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THE HERALDIC CEILING OF THE CATHEDRAL
OF ST. MACHAR, OLD ABERDEEN.
525 Copies printed.
No.
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

4744
ק
Uor M
Photogravure by T&R. Annan & Sons, Glasgow
New bo
Spalding
club. [Pub, Vi· 37
Lacunar
Basilicae Sancti Macarii
Aberdonensis
THE HERALDIC CEILING
OF THE
CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. MACHAR
OLD ABERDEEN
DESCRIBED
IN HISTORICAL AND ARMORIAL DETAIL
BY
WILLIAM DUGUID GEDDES, LL.D.
AND
PETER DUGUID
ABERDEEN
Printed for the New Spalding Club
MDCCCLXXXVIII
The New Spalding Club.
Founded 11th November, 1886.
Patroness:
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN.
OFFICE-BEARERS
President:
FOR
1888-89.
THE EARL OF ABERDEEN.
Dice-Presidents :
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON, K.G.
THE MARQUIS OF HUNTLY.
The Earl oF STRATHMore.
THE EARL OF KINTORE.
THE EARL OF SOUTHESK, K.T.
THE EARL OF FIFE, K.T.
THE LORD FORBES.
THE LORD PROVOST OF ABERDEEN.
THE PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY Of Aberdeen.
Charles Elphinstone-DALRYMPLE, of Kinellar
Lodge.
George Grub, LL.D.
Alexander Forbes Irvine, of Drum, LL.D.
JOHN WEBSTER, of Edgehill, LL.D.
The Lord Saltoun.
Ordinary Members of Council :
The Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney.
William Alexander, LL.D., Aberdeen.
Colonel James Allardyce, Aberdeen.
George Burnett, LL.D., Lyon King of Arms.
James A. Campbell, of Stracathro, LL.D., M.P.
The Rev. Professor Christie, D.D., Aberdeen.
The Rev. James Cooper, Aberdeen.
William Cramond, Cullen.
Peter M. Cran, City Chamberlain, Aberdeen.
John Crombie, of Balgownie Lodge.
Alexander Davidson, of Desswood,
Charles B. Davidson, Aberdeen.
The Rev. John Davidson, D.D., Inverurie.
Thomas Dickson, LL.D., H.M. General Register
House.
Francis Edmond, of Kingswells, LL.D.
John Philip Edmond, London.
Robert F. O. Farquharson, of Haughton.
James Ferguson, Edinburgh.
William Ferguson, of Kinmundy.
The Rev. James Gammack, LL.D., Aberdeen.
James Murray Garden, Aberdeen.
Henry Wolrige-Gordon, of Esslemont.
The Rev. Walter Gregor, LL.D., Pitsligo.
Alexander Kemlo, Aberdeen.
Colonel William Ross King, of Tertowie.
The Rev. William Forbes-Leith, S.J., Selkirk.
George Arbuthnot-Leslie, of Warthill.
David Littlejohn, Sheriff-Clerk, Aberdeen.
James Matthews, of Springhill.
The Rev. John G. Michie, Dinnet.
James Moir, Rector of the Grammar School,
Aberdeen,
Arthur D. Morice, Aberdeen.
Charles Rampini, Sheriff-Substitute, Elgin.
Alexander Ramsay, Banff.
Major John Ramsay, of Barra.
Alexander W. Robertson, Aberdeen.
William Forbes Skene, D.C.L., LL.D., H.M.
Historiographer for Scotland.
The Rev. William Temple, Forgue.
Alexander Walker, Aberdeen.
George Walker, Aberdeen.
Robert Walker, Aberdeen.
John Forbes White, LL.D., Dundee.
John Dove Wilson, LL.D., Sheriff-Substitute,
Aberdeen.
The Rev. John Woodward, Montrose.
Secretary:
PETER JOHN ANDERSON, 2 East Craibstone Street, Aberdeen.
Treasurer:
PATRICK HENDERSON CHALMERS, 13 Union Terrace, Aberdeen.
Auditors:
JAMES AUGUSTUS SINCLAIR, C.A., Aberdeen; and GEORGE COOPER, C.A., Aberdeen.
173468
INTRODUCTION.
THE Monograph which is now submitted to the Members of the
New Spalding Club is an attempt to describe and to portray
an historical monument of more than mere local interest and
importance—the Heraldic Ceiling of the Cathedral Church of
St. Machar in Old Aberdeen. It is to this monument that Dr.
Joseph Robertson, the most eminent of our recent antiquaries,
alludes with pride, when he characterises it as “the flat ceiling
of pannelled oak which still remains, with its eight-and-forty
shields, glittering with the heraldries of the Pope, the Emperor,
St. Margaret, the Kings and Princes of Christendom, the
Bishops and Earls of Scotland,"* all dedicated to God as
the King of kings, and so proclaiming—
The shields of the earth belong unto the Lord-
rich, therefore, with the blazons of "Kings, Princes, Prelates,
Potentates, and Peers".
The work now issued endeavours to deal with this
monument—its history and its heraldry; and it falls accordingly
into two sections-one the historical and descriptive part, the
other the heraldic and technical part-for each of which a
separate author is responsible.
Regarding the Latin heading on the title-page, it is right
to remark that this title has been adopted in imitation of
the interesting volume regarding a kindred and coeval monu-
Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxv., p. 141.
viii
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
ment, the Lacunar Striveliense.* This latter work treats of
a contemporary, and in some respects parallel, work of art in
civil architecture, which, though it has now perished,† may be
considered no less characteristic of Scotland in the period im-
mediately preceding the Reformation than is the monument in
ecclesiastical architecture which forms the subject of this Mono-
graph. In the roof of the hall of Stirling Palace, and dating
from about 1529, there existed a series, not indeed of shields,
but of medallions, carved in oak, representing in some instances
real persons, in others fanciful and allegorical figures, but all
designed and carved in a high style of art, and from the same
period of Scottish history as that to which our monument
belongs. These medallions are now displaced and scattered,
having been allowed to be broken up in 1777, and the volume
to which we refer preserves all that is now known of what
must have been a unique display at once of the taste and the
magnificence of our Scottish Kings, and specially of the King
whose armorial shield is blazoned in the Heraldic Roof of Old
Aberdeen. We shall find that this same King (James V.)
had among the northern bishops of his realm a prelate like-
* The title is more fully: Lacunar Striveliense; the Collection of Heads Etched and
Engraved from the Roof of the Hall in Stirling Palace: Edinburgh, 4to, 1817. An interesting
review of it, at the time of its publication, appears in Blackwood's Magazine (vol. ii., Nov.,
1817), from the pen of Tytler the Historian. R. G. Billings refers to the roof at Stirling as
follows: "The ceiling was of massive oak, arranged in deep richly moulded compartments,
each of which served as a frame for a piece of oaken sculpture, generally a head, raised in
(Town of Stirling, in vol. iv. of Billings's Architecture of Scotland).
cameo
+ Much has been said and written of the ruin of so many of the old Scottish Cathedrals.
It is open to doubt whether the Palaces of the Scottish Kings have fared in any respect
better, so many of them presenting a spectacle of woe. Falkland, Linlithgow, and Stirling
are monuments of our callousness to the national honour, which the partial preservation of
Holyrood barely palliates.
INTRODUCTION.
ix
minded, who in his measure was equally, and perhaps more
wisely, munificent and enlightened in the encouragement of
art and in the adornment of architecture, and who has certainly
been more fortunate than his sovereign in the better preser-
vation of the more prominent of his artistic memorials.*
This prelate was Bishop Gavin Dunbar, to whom, among
many other artistic labours, it was a delight, in the words of
the poet-
"To raise the ceiling's fretted height,
Each pannel in achievements clothing";
and it must have been from a sense of the value of such
memorials, as well as with an eye to posthumous renown,
that he sought to surround his name and See with artistic
trophies of distinction.†
The illustrations representing the shields have been exe-
cuted by Messrs. Andrew Gibb & Co., Aberdeen, and will be
* Greatly as we deplore the treatment which has been given for centuries to Bishop
Dunbar's tomb-once no doubt radiant with harmonious colour, and still, we may say-apart
from the monuments of the Douglases at Lincluden—without any just rival on this side of
the Cheviots in tasteful splendour, notwithstanding its exposure in the now roofless transept
-we may rejoice that Time has spared so much of the other relics associated with his
name. In this regard we may recall, by way of consolation, the words of Prescott when
describing the much sorer dilapidation that has befallen the contemporary Church of St.
Juste, in Spain, where the once great Emperor, whose insignia Dunbar emblazoned, ended
his days.
Without, the touch of decay is upon everything. The church still stands, but the
delicately carved wood-work of the choir, and the beautiful tiles that adorned the walls, have
fallen from their places, or been torn away by the hand of violence. All around, the ground
is covered with the wreck of former splendours, with fallen columns and shattered arches.
Yet even here kind Nature has been busy, as usual, in covering up the ravages of time
and violence, spreading over them her rich embroidery of wild-flowers, and clothing the
ghastly skeleton in a robe of beauty" (Prescott's Charles V., ii., p. 632).
+ The feeling thus ascribed to Dunbar regarding Art is akin to that expressing itself in
regard to the Muse by the poet Spenser :
"What booteth it to have been rich alive?
What to be great? What to be gracious?
When after death no token doth survive
2
X
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
found faithful copies of the various shields. They are repro-
ductions of the beautiful hand-drawings in colour which were
carefully executed by the late Mr. Andrew Gibb, and are now
collected in an interesting MS. volume, belonging to his family,
the product of much labour, ingenuity, and taste. It was during
the process of restoration of the interior of the Cathedral, in
the year 1867, that Mr. Andrew Gibb had the opportunity
of examining minutely and reproducing closely the different
shields emblazoned in the Heraldic Roof.
In regard to the heraldic accuracy of the shields, as exhibited
on the Ceiling, little doubt need be entertained. Along with Mr.
Gibb were associated, as a heraldic collegium or committee of
restoration, the late Principal P. C. Campbell and George
Burnett, Esq., Lyon King of Arms. Either of the latter
two names is sufficient guarantee for the substantial accuracy,
as well as for the faithful reproduction of the details of the
heraldic representation on the roof of the Cathedral.
To the name of the late Principal Campbell a special
tribute of acknowledgment is due, not only for the great
trouble and pains he bestowed, in the year 1867, on the
Of former beeing in this mortall houss,
But sleepes in dust dead and inglorious,
Like beast, whose breath but in his nostrils is,
And hath no hope of happinesse or blis.
