On Sunday, March 6, 2022 at 6:26:09 AM UTC-8, J. Sardina wrote:

> Following up on this thread, does anybody know if there is a copy of Fragments
> showing the various arms with their tinctures? The arms show for the Cuerden
> of Cuerden in this book do not show any indication of color. Interestingly,
> Fragments shows the arms as quartered with the eagle and what appears to be
> swords.

The tinctures for all the illustrated coats are given on p. 257.

> John Cuerton's painted heraldic pedigree shows the background to be gules for
> the eagles and the eagles seems to be verfy dark, apparently black. It does not
> seem to be blue or gray.

Gregson gives the eagle as sable (black).

> From what i have read online, black on red is a violation of heraldic standards,
> unless the eagles are proper, meaning not technical black.

This is correct of the current 'rules'. There are two caveats though. First, in the earliest days of heraldry, these hard-and-fast rules had yet to arise, so it is at least possible that these arms predated the formalization of practices that would have prevented them. Second, there is at least a possibility that at some point previously, these arms were preserved only in a painted display, without independent blazon. The paints used for the metals were subject to oxidation over time, and a painted metal could begin to appear black(ish) and be thus misinterpreted.

> As for the other half of the arms, they are shown with a wider blade in Cuerton's
> pedigree, but I guess that was just the way they were drawn.

Yes. Many of the precise distinctions among swords or flowers or even styles of lions were once simply differences in artistic representation, not formal heraldic differences.

> I still wonder how the eagles and the swords became the arms of the Kuerden of
> Preston, apparently also as the other known of Quarterly or and azure, a Griffin
> segreant countercharged, as described in "An Index of Lancashire Heraldy" . . . .

We have talked about this before.

> It seems too many arms for a one family.

There are documented instaces of families changing their arms just out of whim (examples: the Earls of Lincoln, Neville [or was it Percy, I don't clearly remember which], Gorges), but in this case I have to wonder if it isn't a case of abandoning historical arms and adopting those of a more prominent family of similar surname, as the Spencers did with the Despenser 'quarterly with a bend' arms. We know, or at least we think we know, that there were multiple unrelated Cuerden gentry families, so it may be that the branch in question originally bore the sword/eagle quarterly arms, but the dubiously took on the griffin arms of a distinct Cuerden family as their primary bearing, relegating their authentic 'ancient' arms to a secondary quarter.

I am not saying this is definitely what happened, simply that there is nothing inherently dubious (from a historical perspective, not from a 'modern rules of heraldry' perspective) about a family being seen with different arms over time.

taf