Part 2: Brown differencing    Trotter Heraldry    Heraldry    Home

Scots Heraldry and the Due Differences, Part 3

A first pass at the rules employed

The families of Trotter of Kettleshiels and Browns of Calcutta and of Horton have shared their respective core arms though none were cadets of any other member of their extended families. This is not part of the major treatises on Scottish arms, for instance Innes' "Scots Heraldry" or J H Stevenson's "Heraldry in Scotland" both of which only treat of the arms of heads of families and their descendant cadets. So I'll have to deduce what the practices appear to be for handling the heraldry of related but not descendant members of such single families.

  1. The first rule is that, broad brush, the arms of the first armiger of a family are retained unaltered by all relations. The only exception to this is the arms of John Trotter of Shuddy Camps, where his chief was made to be engrailed rather than indented. All other charges and tinctures for John's arms were identical to his elder brother's.

  2. In all other cases the arms of the family relative were quartered with those of some heiress the Trotter or Brown had married. Though in the case of Brown, the first appearance of these arms was in a quartering and the later matriculation was of these arms on their own.

  3. In three cases where the pair of quarterings were both adopted by cousins, they all added a simple border to distinguish their family. This was for Sir Coutts Trotter, bt, for Trotter of Haldane (where the Trotter arms were solely on an inescutcheon of Pretence) and for Trotter of Brin.

Differencing for non-descendant relatives    Trotter Heraldry    Heraldry    Home