"How manie great ones may remembred be,
Which in their daies most famouslie did flourish;
Of whom no word we heare, nor signe now see,
But as things wipt out with a sponge do perishe,
Because they living cared not to cherishe
No gentle wits, through pride or covetise,
Which might their names for ever memorise.”
-Spenser's "Ruins of Time ".
INTRODUCTION.
xi
details of the entire restoration, both heraldic and structural,
but also for the excellent little sketch, which he composed
at the time, and contributed to the Herald and Genealogist
(vol. v., p. 9), giving an account of the Roof and the three
series of Shields. This sketch, which consists of only a few
pages, contains figured illustrations of ten out of the forty-
eight shields, and forms a valuable nucleus which has been
found useful for the construction of the present work.
It may serve to indicate the amount of historic interest
that lies folded up in this group of ancient blazonries, if we
mention two incidents bearing on their historical importance.
The late Dean Stanley, whom we had the pleasure of escorting
some years ago over the building, was greatly charmed with
the spectacle of such a monument as having come down from
the period of the Unity of Western Christendom. In running
over the hierarchic roll-commencing with the six palle, or
Balls of the Medici-his eyes glistened with delight at what
he justly considered the strange spectacle of a Pope's Arms
remaining emblazoned on the roof of what is now a Presby-
terian Church. Turning round with a smile, the Dean re-
marked that Scotland had not shown itself so fiercely
" iconoclastic as was generally supposed.
""
The other incident belongs to a more distant age, but it
is of considerable historic value. The famous historian of the
Earldom of Sutherland, Sir Robert Gordon, who flourished
nearly two centuries and a half ago, has occasion to deal with
the question of precedence among the Scottish Earls, and in
settling the place of the Earl of Sutherland, the leading argu-
xii
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
ment to which he makes appeal is the evidence furnished by
the roof of what he calls the "Cathedrall Church of Aberdeen".*
On the general subject of "the boast of Heraldry" with its
pomp of power," a few passing remarks may not be inappro-
priate, in order that we may form a right estimate of the surviving
value which it may be said still to retain to the modern mind.
""
The last century expressed its relation to Heraldry in the
characteristic jibe which fell from the lips of Lord Chesterfield,
addressed to the "Garter" of the day: "You foolish man, you
don't understand your own foolish business"; but more severe
things have been uttered since that period, and in unexpected
quarters. Two of our greatest historians acknowledge, but in
a sarcastic way, the fascination of the Heraldic science.
Gibbon, in his autobiography, likens it to a kind of superior
Totemism of the Red Indians, and Hallam calls it "the
science of those fantastic people who believe in no other
form of science". These are jibes which do not affect the
historical value of the Heraldic science as illustrating the
period when Heraldry was still in the ascendant, as it was
in the age to which the Heraldic Roof belongs. Though
later than the high and palmy time of the "Noble Science,"
which may be said to have culminated about the age of
Froissart, or that of Edward III., this heraldic display in
St. Machar's Church is ancient enough to mark the period
when armorial shields were still realities, among the weapons
*“You may see, in the Cathedrall Church of Aberdeen, the noblemen of Scotland
ranked in order upon the sylerin of the rooff of the bodie of the Church, wher the Earle of
Southerland is placed befor Crawfoord, Huntlie, Argile, Errol, and Marshall" (Sir Robert
Gordon's Genealogy of the Earls of Sutherland, p. 55; Edinb., 1813).
INTRODUCTION.
xiii
"(
to be worn in tournament, if not in the tented field,* and
bore in no metaphorical sense the dint of hostile spears. It
is true that changes were already at work, including vil-
lainous saltpetre," producing that revolution in the methods
of warfare which eventually obscured, if it did not obliterate,
this among the other "glorious circumstances" attaching to
it in the period of chivalry. But although Heraldry, as a
system, was already (in 1520) past its prime, the subject of
Heraldry had still a great meaning, so that it is no paradox
to assert that the "Noble Science" is, for that period, no mere
antiquarian frivolity, but an important branch of historical
knowledge. In regard to the Middle Ages, it is a branch
more than important, it is essential, in order to obtain a proper
understanding of the Europe of the Crusading and Feudal
periods, whereof heraldic blazon may be said to have been the
bloom and flower. The fair fantasies therefore may perhaps,
as a subject of study, long survive, having in fact survived the
attacks of two of their principal enemies-Ridicule and Taxa-
tion; for they exert a spell that fascinated not only the aristo-
cratic Walter Scott,† but the democratic Robert Burns,‡ a spell
* An almost contemporary Record (anno 1513; see Burgh Records of Aberdeen, Sp. Cl.,
p. 87) justifies this statement as to actual use of the shield in the warfare of Gavin Dunbar's
time. The Burgesses are required to appear at call, "ilk an havand ane speir, ane bow, and
ane targe". See also Hall's Chronicles in the full account of the nearly contemporary knightly
pageantry (anno 1525) under Henry VIII. (Nott's Memoirs of Sir Thomas Wyatt, p. 9).
+ Sir Walter can no doubt, upon occasion, indulge in a jest at the pedantries of
Heraldry, as in the Baron's maunderings (Waverley, ch. iv.).
Burns, as is well known, amused himself by composing what must be admitted to
be an appropriate and delicious coat of arms, developed in full heraldic nomenclature, a
remarkable proof of the depth and variety of his information (Letter to Allan Cunningham,
March, 1793; Seton's Scottish Heraldry, p. 161.)
xiv
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
to which the sparkling Montaigne* and the universal Shaks-
pere + himself yielded no vague homage. The extent, indeed,
to which the language of Heraldry has coloured indelibly the
speech and imagery of English literature will render it expedient
for even superficial students of our literature to obtain a passing
acquaintance with heraldic terms and conceptions. The Poet-
Laureate, for example, though he foreshadows the time when
shields will probably, in a democratic world, cease to be,‡ is in
danger of becoming partially unintelligible, unless a remnant
* The ever delightful Michel condescends to note, in his Travels, the arms at Domremy,
the village of Joan of Arc-those arms which were assigned to her descendants ennobled
by the French king. These Montaigne details with the precision of a professed Herald:
"Azur à un espée droite couronnée et poignée d'or, et deux fleurs-de-lis d'or au côte de la
dite espée" (Voyages de Montaigne, i., p. 18). The Seigneur's account of his own arms,
described with some minuteness, is found in the Essais, Livr. i. 46, where he adds, with
insight into the vanitas vanitatum of this among all human things: "What privilege to
continue particularly in my house and name? A son-in-law will transport it into another
family, or some paltry purchaser will make them his first Arms; there is nothing wherein
there is more change and confusion."
+ Of Shakspere's attitude to Heraldry, take as a specimen the indignant words of
Bolingbroke, how, among the insults to him, his foes have—
"From my own windows torn my household coat,
Razed out my impress, leaving me no sign
To show the world I am a gentleman ".
—“ Richard II.," Act III., Sc. I.
""
The obverse is found in the passage of the first scene of the "Merry Wives," where the
poet pokes immortal fun at the "dozen white louses on an old coat '—a juvenile joke,
against the "luces" of the Lucy family, from his own Warwickshire.
The keen eye of Edmund Burke discerned long ago the risk to the " Noble Science,"
and the danger then looming in the near distance from the French Revolution, when "with a
view to their great experiment on human society the Assembly abolished all titles of honour,
all armorial bearings, and even the insignificant titles of Monsieur and Madame " (Scott's
Life of Napoleon, ch. 6). Speaking of the qualities of the Duke of Bedford, who had
assailed him, and who favoured the French democrats of the time, Burke flashes out in the
famous invective: "I would willingly leave him to the heralds' college, which the philosophy
of the sans-culottes (prouder by far than all the Garters, and Norroys, and Clarencieux, and
Rouge Dragons, that ever pranced in any procession of what his friends call aristocrats and
despots) will abolish with contumely and scorn". The whole passage is interesting, as a
severe verdict on the too easy Diplomas that are or were won by mere wealth in the mild
school of Heraldry.
INTRODUCTION.
XV
survive acquainted with the "mysteries" at which he smiles
benignly.*
There is one other observation of a general kind that we here
offer, and with which we would close these prefatory remarks,
namely this, that not only the antiquary or the curious-minded
herald may derive from the historical monument here described
material for his purposes, but the patriotic citizen will find a
new interest in our Scottish nationality. The whole style and
conception of the Heraldic Roof shows that it is a monument
thoroughly national. It proceeds upon the idea that Scotland
has an independent existence, and takes her place in the array
of nations as, in her own right, a sovereign power. The lion
rampant is, in his own domain, imperial, and is represented here
under the arched, and therefore imperial, crown. He is accord-
ingly placed here in the first rank, in line with the ensigns of
Pope and Emperor. It is true that the Scottish Church is de-
picted as owning allegiance to the See of Rome, but no trace of
the subjection, that seemed imminent at one period of our his-
tory, to the See of York and sometimes of Canterbury, is here
discernible. Every Scotsman who surveys this historical me-
morial ought to feel a new pride in the lion rampant, as being "the
noble creature in its noblest posture," there felicitously displayed.
* The passage referred to, deserving close study, is that in "Merlin and Vivien " :
"Azure, an eagle rising or, the sun in dexter chief". Compare also Tennyson's attitude to
"achievements" in " Aylmer's Field," &c., &c. The same remark applies to Thackeray's
sarcastic shield of the Southdown family, "three lambs trottant argent," &c. (Vanity Fair),
the humour of which only a Herald can appreciate.
+ On the irrefragable authority of the Baron of Bradwardine (Waverley, ch. xi.).—Guillim
anticipates the Baron, p. 116, averring that the attitude of any Lion as Rampant betokens
"their most noble and fierce action ".-See Dunbar's Thistle and the Rose, where the
"Lyone" of Scotland is described as-
xvi
THE HIERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
It is hoped that the publication of this volume in the New
Spalding Club Series will not only preserve the record and
the interpretation of an interesting, yet perishable, historical
monument,* but tend in some degree to augment the growing
interest now being felt in such local historic studies.
