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Cadency
When branches of a family, or two armingers, had identical arms, they needed to make them different from one another to avoid confusion. To achieve this, the heralds made changes to the arms to distinguish the separate parties. Similarly, the sons of the arms bearer, by order of birth, marked their personal arms to distinguish them from their father's. Cadency, as this differentiation was called, often became the differencing? used between the families of the sons of an arminger.
The cadency marks for the first nine sons are as follows:
| LABEL | [first son] (removed after the father's death; a label argent was reserved for the Crown Prince) |
| CRESCENT | [second son] |
| MOLET | [third son] |
| MARTLET | [fourth son] (a bird with feathers for feet, see the first illustration in the sidebar on page 57) |
| ANNULET | [fifth son] |
| FLEUR-DE-LIS | [sixth son] (see the second illustration in the sidebar on page 59) |
| ROSE | [seventh son] (see the third illustration in the sidebar on page 59) |
| CROSS MOLINE | [eigth son] |
| DOUBLE QUATREFOIL | [ninth son] (not illustrated; eight leaf shapes arranged in a circle, tips outward) |
