The International Association of Amateur Heralds

Another Canadian example of innovative differencing : the arms granted to Eugene Meunier last month, with cadet shields for his children.


Each cadet has a pale Azure with a charge or charges on it. The child with three asterisks on the pale is the heir to the undifferenced arms, and so his difference is only for the lifetime of his father.

So the difference is both an ordinary and the charge(s) on it. If the CHA follows that logic, the arms of the cadet branches are going to get mighty busy even after just one generation.

Chris Green wrote:So the difference is both an ordinary and the charge(s) on it. If the CHA follows that logic, the arms of the cadet branches are going to get mighty busy even after just one generation.

Yes, unless they opt for changing tinctures, or making the edges of the ordinaries engrailed or wavy and so on, which would not entail adding charges to the existing design. One wonders to what extent the herald designers take future differencing requirements into consideration when designing arms, and whether they make file notes of ideas which can be followed when the time comes.

Arthur Radburn wrote:

Chris Green wrote:So the difference is both an ordinary and the charge(s) on it. If the CHA follows that logic, the arms of the cadet branches are going to get mighty busy even after just one generation.

Yes, unless they opt for changing tinctures, or making the edges of the ordinaries engrailed or wavy and so on, which would not entail adding charges to the existing design. One wonders to what extent the herald designers take future differencing requirements into consideration when designing arms, and whether they make file notes of ideas which can be followed when the time comes.

Or they could simply change the charge on the pale. That would suffice to show the common family identity while giving each member his/her own distinctive coat. It wouldn't allow you to construct a family tree by looking only at the arms, but then the English system doesn't allow that either, nor does the Scottish system, other than in Mr. Stodart's dreams.

The arms are beautiful - both the father's and the kid's. But unless one lives in a society in which succession to property still follows the medieval understanding of primogeniture (not Canada AFAIK!) all this finicky cadency differencing has no real connection to actual "real life" and serves no greater purpose beyond the limited niche of library paintings and bookplates - nice but not enough...

What exactly is the legal status of the children's arms? Are they full grants? In which case the eldest would inherit the undifferenced arms and have his own.

In theory future generations could continue to difference the arms, but probably won't. There are many ways to do it, that would actually give an idea to which of Eugene Meunier's children they descend from.

Ryan Shuflin wrote:What exactly is the legal status of the children's arms? Are they full grants? In which case the eldest would inherit the undifferenced arms and have his own.

Cadet shields appear to have the same status as the parent's arms, and the children are named in the patent. In this case, the child whose arms have the pale with three asterisks (top right in the pic) is heir to the undifferenced arms, and will drop his differencing once his father dies.

The CHA is very keen to grant differenced arms to children it seems, which suggests that they will be equally keen to grant differenced arms to the cadet lines in due course. The problem they have set themselves is how this will work over the course of several generations. Have guidelines been agreed and, if so, will the successors to today's heralds be able/willing to follow them?

Chris Green wrote:The CHA is very keen to grant differenced arms to children it seems, which suggests that they will be equally keen to grant differenced arms to the cadet lines in due course. The problem they have set themselves is how this will work over the course of several generations. Have guidelines been agreed and, if so, will the successors to today's heralds be able/willing to follow them?

Yes, time will tell. There are several families where arms have been differenced for the grantee's children and for his/her grandchildren,but they were devised as three-generation packages, and the cadet shields were not later additions.