In conclusion, it is proper to acknowledge the excellent
services rendered by various gentlemen during the progress of
our investigations and while the book was passing through the
press. We have to record most hearty thanks to George
Burnett, Esq., LL.D., Lyon King of Arms, who has taken a
deep personal as well as official interest in the Heraldic section of
the work. Justice requires us also gratefully to mention the names
of Charles Elphinstone Dalrymple, Esq., of Kinellar Lodge;
Archibald Hamilton Dunbar, Esq., younger of Northfield; and
P. J. Anderson, Esq., the excellent Secretary of the Club.
Lastly, a special tribute of acknowledgment is due to the
distinguished Artist, who has done so much for the name and
fame of his native city Aberdeen-George Reid, Esq., R.S.A.
-whose admirable sketches must be regarded as enhancing
in no small degree the artistic value of the volume now sub-
mitted to the Club.
Aberdeen, November, 1888.
"Reid of his cullour, as is the ruby glance;
On feild of gold he stude full mychtely,
With flour delycis' sirculit [encircled] lustely."
W. D. G.
P. D.
*“Quis est enim quem non moveat clarissimis monumentis testata consignataque
Antiquitas?" (Cic.). The insigne paternum of the Virgilian warrior (Æn., vii. 657) shows how
near an approach the Ancients made to the hereditary character of Heraldry. See treatise of
Ernst Curtius in the Berlin Academy (1874), where he says: "Im Orient gab es nur dynas-
tische, priesterliche und Privat Wappen; Gemeindewappen finden wir erst in der Hellenischen
Welt". In the East there were only Arms (Devices) for Dynasties, Priests, and Individuals ;
it is in the Hellenic world that we first find Arms for Communities."
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I. HISTORICAL SECTION.
CHAPTER I. The Cathedral and its Surroundings,
II. Interior of Cathedral and Heraldic Ceiling,
III. Foreign Sovereigns,
IV. Scottish Temporal Dignities, .
V. Scottish Ecclesiastical Dignities,
VI. Historical Observations,.
PAGE
3
II
17
30
52
70
PART II. HERALDIC SECTION.
PREFATORY NOTE,
CHAPTER I. Kings,
II. Scottish Nobles,
III. Church Dignitaries,
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX I. Notes on Life of Bishop Dunbar,
INDEX,
II. Arms of Our Saviour,
III. Inscriptions round Frieze,
IV. Notes on Similar Heraldic Displays,
85
87
103
119
137
147
149
151
161
•
3
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Interior of the Cathedral of St. Machar, looking West, from a
drawing by George Reid, R.S.A.,
Plan of Heraldic Ceiling,
Arms of the Emperor, and of the King of France,
Arms of the Kings of Spain, and of England,
Arms of the Kings of Denmark, and of Hungary,
Arms of the Kings of Portugal, and of Aragon,
Arms of the Kings of Cyprus, and of Navarre,
Arms of the Kings of Sicily, and of Poland,
•
Frontispiece.
Arms of the King of Bohemia, and of the Duke of Bourbon,
Arms of the Duke of Gueldres, and of the City of Old Aberdeen, .
Arms of the King of Scotland, and of St. Margaret of Scotland, .
Arms of the Duke of Albany, and of the Earl of March,
Arms of the Earls of Moray, and of Douglas,
PAGE
16
87
89
91
93
95
97
99
ΙΟΙ
103
•
105
107
Arms of the Earls of Angus, and of Mar,
109
Arms of the Earls of Sutherland, and of Crawford,
III
Arms of the Earls of Huntly, and of Argyll,
113
Arms of the Earl of Errol, and of the Earl Marischal,
115
Arms of the Earl of Bothwell, and of the Burgh of Aberdeen,
117
Arms of the Pope, and of the Archbishop of St. Andrews,
Arms of the Archbishop of Glasgow, and of the Bishop of Dun-
119
keld,
I2I
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
xix
Arms of the Bishops of Aberdeen, and of Moray,
Arms of the Bishops of Ross, and of Brechin,
Arms of the Bishops of Caithness, and of Galloway,
Arms of the Bishops of Dunblane, and of Argyll,
PAGE
123
125
127
129
Arms of the Bishops of Orkney, and of the Isles,
131
Arms of the Prior of St. Andrews, and of the University and
King's College, Old Aberdeen, .
133
Bishop Gavin Dunbar, from the Portrait in the possession of the
Senatus of the University of Aberdeen,
137
Seal of Bishop Gavin Dunbar, from the impression appended to an
instrument confirming the foundation of the College of St.
Mary,
143
Part of the Frieze round the Ceiling,
149
Tomb of Bishop Gavin Dunbar, from a drawing by George Reid,
R.S.A.,
160
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF THE CATHEDRAL
OF ST. MACHAR, OLD ABERDEEN.
PART I.
HISTORICAL SECTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE CATHEDRAL AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
Relliquias veterumque vides monumenta virorum.—VIRGIL.
BEFORE proceeding to the more immediate subject of our investiga-
tion-the historic import of the Heraldic Ceiling of the Cathedral in
Old Aberdeen-it is necessary to take a preliminary survey of the site
and scene, and of the general surroundings and architectural character
of the building, of which it forms internally the most conspicuous
ornament.
Aberdeen, as is well known, is the largest city of Scotland north of the
bisecting line of the Grampians, and consequently may be said to be the
capital of the northern or Transgrampian portion of the Scottish kingdom.
At the beginning of the present century, our city stood third among the
cities of Scotland, and this position it still retains among the University
cities; but owing to the recent sudden rise of its southern rival, Dundee,
which has now come to stand next to Glasgow and Edinburgh in re-
spect of population, Aberdeen has been displaced from the position which
it formerly occupied, so that it now ranks only fourth among the centres
of Scottish population. Time was, however, when Aberdeen stood
still higher in the scale, and could claim to be, in a manner, the second of
the Scottish Burghs, inferior in political importance only to Edinburgh.*
* Besides the Royal Tressure which it boasts in the "City Arms". -a remarkable and,
among cities, almost unique distinction-Aberdeen possesses claims to high rank among the
Scottish towns, and, in more than one particular, is historically second only to Edinburgh.
Without referring to the existing honour of its being the capital of the sole county in Scotland
where Royalty has a stated residence, the student of history and of literature cannot fail to
remember that it belongs to the county where the patriot king of Scotland gained his first clear
victory (Inverurie), leading, with unbroken success, ultimately to Bannockburn, and that in
literature the same county stands pre-eminent for the double honour (1) of having produced
4
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
In the period of the Covenant, it is tolerably certain that the relative
rank and position of Aberdeen may be so described; for besides being
superior to any Scottish city in the array of its learned men,* it was,
next to Edinburgh, the great pivot of the early movements of both of
the contending parties at that important era; and although Glasgow
shares the prominence of the capital as the scene of the first mani-
festations of that struggle, the historical development of the contest
the oldest existing literary document penned on Scottish soil, standing at the head of the
National MSS. of Scotland, viz., the Book of Deer, and (2) of owning among its sons the
"Homer" of Scottish literature, the poet Barbour, who, "in his poem of the Bruce, determined
the character of modern Scottish, and cast it in a permanent mould, just as his contemporary
Chaucer did for our English language” (Prof. Earle). But apart from these distinctions, there
are grounds more relative than these: viz., (1) in the Pictish period, according to John Major,
who wrote A.D. 1521, "Aberdeen was the Regia or royal city of the Scots" (Book of Bon-
Accord, p. 102); (2) since the original Scotia, as a kingdom localised in our island, and apart
from older Irish associations, extended from "the Firth of Forth (the Scots-water) to Spey,"
Aberdeen lay near the centre of the kingdom so defined, and thus shared with Dunfermline
and Perth the honour of being the royal residence, whence we hear, once and again, in the
pre-Stewart time, how the king "kept Yule in Aberdeen". This last, be it remarked, was
the normal occurrence at a time when Edinburgh belonged not to Scotland, but to Lothian,
which was originally a province of Northumbria, and when Glasgow lay outside Scotland,
and was included in the Cumbrian kingdom of Strathclyde. The evidence for the above
historic fact is complete, and nothing could be better ascertained than that there was a
time when Edinburgh and Glasgow were not Scottish, but became so by annexation, and
at that period Aberdeen was the centre of the annexing kingdom. See Proclamations of
King David I. (1124-53), where the official style runs: "To his subjects in Scotland
and Lothian" (per regnum suum in Scotia et Lodonia). Compare Cosmo Innes, in his
Preface to the Acts of Parliament of Scotland (vol. i., p. 4), where he defines the boundaries
of "Scotland proper
proper" as "from Forth to Spey," in contradistinction to "Cumbria, Lothian,
Moray,” and the appanages which "Scotia" acquired. Still more fully in Skene's Celtic
Scotland, i., p. 6; iii., pp. 2, 3; in one of which passages we have the following: "These
districts" [viz., the region from Forth to Spey] "formed the real nucleus and heart of the
kingdom, and were more directly associated with her monarchs as kings of the Scots". It
was this region—the unconquered Caledonia of Galgacus—of which Aberdeen may be said
to be the centre, that constituted the real "Scotia," which never owned fealty or shadow of
homage to the English king.-It is, therefore, worthy of note that the New Spalding Club,
in choosing as its territory the region from Ness to Tay, has chosen a field of operation
nearly conterminous with the "Scotia" of the pre-Stewart period.
*
Compare Parson Gordon of Rothiemay (Scots Affairs, p. 243), on Learning in
Aberdeen in 1640, which is the era of the "Aberdeen doctors" referred to by Clarendon :
"Thes eminent divynes of Aberdeen were either deade, deposed, or banished; in whom fell
more Learning than was left behynde in all Scotlande besyde at that tyme. Nor has that
cittye, nor any cittye in Scotland ever since, seene so many learned devynes and scollers
at one tyme together, as wer immediately befor this in Aberdeen."
RELATION OF THE TWO TOWNS OF ABERDEEN.
5
assumed more numerous and more various phases in Aberdeen than
in any other Scottish town.
As the City of the Two Rivers, it is flanked by the sister streams.
of Dee and Don, each of which is spanned at no great distance by an
ancient bridge, dating from pre-Reformation times. Each of these
very notable structures owes its origin to the munificence and public
spirit of ancient prelates of the See. The city consists of two Burghs,
each resting on its own river: the one the Royal Burgh of Aberdeen,
populous, busy, and commercial; the other the Episcopal Burgh of
Barony of Old Aberdeen,* quiet, sombre, and secluded. It is with
the latter that we have now to deal, as it contains the historic monu-
ment which is to engage our attention.
