Upon his marriage to Queen Victoria in 1840, Prince Albert received a personal grant of arms, being the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom differenced by a white three-point label with a red cross in the centre, quartered with his ancestral arms of Saxony. They are blazoned: "Quarterly, 1st and 4th, the Royal Arms, with overall a label of three points Argent charged on the centre with cross Gules; 2nd and 3rd, Barry of ten Or and Sable, a crown of rue in bend Vert". The arms are unusual, being described by S. T. Aveling as a "singular example of quartering differenced arms, is not in accordance with the rules of Heraldry, and is in itself an heraldic contradiction." Prior to his marriage Albert used the arms of his father undifferenced, in accordance with German custom.