don’t know them make use of heraldry anyway is the problem.
To explain a little, think of heraldry as croquet. The fact that lots of people don’t play croquet at all and that many who do don’t actually know the rules doesn’t mean that there are no rules in croquet.
In the Netherlands a change of tinture was used (and can nowadays be used) to denote a different branch of the family so in this case it could work. Also as Joe said it is not possible to deny the inheritance of a parent only a portion of it can be denied.