As the traveller wends his way toward the Cathedral from the
town of Aberdeen, he passes first the College in Old Aberdeen,
and then, at some distance, arrives in view of the Cathedral, two
buildings of nearly coeval antiquity in their most important remains,
fortunate at once in their society and in their solitude. It is in the
most distant and sequestered part of Old Aberdeen that the Cathedral
is situated, in a part of the town still known by the name of the
Chanonry, where had been gathered, in old time, the residences of the
* On the 21st August, 1498, Bishop Elphinston obtained a Crown Charter erecting Old
Aberdeen into a City and University and Burgh of Barony (Registr. Episc. Aberd., Sp. Cl.,
i., p. xlv., Text of Deed, in vol. ii., p. 303; also Orem, p. 81).
+ The following quaint picture of the two towns in their mutual contrast, as given
three centuries ago, is worth transcribing. It gives the palm of beauty then to the Old Town.
"In Marr lyes Abirdine a famous citie, in a maner in twa partes dividet, to wit, in ane alde
toune, and ane new toune, and betwene the twa a feild put; bot on that syd, quhair foundet
ar the Bischopis Cathedral, the Channounis honorable houses, the almous house or Hospital
of the pure, and that ancient Academie and universitie of renoune, is mekle mair illustre and
beutiful to behalde, than the othir, quhais decore cheiflie does consiste in nobilitie of gentle
men and merchandes and deidis of civilitie" (Father Dalrymple's Translation of Bishop
Leslie's History of Scotland, p. 49, Scottish Text Soc.). The same contrasted character of the
two towns is thus expressed in the distich of John Leitch, 1620 (p. 48, Book of Bon-Accord):
"Qua geminæ, in geminis surgentes vallibus, Urbes,
Mercibus hæc, Musis clarior illa suis".
‡ The name Chanonry is interesting as showing traces of the French influence exerted,
as is well known, so powerfully upon our vernacular. The French chanoine, rather than the
English canon, has been at work in shaping this local name. It occurs also in connection
with the Cathedral of Fortrose, where, in the old diocese of Ross, the name still designates,
not inappropriately, a presbytery in Easter Ross.
6
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
canons, as in a cathedral close, such as we know of in cathedral towns
in England. Rising above the surrounding dwellings, among its shel-
tering elms, is found the edifice of the granite Cathedral-unique in
regard to its material among our Scottish cathedrals, and with no
adequate parallel as a structure in that respect nearer than Brittany
-a great torso of what once had been, majestic still in its massive
grandeur, and predominating, as was said of stately Kelso,
"like
some antique Titan over the dwarfs of a later world". Both exter-
nally and internally the style is seen to be of the severest Gothic
type, with some singular reversions to the round arch and rounded
pier of the Norman. A happy instinct as to what was possible in
such obdurate material as the granite, under the instruments and ap-
pliances of those days, seems to have presided over the construction,
and guided the architects of the time to the wise conviction that it
was hopeless to contend with the cathedrals of the South in variety
and finish of floral decoration, and that they must find some other
source of architectural nobleness. Hence they recognised their task
to be the production of a broad and grand effect by the grouping of
simple masses without elaboration, under the feeling that what was
possible with the soft and light freestone of other more favoured
districts, such as Morayshire, was not possible with the hard and heavy
granite of Aberdeenshire; and hence, also, they relinquished any am-
bitious aspiration after stone-vaulting over a broad nave, such as had
to be dealt with in the great cathedrals of the South. It is possibly to
this latter inability that we owe the heraldic blazoning. For the roof
of the nave came thus to be treated as a flat surface, and hence the
space of this surface had to be lighted up by appropriate decoration;
whence the origin of this, the chief ornament of the Cathedral.
Of this once great edifice many portions have disappeared; the
choir, with apse and chancel, if indeed these parts were ever fully
finished, has entirely vanished; the central tower, now known only
from views in old engravings, has passed away; the transepts remain
only in outline of their foundations, sufficient to show the contour
of the space which they enclosed; but the nave is still entire, with
its seven-lighted western window, which, flanked by its two guardian
*Neither Lady Chapel nor Crypt seems to have existed. A capitulum or Chapter is
often mentioned, but no "Chapter-house" is now discernible.
ARCHITECTURE OF THE CATHEDRAL.
7
towers, forms a western front of wonderful symmetry, strength, and
dignity, in harmonious combination.
These twin towers strike the eye of the stranger as being peculiarly
massive, almost stern in their simplicity. The apex or spire of each is
evidently on a different design and projection from that of the base or
lower portion,* which is severe and grim, like the keep of a feudal castle
rather than the base of a cathedral tower; and this castellated † appear-
ance is further heightened by the bold corbelling of the parapet, the
battlements of which suggest, as does also the castellated tower of
Dunblane, the pathway where the armed warder paces in times of unrest
or danger and turmoil. Our English friends, in visiting the Cathedral,
are found very generally to advert to this feature, which they at once
seize upon, not unnaturally, as an evidence of our warlike tendencies or
insecure social conditions in the ancient days. Be this as it may, the
contrast architecturally between the upper and the lower portions of
these towers is distinctly noticeable. The apex of each is composed of
freestone, in marked yet not inharmonious contrast with the granite of
the lower portion, and it is curious to observe that, the moment we
reach the freestone, the treatment becomes more free, and bursts out, as
it were, into a flowering of finials and other ornaments of a decorated
kind. The freestone apex of each tower is pyramidal, consisting of three
cap-like sections, divided by broad ribs or dividing bands, and diminish-
ing to a point; and the tradition is that Gavin Dunbar, the Bishop who
built this part, wanted to suggest or image forth in stone the triple
crown or tiara of the Papal See.‡ It is known that this Bishop was
himself a native of Moray, and brought with him from that county of
rich freestone a native taste for ornamental decoration.
The same
Bishop was also the erector of the heraldic roof, and it is therefore to
Gavin Dunbar that we owe both these ornaments, so that he may
be said to have left his impress not less on the external than on the
internal aspect of the Cathedral. §
* The lower or granite portion was built by Bishop Henry Lichton, who died in 1440.
+ In Avila, in the uplands of Old Castile, there is a granite cathedral with similar
features, "towers showing machicolation," a combination of church and fortress (Ford's Hand-
book to Spain).
Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, ii., pp. 340, 344.
§ Boece, in his unfinished life of Bishop Dunbar (whose demise in 1532 he did not record,
though he himself lived to 1536), speaks as if the roof was in progress in his own time,
8
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
The Bishop's palace lay east of the Cathedral, but not a vestige of
it remains; and the old alms-house or bede-house, which was erected
by the same Gavin Dunbar, and of which views remain in old en-
gravings, where it is seen outside the churchyard on the west side, has
also perished. Notwithstanding the absence of these two doubtless once
picturesque companions, the Cathedral still strikes the stranger as happy
in its surroundings; but the full beauty and aptness of the situation are
not discerned until we pass to the north side of the building, and per-
ceive the fine and commanding elevation on which it stands above the
valley of the neighbouring Don.* At a little distance, and at a level
far underneath, we can there perceive the beautiful bend of that river,
which is seen suddenly turning northward, and then rolling away behind
a screen of trees toward the dark gorge from which it emerges at the
bridge well known in story, the Brig o' Balgownie. The relation of the
Cathedral to the river, where it forms this loop or bend, requires to be
specially noticed, as thereby hangs the interesting traditionary tale
connected with its origin and foundation. The story is found in
Thomas Innes's Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, where it is drawn
from the account of St. Machar in the venerable Breviarium Aberdonense,
and we think it better to present it in Innes's own words:
"St. Machar was born, of noble parents, in Ireland, and at first
named Mochonna. I find him also called Mauritius, but Machar is the
name by which he is commonly known. He had followed St. Columba
into Britain, and after he had made more than ordinary progress in
piety and in learning in Ycolmkill, St. Columba, having caused him to be
“Gavinus aliud est opus aggressus, Basilica Aberdonensis cælaturam; sed hoc quoque
magna ex parte mira arte consummatum est" (Boece's Vita Episcop., p. 85, Bann. C1.).
* The following extract from the deft pen of the late ingenious John Ramsay, who
dearly loved the spot, gives the impression of the scene :
"Viewed as it now stands, although sadly shorn of its original glory, the Cathedral is a
highly picturesque and interesting object. The aspect of its western end, with its noble
window of seven lights, flanked by lofty towers capped by those quaint old steeples, is singu-
larly beautiful and striking-more especially when glowing in the mellowed ray of the western
sun, and partly shaded by the venerable trees, which so beautify and solemnise the scene,
redeeming the dreariness of the graveyard, and, by their obedience to the law of the seasons,
instinctively symbolising the change from mortal to immortal life. None but the veriest clod
of the valley can be uninfluenced by the spell which binds one in the rapt contemplation of so
fair a scene, of which the fascination is crowned by the swelling music of the Don, 'unseen
but not remote '"' (John Ramsay's Selected Writings, pp. 92-3).
FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MACHAR.
9
advanced to holy orders and afterwards to be consecrated bishop, sent
him with twelve of his disciples to preach the Gospel in the most
northern parts of the Pictish provinces, admonishing him to settle and
erect a church upon the bank of a river where he should find that by its wind-
ings it formed the figure of a bishop's crosier. St. Machar, following this
admonition, went on northward, preaching the Gospel, till he came to
the bank of the river Don, near its entry to the sea, at a place where
by its windings the river makes the foresaid figure of a crosier (præsulis
instar baculi),* and there he built a church which still bears his name,
and became the Cathedral of Aberdeen" (Innes's Civ. and Eccl. H. of
S., p. 194, Sp. Cl.).
The building that now overlooks this the last bend or crook of the
river Don is the successor, perhaps at more than one remove,† of the
primitive and original cell or church of St. Machar. It is no part of
our subject to give any minute details of the history of the building,§ or
to enter into the chronicles of the See of Aberdeen, except in so far as
is necessary to bring out the historic aspects of the monument which
forms the subject of our investigation. Those chronicles are contained
in such works as the Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis (Sp. Cl.), or
the Statuta Ecclesia Scoticana, by Dr. Joseph Robertson, from either of
which may be obtained traditional details as to the position of the See
* Ubi flumen, præsulis instar baculi, intrat mare (Breviar. Aberdon., 12 Nov.). On this
supposition, the date of St. Machar's foundation cannot be put later than 597, the year of
St. Columba's death. St. Machar is said to be interred, not in his own church, but in St.
Martin's at Tours.-How little, however, we know of St. Machar appears from Dr. Gammack's
critique (Scottish Notes and Queries, October, 1887).
+ The historic vista as to the successive stages of Church economy in Scotland is not
so clear as is the case so frequently in the old ecclesiastical buildings of England. There we
sometimes find no less than four distinct strata, so to speak, historically discernible, as, e.g.,
at Glastonbury and St. Albans, churches which dispute with Canterbury the right, not
perhaps to precedence, but to priority as Christian centres. At Glastonbury in particular we
know of (1st) the original British church, made, after the Celtic fashion, of timber (see Quart.
Rev., vol. lxxxv., p. 111), perhaps of wattled work; (2nd) the Saxon church of St. Dunstan,
both of which exist only in records of the time; (3rd) the existing ruins in the Early English
style; (4th) the contiguous church of St. Cuthbert's, in the Perpendicular or Tudor style.
For details as to this saint (Machar or Macarius, also Mauritius), see Bishop A. P.
Forbes's Kalendars of Scottish Saints, p. 394.
§ Short outline of the stages of progression in Dr. Joseph Robertson's important article
on Scottish Ecclesiology (Quart. Rev., vol. lxxxv., p. 141).
B
IO
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland. Inferior necessarily to the two
archiepiscopal Sees of St. Andrews and Glasgow, and in a certain sense
inferior also to Dunkeld, which claimed to represent the succession from
Iona, Aberdeen may be said to rank fourth among the Scottish Sees,
a place which it holds nearly invariably in the rolls of the Scottish
Parliament, and such is the position, accordingly, which it occupies.
in the Scottish ecclesiastical array in this heraldic roof. It is worthy
of note, however, that twice in the history of the See it was on the eve
of attaining something like archiepiscopal position. Under Bishop
Thomas Spence (Statuta Eccl. Scot., p. cxvii.) the diocese was privileged
by the Papal Court to be exempt "during his lifetime" from the juris-
diction of St. Andrews; and again, on the proposed elevation of the
saintly Elphinston to St. Andrews, it was intended to translate
Andrew Stewart, Bishop of Caithness, to Aberdeen, and to exempt
the diocese from all jurisdiction, not only archiepiscopal or metro-
politan, but also primatial or legatine (Statuta Eccl. Scot., p. cxxvi.).
The design in this latter instance was not carried out, and Aberdeen
has therefore to rely less on the rank accorded to the See than upon
the eminence of her individual bishops, some of these, whether in the
Roman Catholic or Protestant period, being among the most remark-
able of the Scottish prelates. The memory of Elphinston,* Dunbar,
and, later, of Bishop Patrick Forbes of Corse, long survived; and it
was probably owing to the recent memory of the virtues of these
prelates that Episcopacy obtained and retained such a strong foot-
hold, as is well known, in this north-eastern province during the
most stormy periods of the Covenant.
*
Elphinston, “a saintly bishop, who came too late for canonising" (Cosmo Innes,
Sketches, p. 85). He died in 1514, within three years of the commencement of the Reforma-
tion, by which time rapid canonisation, like that of Becket (1173, only two years after his
murder), had ceased to be possible.
CHAPTER II.
THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL AND THE
HERALDIC CEILING.
Auratasque trabes, veterum decora alta parentum.-VIRG., Æn.
THE interior of the Church, as it now presents itself, falls into three
divisions-the centre, or nave proper, with its clerestory resting on a
fine double arcade of supporting pillars, but without any triforium
or "blind-story"; the north aisle, and, lastly, the south aisle, both
flanking the nave at a lower elevation. Each of these three divisions
has had the fortune, or misfortune, to undergo a separate treatment,
and to possess, therefore, a separate history.
The north aisle has suffered most from alterations: it was taken
down and reconstructed, under unfortunate conditions, about fifty
years ago; the windows were unfortunately debased by wooden
mullions, and its roof, which is now flat and is under lead exter-
nally, is in plaster, with plaster bosses, and ribbed with plaster bands
indicating the supposed beams of the construction. The monotony and
poverty of the design, together with the coldness of the colour in the
roof of this north aisle, form, it must be confessed, a harsh contrast
to the rich and varied decoration and warm colour of the central
nave, over which is placed the heraldic ceiling.
The south aisle has the ordinary sloping roof abutting on the
clerestory. The wooden beams and integuments of this southern
portion of the Cathedral have been, within the last twenty years,
decorated with appropriate flowering in colour under direction of
Mr. D. Cottier of London. Regarding the south aisle, there is
nothing further that needs, for our purpose, to be noted than that
12
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
the bold stone ribs of the mullions in the original windows have been
in this instance fortunately preserved.
It is to the roof of the nave or central part that our attention
must now be directed. Before proceeding to tabulate and describe
its features in detail, it may be well in the first instance to glance
at the structural conditions and the problem that was solved by the
adoption of such a design.
We have already alluded to the enormous difficulty of con-
structing an over-arched roof of stone where granite was the material.
The absence of flying buttresses on the outside is a feature indicating
that the architects did not contemplate provision to meet the lateral
thrust of a superincumbent stone roof, such as, e.g., that of King's
College Chapel, Cambridge. Neither did they preserve the fiction of
an embowed roof in timber, such as we see exemplified in the modern
roof of another Cambridge chapel, that of St. John's, and also in our
own King's College Chapel of Old Aberdeen, where we find a wooden
embowed roof, with escarbuncles for decoration. Yet the architects
were resolved that the central space should be broad and capacious,
not narrow and attenuated like many of the old Scottish non-cathedral
churches, where the length was sometimes more than five times the
breadth (as in old St. Congan's,* Turriff, length 120 ft. by 18 ft. of
breadth, and similarly in such as Foulis Wester, Cowie, Gamrie, &c.).
It was therefore only by a flat or horizontal wooden roof that so
large a central space could be covered,† and the question naturally
arose, how was this surface to be lighted up, and to have its monotony
relieved? The problem was solved by creating a suggestion of the
firmament with its constellations and its ordered zodiac of powers, and
no more happy treatment could have been devised. Already from the
influence of the Byzantine architecture, with its characteristic feature,
the "dome," the conception of the roof considered as a sky was pre-
sent to the mind of the medieval Gothic architects; and this feeling
* Book of Deer, edited by Dr. John Stuart. This is the extreme, but even Foulis
Wester is 90 by 27 feet (about A.D. 1450, Billings). This narrowness of the old Scottish
churches was partly owing to the rarity of suitable timber easily accessible. In the Cathedral
churches the proportion of breadth to length was different, the breadth being much ampler.
St. Andrews had its nave 200 feet long by 62 broad.
+ A roof of timber, not, however, always flat, was a necessity in covering wide and great
halls like those of Darnaway or of Rufus at Westminster.
PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THIS FORM OF DECORATION.
13
or conception continued to be inherited and to operate even where
the dome, originally a Byzantine feature, was discarded, or where it
was found structurally unattainable, as it ultimately became under the
Gothic architectural development.
In sacred literature there was high authority for such a conception.
In more than one passage of the Apocalypse relating to the revolutions
of terrestrial powers, the changes in the earthly dynasties are symbol-
ised under the changes in the signs of heaven, and in the words, "The
powers of heaven shall be shaken," * we catch the notes ominous of the
fall of dynasties and empires.
By some such process of thought, working on such imagery, was
shaped the happy design of occupying the roof-space above with a
galaxy of gleaming shields, to give a faint image of the field of heaven,
with its groups of fixed stars † in never-changing array, and hence the
author of this blazonry set himself to map out the powers, political and
ecclesiastical, then visible in his historical horizon.‡
* Augustine was on the track of this thought when he wrote: "Pauperi plus est videre
cœlum stellatum quam diviti tectum inauratum "-"To the poor man it is a grander thing to
behold the starry heaven than for a rich man to see his gilded roof”. And so Shakspere,
when he makes Hamlet speak of "this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof
fretted with golden fires". Compare in the Temple of Fame the kindred simile of Pope: "As
heaven with stars, the roof with jewels shines".
+ Pope Innocent IV., confirming a Postulate of the clergy of Aberdeen, has the follow-
ing: "Episcopi tanquam stellæ fixæ in firmamento lucere debent" (A.D. 1247, 13th May, in
Theiners' Vetera Monumenta). Sometimes the firmament is conceived in a narrower sense,
without the circling stars; and then we hear, in the Middle Ages, of the "Two Great Lights,"
viz., the Pope and the Emperor (Wyntoun's Cronykil, Prologue to Bk. v.). Says delightful
old Guillim, in his dedication to the King: "There is a firmament of stars, that shine not
without your benign beam: you are the sun of our Hemisphere, that sets a splendour on our
Nobility" (Guillim's Display of Heraldry).
It is interesting to find a confirmation as to this interpretation of the design in a
nearly contemporary document describing the works of Bishop Dunbar: “Hujus templi
toreumata, seu celum ipsum, opere exasciato imaginibus et principum insigniis fabricari fecit "
(Registrum Episc. Ab., ii., p. 249). The proper reading must be, not seu, but ceu, i.c., like
as—i.e., an ornamented roof, just as the firmament itself. So likewise the University of Oxford
in its letter of thanks to a great benefactor (Bishop Kempe, A.D. 1480), describing the heraldic
ornamentation of its Divinity schools: "Ornamenta Regibus et principibus digna . . . ad
naturalis cœli imaginem variis picturis subtilique artificio cælata" (Wood's Oxford, ii., pp.
778-9). The supposed etymological connection between cœlum (heaven) and cælo (to engrave)
helped the analogy.--Conversely, the language of armorial garniture has been transferred in
large measure so as to describe the celestial sphere, The host of heaven at once occurs as
14
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
It is fortunate, therefore, for us that the designer addressed himself
to his task just in time, not a moment earlier, to represent to us the
still unbroken commonwealth of Western Europe, before expiring
chivalry passed away with the last breath of Bayard, at Pavia, in 1525.
Great events of world-wide significance had marked the middle and
close of the preceding century. The fall of Constantinople in 1453, the
counterstroke dealt to Mahometanism in the fall of Granada in 1492,
and above all the great lifting of the curtain of the world by the mari-
time discoveries toward East and West of Gama and Columbus-these
were among the events witnessed by the generation to which Bishops.
Elphinston and Dunbar belonged; and before Bishop Dunbar quitted
the scene, the gathering storm of the Reformation was already bursting
over the Northern world.* The hierarchy of the Western Church stood
till then unbroken; a few years later, and the great revolution was
consummated by which that hierarchy was shattered, and the execution
or even conception of such a comprehensive artistic representation
became no longer possible. Happily, however, the work was con-
ceived, if not executed, under the one Pope (Leo the Tenth) who,
more than any other pontiff, is a central figure for all time, marking
out an era to which his name is affixed as a designation, and who is
also the last pontiff that can be said to have received the undivided
homage of the West. Hence the value to us historically and senti-
mentally of this delineation, for it gives us the aspect, as it shaped
significant in this respect, the same image which Milton (Paradise Lost, iv. 553) has expanded
into the glorious vision of the angelic guard:
"Celestial armoury, shields, helms, and spears,
Hung high, with diamond flaming and with gold ".
A brilliant cluster of kindred illustrations might also be added from such sources, as the
garnishing" of the firmament (Job xxvi. 13, Spiritus ejus ornavit cœlos," Vulg.) and the
Greek Cosmos (kóσμos), a word which we know has been transferred to the celestial sphere
from the armorial, to which it originally appertained. In more modern literature there is no
example more apt than P. J. Bailey's apostrophe to the sun :
"God's crest upon His azure shield, the heavens" (Festus).
* The historical array is, in the eye of the student of history, the most fortunate among
all the epochs that could have been chosen. Charles V. is already on the Imperial throne, and
it was during his time, according to Robertson, that "the powers of Europe were formed into
one great political system, and the ideas concerning the balance of power were introduced
or rendered general that still influence the councils of nations ".
ARRANGEMENT OF SHIELDS IN SERIES.
15
itself four centuries ago, of the "dominations, princedoms, powers,
that then in their several spheres held sway.
And they were in those days "powers"* in a sense and with an
ascendency such as we in these times can but imperfectly conceive. The
despotic form of monarchy, as shaped by Louis XI., Henry VII., and
Ferdinand of Aragon, had just appeared in full form. It was also the
age when Charles V. and Francis I. were contending in their long
European duel, and when even minor potentates, such as the Scottish
nobles, were as kings or petty princes rather than vassals to the Crown
-not yet reduced to the mere guard of honour to royalty which they
afterwards became. It is obvious, therefore, that we have in this
heraldic ceiling a pictured page in the great book of time at a period
of peculiar interest, a transcript of an important epoch of history in
shorthand, of which Aberdeen has reason to be proud.
On the pannelled ceiling at the intersections of the mouldings or
cross-bars occur the several series of heraldic shields, which are arranged
in three parallel longitudinal rows, ‡ sixteen in each row, and all carved
in low relief. Each shield has proceeding from it on either side an
escrol on a lighter ground than that of the ceiling, bearing in black text
with red initial letter the official designation, in Latin, of the dignity
represented. The order of dignity advances as you proceed from the
west eastward; the extreme west is occupied by the three local
corporate bodies, two municipal and one academic. The place of
honour for the highest European dignitaries—a trio with shields having
their several devices upon a ground of imperial gold-is at the extreme
east, where the nave joined on to the cruciform and more sacred por-
* So in astrology:
"Facta etenim et vitas hominum suspendit ab astris ".
-Manil., iii. 58.
+On the almost autocratic power of the Scotch nobles, and the struggle undertaken oy
the Stewart princes to curb that power, especially by James I. and II., and again renewed
under James V., see Lord Crawford's admirable sketch (i., p. 25, Earldom of Mar).
There are thus three main lines on which the shields are arranged, and the insertions
take place at the points of intersection, where the beams indicating the joists cross these main
lines at right angles. A series of square pannels is thus produced, and these pannels are
again crossed obliquely quincunx-wise by diagonal lines of a lighter kind, and from the
centre of each square pannel there depends a pendant with a four-rayed escarbuncle out of
which it proceeds.
16
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
tion of the building. Further, the trio at the extreme west is in re-
markable symmetry with the trio at the extreme east. In each case,
two temporal or secular powers flank at either end of the nave a spiri-
tual or intellectual power, and the place of honour, such as is given to
the Pope between Emperor and King, is correspondingly assigned to
the University, which stands flanked at the west end by the two muni-
cipal corporations. Of these three series of shields, thus commencing
and closing, one represents the Emperor and the other sovereigns of
Europe, another the Pope and the Scottish bishops, and the third the
King of Scotland and the nobles of Scotland. The Church dignitaries
occupy and rightly in such an edifice-the middle row, and their
escrols have the precedence of being slightly in advance of those of the
temporal powers flanking them on either hand. The northern row,
which is heraldically the Sinister row, and therefore inferior to the
Dexter, but which, looked at ecclesiastically, upon the analogy of the
precedence attached to the north side of the altar, may have been
regarded as the more honourable position, is assigned to the external
powers of Christendom; while the southern row, which is here
heraldically the Dexter row, is left for the immediate temporal powers
within the Scottish realm.
The date of the decoration of this roof may be assumed as 1520,
at which time the work of blazonry must have been in progress. The
presence of Pope Leo X.'s arms, who died in 1521, and the non-ap-
pearance of the arms of the Bishop's nephew and namesake, viz., those
of the Gavin Dunbar who became Archbishop of Glasgow as early as
1524,* justify the date ascribed.
We now proceed to enumerate these shields in their several orders,
and to present the luminous points attaching to each personality de-
noted by the various shields.
* The second of these arguments is the conclusive one. The arms of Clement VII.,
Pope from 1523 to 1534, were the same as those of Leo, both being of the Medici family.
A-Row of Scottish King and Nobles, &c.
B-Row of Ecclesiastical Dignities, &c.
EAST-END.
Α
B
C
17
33
18
34
2
19
35
3
120
36
4
21
37
5
22
38
23
6
39
7
24
40
8
25
141
26
42
10
27
43
C-Row of European Sovereigns, &c.
28
44
12
29
45
13
30
46
14
31
47
15
32
48
16
དམངའོ
N.B.: This Sketch Plan, being a miniature of
the ceiling, is to be viewed as overhead in relation to
the spectator, in which case C will represent the North
Row, while A represents the South Row, in the
Heraldic Ceiling.
ANDW GIBBA CO LITHR
3 QUEEN ST ABD-
Uor M
SKETCH PLAN SHOWING POSITION OF SHIELDS ON THE CEILING
CHAPTER III.
REGUM DUCUMQUE EXTERORUM SERIES (CIRCA
A.D. MDXX.).
Series of FOREIGN SOVEREIGNS-Northern Row.
1. Emperatorie Majestatis.*
[No. I.
CHARLES V., Emperor, 1519-1555 (as CARLOS I., King of Spain, 1516);
resigned his crowns in 1556; died in 1558.
THE Emperor or Kaiser appears here as the first secular power of
Christendom. He claimed to represent not only the imperial dignity as
reconstituted by and in Charles, the son of Pepin, monarch of the Franks,
but also the older and primary succession of the Roman Empire, both
Pagan and Christian. By the fall of Constantinople under the Turk in
1453, that rival shadow of a Roman Empire of the East, which had
maintained, though feebly, a continuous existence, now vanished, but
the surviving Empire of the West retains the double-headed eagle,† as if
(6
""
"
Majestas properly and strictly of the Roman Emperor. The style of the King of
Scotland is, at this time (see p. 30), only Celsitudo, "Highness '—an appellation now given
to the Princes of the Blood. So in England, Henry VIII, is the first who took the title of
Majesty, each King before him being styled Sovereign Lord," Highness". In Shak-
spere "
Highness," and even “His Grace,” still remain alongside of the term “ Majesty ".
+ The symbol of the imperial eagle with outspread wings-what Dante (Parad. 20)
calls "il segno del Mondo," the ensign of the world—is the most august of all the
scutcheons of the world, reaching back to Augustus and up to Jove, whose representative he
claimed to be. There is thus historic truth as well as beauty in Ariosto's line, where the
imperial eagle on a warrior's shield is described as-
Augel che Giove per l'aria sostenne”.—Orl. Fur., xxx. 48.
"The bird that once in air could Jove sustain."
Compare, as to the two beaks of the eagle, the double scimitars at the girdle of the Caliphs
"as the symbols of a double reign over the East and West" (Gibbon, vol. vii., p. 176, chap.
57). Charles himself once surprised the poet Alamanni, who in audience as ambassador
C
18
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
•
to claim the succession to the Eastern as well as the Western inherit-
ance of the Cæsars. This dignity purported to be elective, and was'
now held by Charles V.* (I. of Spain), "the greatest monarch of the
memorable sixteenth century, and the most famous of the successors of
Charlemagne" (Stirling's Cloister Life of Charles V., p. 211). As the
son of Joan of Castile, who was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella
and consort of Philip, Archduke of Austria, and as the grandson of
the Emperor Maximilian, and of Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold;
the heiress of the house of Burgundy, Charles V. became the heir of
the Indies in the New World, and of many converging inheritances in
the Old; whence, in veritable truth, he bestrode Europe as a Colossus.
Besides the imperial eagle, he is the possessor of three of the other
shields on this heraldic ceiling-Spain (i.e., Castile and Leon), Aragon,
and Sicily-and so fills one-fourth of this regal series. It may there-
fore be doubted with Bayle whether a prince ever walked the stage of
this world with a larger array of titles of renown.† The assertion that
had made frequent mention of the imperial eagle, by quoting sarcastically his own lines
against him:
". . . l'aquila grifagna,
Che per più divorar due becchi porta".-Roscoe's Leo X., ii., p. 453.*
On the question as to precedence between Eagle and Lion in heraldic symbolism, Sir
Walter Scott touches gracefully in chap. xi. of the Talisman. In 1575, half a century later
than Gavin Dunbar, Philip II. adorns a gate at Toledo with the eagle and shield of Charles V.
(Ford's Spain, p. 484).
* Charles Quint, "le plus grand homme qui soit sorti de l'auguste Maison d'Autriche "
(Bayle). The name Charles was thought from its associations to have an imperial sound with
it. See Lord Bacon, addressing our Charles I. (War with Spain).
+ Roscoe's succinct account of the convergence of crowns is as follows:
"From his father Philip, Archduke of Austria [and son of the Emperor Maximilian],
Charles inherited the rich patrimony of the Netherlands, which Philip had himself acquired
in right of his mother, Mary of Burgundy. His title to the crowns of Castile and of Aragon
was derived from Ferdinand and Isabella, by their daughter Joanna, the mother of Charles,
who was yet living, and whose name was, in fact, united with his own in the sovereignty,
although she was incapacitated by a derangement of intellect from taking any part in the
administration. The crown of Sicily had descended in peaceable succession for several genera-
tions, and Charles now assumed it as representative of the legitimate branch of the house of
Aragon. Although the kingdom of Naples was for the present held by the sword rather than
by an acknowledged title, yet Ferdinand died in the exercise of the royal authority, and
Charles was possessed of resources sufficient to maintain his pretensions. By the death of
Maximilian he entered upon the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria” (Life of
Leo X., ii., p. 198).
EMPEROR AND REGAL SERIES.
19
Charles V. had it in his designs to become also Pope, rests only on
'the authority of Brantôme, who is not partial to the enemy of France
(see Bayle). "In this prince," says De Thou, "fortune contended
with virtue that it might crown his merits with the highest pitch of
felicity." Bayle sums up more justly: "His history is a mélange of
fortune and misfortune". His famous mot as to the aptitudes of the then
four leading tongues of Europe is interesting to us now as showing how
little was as yet thought of the Teutonic element, and how the branch
thereof which we know as the English tongue was as yet, notwith-
standing Chaucer's appearance on the scene, virtually ignored by the
European mind. It may be interesting likewise to refer to the literary
blazon given to this Emperor by our countryman Buchanan, during
the imperial visit to Bordeaux in 1539, about the time when this
heraldic ceiling was still young:
"Ausoniæ regalis honos, decus orbis Iberi,
Carolus, arctoi soboles Mavortia Rheni.
Rectorem gentis Iberæ,
Ausoniæ dominum, Boreæ pugnacis alumnum,
Victorem Libycæ terræ, Scythiæque timorem.”
Compare the still more magniloquent stanzas of Ariosto in his praise
(Orl. Fur., xv. 23-8). Yet, for all his victories, he failed to save Metz to
the Germanic race, which lost that fortress in 1552, and has only re-
covered it in our time. On the strange resignation by Charles V. of
the imperial purple, "retiring to a Spanish Spalatro, gout-worn, empire-
sick, exchanging crowns for rosaries" (Ford's Spain), there is quite an
anthology of literary references. Besides Lord Bacon's reference in
his Essay on "Empire," see the approving remarks of his almost
contemporary, Montaigne (ii., chap. 8), and compare Gibbon on such
abdications (ii. 98; viii. 127); also Lord Byron's lines, in the “Ode to
Napoleon," "The Spaniard, when the lust of sway".
II. Francorum Regis.
FRANCIS I. (FRANÇOIS) (of Angoulême), King, 1515-1547.
[No. 2.
The world-wide historic name of the "Frank" here meets the view.
In the time of the Crusades it became equivalent to European, and
still survives in the "Feringhee" applied by the Hindoos to the natives.
20
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
of the West, even to such as are neither French nor Frank. The name
is here a survival from the period of Karl the Great (Charlemagne),
who was "King of the Franks" as well as Kaiser, being the first
Teutonic "Emperor of the Romans"; but the severance has long since
taken place (in A.D. 887) betwixt the East Franks and the West Franks,
between Latin or Gallic Neustria and Teutonic Austrasia, and so the
monarch of Neustria, which grew into France, is here credited with
the ancient but wider title, the half dominion claiming to retain the
name of the whole.*
•
The fleurs-de-lis, as the arms of France, are now concentrated to
three, having been so reduced by Charles VI. of France, and no longer,
as in the early time, scattered, or, as the phrase is, semé, in profusion over
the shield. Though they look like flowers of the Iris species, justifying
Ariosto's "i Gigli d'oro," it is a question what is the original form or
meaning of the device, and Voltaire has the grim joke that these flowers
are spear-heads in disguise. In fine balance as a pendant, to this
scutcheon, in device and colour, is the shield of St. Margaret, which
occupies the corresponding rank in the Southern Row, also with "gold
charges on an azure field”.
The wearer at this time of the fleurs-de-lis, or, as both Spenser
and Shakspere style them, flowers-de-luce, is the chivalrous† but
* We can only glance thus briefly at the historic interest folded up in the name
"Francorum". In process of time, as France has gradually become less Frankish and
Teutonic, and more Latin and Celtic, which is indeed the outcome of the Revolution of '89,
"Gallorum" might be expected as more accurate; and so Soult, in the Latin Inscription at
Corunna regarding Sir John Moore, records him as having fallen fighting against the Galli
(not Franci) (Ford's Spain). By a fine instinct, Buchanan in his History speaks of Franci
in the time of Carolus Magnus, but uses Gallia and Galli regularly for France and the
French people throughout the Stewart time.
+ A personal device of Francis I. was a salamander in the midst of flames, with the
motto Nutrisco et extinguo. It is said to have been suggested by Artus de Gouffier-Boisy, a
Poitevin gentleman, the king's literary preceptor, for the purpose of symbolising the fiery spirit
of his pupil (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. x., p. 219). It is a device not unhappily suggestive
of the troubles amid which he reigned. An autograph letter of Francis I. to James V. in
1531 appears among the National MSS. of Scotland (Part III.). It is couched in most flat-
tering terms, and has for its object to attach Scotland to the French interest in the great
drama of the time. The azure in the case of the golden lilies may be taken to represent
appropriately the blue water of a lake (cf. Guillim, p. 4); in the case of the martlets of
St. Margaret, the bluc ether of the sky. Among the quaintest arguments ever known to logic
was the appeal to the New Testament text as to the Lilies, in support of the Salique law
REGAL SERIES.
21
erratic Francis I., the victim of his own rashness at Pavia, who waged
the life-long duel* with Charles V. According to Brantôme and Bayle,
the latter, would have subjugated Europe but for the stand made by
Francis I. In the field of literature and art Francis is remembered as
the patron of Budaeus and of Greek learning, as the bosom friend of
Leonardo da Vinci, and as a composer of chansons that have a place
in the history of French poetry, and he is further styled "the father
of letters " + (De Thou). The fine stanzas of Ariosto (Orl. Fur., xxxiii.
52-3) are the homage of the muse to the captive of Pavia. "Upon his
accession to the crown, he raised in everybody mighty expectations of
himself, as there was a certain majesty in his looks, a lively wit, a
courteous demeanour, a love for learning, and an experience of the
world (for as yet he had scarce arrived at the age of twenty), joined
to the royal dignity" (De Thou). This great promise can hardly be
said to have been realised; many virtues and not a few vices com-
pose a very mixed character. Compare Ford's lively but far from
favourable sketch of Francis I. (Spain, p. 571).
III. Hispanorum Regis.
CARLOS I. of Spain, 1516 (Karl [Charles] V. of Germany).
[No. 3.
The arms represent only a part of the Spanish monarchy, viz.,
Leon and Castile. Of these two, Castile was greatly more prominent
in the view of the next generation, and Spenser takes, allegorically, an
embattled "Castle," i.e., Castile, as allegorical symbol for the Spanish
power (F. Q., iii., 3, 49). Aragon has, later in the series (No. VIII.),
a separate acknowledgment. (For personal history, see No. I. of this
series.) From the Spanish point of view, Charles is thus, somewhat
severely, characterised: "In him the Spanish crown passed to the
Foreigner. A Fleming by birth, he was an Austrian at heart, and
excluding females from the French throne-viz., that the lilies toil not, neither do they spin ;
and therefore no spindle could become a sceptre (Guillim, p. 107).
* According to Montaigne (i., chap. 16), Charles wanted to bring it to a veritable duel,
offering "to fight Francis in his shirt with rapier and poniard in a boat"! Tantæne animis!
+ Montaigne (ii. 12) refers to the enthusiasm for polite letters radiating from Francis I.,
and affecting by its influence Montaigne's own father and his paternal home.
22*
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
wasted on. German politics the blood and gold of Spain.” (Ford's
•Spain).
No. 4.]
IV. Regis Anglorum.
HENRY VIII., King, 1509-1547-
The second Tudor, the first prince that united in his own person
the lines of York and Lancaster, known in history as-
"The majestic lord
That broke the bonds of Rome ".-Thos. Gray, "Ode to Music ".
Q
"
This King, the first "Defender of the Faith," affords a memorable
instance of Papal fallibility in things temporal. Leo X. dreamt little
that in giving Henry that title he was glorifying the future destroyer
of Roman Catholicism in the realm of England.* It was under the
pontifical reign of Leo's nephew (Clement VII.) that the crisis even-·
tually developed itself in the antagonism betwixt Pope and King.
How grimly terrible the whole tragedy of their relation was, we may
feel from the quaint words of Anthony Wood, describing their mutual
position as to the divorce question: "The King for his part acted
John the Baptist, [averring] that it was not lawful for him to have
his brother's wife, and the Pope acted King Herod; yet I am sure
in the catastrophe of this scene the King served the Pope as Herod
served the Baptist,, and beheaded his supremacy in the Church of Eng-
land" (Wood's Oxford, ii., p. 40).
It is worthy of note that the arms here assigned to Henry VIII.
* One of the most curious pieces of literature must be the lines in Henry's own hand
(with one false quantity) on the dedication copy of his book against Luther, still preserved at
the Vatican:
"Anglorum rex Henricus, Leo Decime, mittit
Hoc opus, et fidei testem et amicitiæ ".
Montaigne, when in Rome, in 1580 (Voyages, ii., p. 148), saw and was struck with this
book, but does not remark the false quantity in what he calls the “beau distich Latin”. The
annotator of Montaigne, however, suggests Maxime for Decime, but, in the spirit of
Sigismund, the Emperor super grammaticam, he wisely adds: “Crowned heads are above
quantities! "The musical, and even poetical, accomplishments of Henry VIII. appear to
have been notable. A short hymn which he composed still appears in some collections of
sacred song, as in the hymn-book of the Temple Church, London.
REGAL SERIES.
23
are not the arms that he himself recognised or employed.* The arms
here represented are from. the Angevin and early Plantagenet time,
before Edward III. introduced the custom of quartering the fleurs-de-lis
of France with the three leopards of England. There is little doubt
that we have in this feature-viz., the non-inclusion of the fleurs-de-lis
-a touch of sympathy with France, in harmony with other indica-
tions of the Scottish antagonism toward England (see Ch. VI. 3).
In less than a hundred years after the time of Henry VIII. the
royal shield was to be changed again, upon the accession of James I.,
when the three leopards† were joined to the "one lion".
one lion". Andrew
Melville's epigram on this combination-more arduous than the union
of the Roses-is worth citation:
•
↑
“Macte Leoni uni tres unus junge Leones,
avo
Ceu Rosa juncta Rosæ est una ab utroque atavo :
Si geminas junxisse Rosas res magna, Leones
Maxima res uni jungere tergeminos".-Delit. Poct. Scot., ii., p. 118.
* Ariosto, in his Orl. Fur. (x. 77), refers to the English blazon as the "bandiera grande,
Ch' insieme pon la Fiordiligi ei Pardi".
The leopards, or, as some call them, because not spotted, the lions, of England,
were originally personal to the Plantagenet kings; and their adoption by these kings, as
explained more fully in the Heraldic Section, Part II., was an inheritance from their ancient
ducal dominions on the Continent-viz., Normandy and Guyenne. It is no ungracious
paradox, therefore, to assert that the three lions do not belong primarily to England, except
in so far as it was an appanage to Normandy, and so a conquered country. It is, there-
fore, matter of inquiry whether, apart from this, England, as "the land of the Angles,"
can claim to possess national Arms of her own, now cognisable.—The continental and
ducal (not regal) origin of the three lions is important to remember, as throwing light, on
the question once keenly debated as to the precedence between Lilies and Lions in the
shields of Edward III. and his successors down to George III. Historically, the Lilies, as
regal, should have the first quarter of the shield. The three Lions have, however, now
become national for England to the exclusion of the family arms of the Tudor, Stewart,
and Brunswick dynasties.-Scotland, on the other hand, has possessed a national cog-
nisance dating from the Celtic dynasty in the time of William the Lion, and neither the
family arms of Baliol, nor of Bruce, nor of Stewart were ever in a position to become the
arms of Scotland.-A very early notice of the blazon of England is that found in the
Norman-French poem, "The Siege of Caerlaverock" (p. 23), in which it is thus described
(Nicolas's English translation):
"In his (i.c., Edward I.'s) banner were three leopards (trois luparte) courant of fine
gold, set on red, fierce, haughty, and cruel; thus placed to signify that, like them, the king
is dreadful, fierce, and proud to his enemies, for his bite is slight to none who inflame his
anger, not but his kindness is soon rekindled towards such as seek his friendship or submit to
his power "." Lions," in Shakspere, if we may rely on I. Hen. VI., I., 5, 28.
24
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 5.]
V. Regis Danorum.
CHRISTIERN II., King, 1513; dethroned for tyranny, 1523.
On the dethroning of this prince, who was the Nero of the North,
Frederick I., Duke of Holstein, his uncle, succeeds, and he reigns from
1523 to 1534.
The name is spelt Christiern ("Miles Christi ") by the kings
themselves till about 1550, when Christian appears (Pinkerton, History
of Scotland, i., p. 262).
Denmark is here in a more prominent place than we might ante-
cedently expect, but it is to be remembered (1) that in the time of
Knut (Canute) it was the head of an almost Oceanic monarchy; (2)
at this period the treaty of Colmar was still in force, and Norway
and Sweden were under the Danish crown, having no proper inde-
pendent existence.
In 1523, however, Gustavus Vasa appears, and
Sweden becomes free. Another reason for the exalted position of
the Danish king among the sovereigns may be due to the circum-
stance that the then reigning sovereign, James V., is grandson of a
Danish princess (Margaret), Queen of James III.
No. 6.]
VI. Regis Ungarie.*
LOUIS II. Reign, 1516-26.
The kingdom of the Magyars is the sole non-Aryan kingdom in the
European family, as here acknowledged. The reigning prince, in a
war with Soliman, is defeated at the battle of Mohacz, where he
perished, in 1526, He was also King of Bohemia, in whose history he
is known as Louis I. After his demise, Hungary and Bohemia fell to
Ferdinand, brother of Charles V. and Archduke of Austria, who survived
his brother and became Emperor, bringing into the Austrian family
the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary. The defeat of the now reigning
* This is the first territorial title among the kings, and such are all the titles henceforth
to the end of this series.. The dominant races previously memorised have kings who take
designation as rulers of peoples. It is noteworthy that the peoples are all toward the north
or west. The tèrritories are toward the east and south-east of Europe.
REGAL SERIES.
25
prince (Louis II.) had the further effect of bringing the Turks into the
heart of Hungary, and gave them possession of Buda for one hundred
and sixty years, till 1686, when the deliverance of that city came as
the sequel to the memorable raising of the siege of Vienna by Sobieski
in 1683. (On this King, see Carlyle's Frederick, vol. i., p. 234.)
VII. Regis Portugalie.
EMMANUEL (Manoel), the Fortunate. Reign, 1495-1521.
JOAM or JOHN III., son of Emmanuel, 1521-1557.
[No. 7.
In the reign of Manoel, Vasco de Gama performed the exploit
which gave Portugal a foremost place at once in maritime annals and,
through Camoens, in epic song. The circumnavigation of the Cape
was the culmination of a series of brave enterprises, which may be
taken as an apt allegory of the progress of the human mind, moving
on from vision to vision, like the Portuguese mariners from cape to
cape, till some great discovery is revealed.
Among the poems of Buchanan is one to Joam III.: "Ad Joannem
III., Lusitaniæ et Algarbiæ regem, Carmen ".
VIII. Regis Aragonie.
[No. 8.
CARLOS I., as heir of Fernando (the great Ferdinand of Aragon).
(See No. I.)
*
IX. Regis Cypre (? CYPRI).*
[No. 9.
(Cyprus absorbed by Venice since 1489, and retained till invested by
the Turks in 1570.)
The kingdom of Cyprus dates from the Crusades, and the sword
of England had the creation of it. "By a strange concatenation of
(6
* In the Diurnal of Occurrents (Bann. Cl.),—a work contemporary with James V.—it
appears that a king, calling himself of Cepres, had come to Scotland, and he may have come
in contact with Bishop Dunbar. Under 9th February, 1532, we have this entry: Against
the whilk (taxes) was Gavin, Bishop of Aberdeen. In this mene time the king of Cepres
came to Scotland, and with him twa servantis in support, becaus he was baneist out of his
awin countrie."
D
26
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
events," says Gibbon (vii., p. 286), "the sword of our English Richard
bestowed the kingdom of Cyprus on the house of Lusignan, a rich
compensation for the loss of Jerusalem."
The Lusignans continued to hold it for three centuries.
Their direct line ended with the death of John III. of Lusignan
in 1458, who left it to his daughter Charlotte, his sole legitimate
child, who married Louis, second son of Duke of Savoy, and so
brought into the house of Savoy the claim to be kings of Cyprus
and Jerusalem.*
A rival claim against that of Charlotte was set up by her illegiti-
mate brother James. By marriage with a daughter of the Venetian
merchant-house Cornaro, who was adopted as a daughter of St. Mark,
he conveyed the claim of kingship to the Commonwealth of Venice.
Cyprus was therefore one of the three sovereignties whose banners used
to float on holidays on the three masts in the square of St. Mark's.
(The other two royalties were Candia and Morea.)
No. 10.]
X. Regis Navarre.
HENRI D'ALBRET (or Henri II. of Navarre), King, 1516-1555.
The kingdom of Navarre originally extended over territory on both
sides of the Pyrenees. But in 1512 Fernando (or Ferdinand) the
Catholic reft away the province on the Spanish side, and annexed it to
Aragon. The territory on the north side of the Pyrenees, with Pau for
its capital, remained a separate sovereignty. The Queen of this Henri
was the celebrated and witty Marguerite of Valois, sister of Francis I.
She was married to Henri d'Albret in 1527, and died in 1549. Their only
child and heir was Jeanne (or Joan), who married Antoine de Bourbon,
Duke of Vendôme, and the issue of their union was the great Henri
* "The Duke of Savoy is by Pius V. declared to be the first Prince of Italy, and in the
Chappels of France, Venice, &c., gets the first stall, and, as King of Cyprus, pretends to be
ranked among the crowned heads. But it may be admired, why the Duke of Savoy takes the
title of Royal Highness; for if he be King of Cyprus, he ought to have the title of Majesty ;
and if he be not King, Royal Highness is not due to him." (Sir George Mackenzie, Of Prece-
dency, ch. iv. See also ibidem, ch. iv., on relation to Venice and its claims to the sove-
reignty of Cyprus.)—It is not an improbable speculation to suppose that this dormant title of
the house of Savoy may yet assume some day a concrete form in the dénouements of the future
as to the destinies of the East.
REGAL SERIES.
27
Quatre (Spenser's F. Q., v., II, 44-9), who rose to the throne of France,
and so merged Navarre in the monarchy of France. (It is remarkable
that probably the greatest royal inheritances in modern times have come
through the lucky name of "Margaret ". Both the Bourbons and the
Stewarts have this among the many coincidences marking their historic
destiny, that they both got their huge second inheritance through a
princess of that name.)
Buchanan has a fine tribute to Marguerite of Valois ("Iambon,"
i. 11), which the classical reader will admire.
XI. Regis Sicilie.
CARLO. (See Nos. I. and VIII. of this series.)
[No. 11.
The kingdom of Sicily dates from 1130, when Roger,* great Count
of Sicily, obtained or assumed regal title (Gibbon, vii., p. 133; on this
addition to the nine monarchies of Latin Europe, see p. 29). Sicily had
been united to Aragon since the time of the Sicilian Vespers (1282),
and hence it is under the same political rule as No. VIII.
XII. Regis Polonie.
SIGISMUND I., surnamed the Great, King, 1506-1548.
[No. 12.
The Jagellon dynasty, to which Sigismund belongs, began in 1400,
on the death of Hedvige, the Queen of Poland, who had married Jagel-
lon, the Grand Duke of Lithuania. Before this union Jagellon was a
Pagan, but thereafter a convert to Christianity. Jagellon continued on
the Polish throne after Hedvige's death, and his dynasty ended with
Sigismund II. in 1572, when the monarchy, nominally or theoretically
elective, became practically so, with consequences that ended in extinc-
tion and the finis Poloniae. (The Horse, so prominent in this shield, is
not such a favourite in Heraldry as are other animals, such as the Lion
and the Boar. The description of the war-horse in the Book of Job
might lead us to expect otherwise. Guillim, however, gives the reason
* "Apulus et Calaber, Siculus mihi servit et Afer," was the proud inscription, after his
reduction of Tunis, on the sword of Roger, afterwards first King of Sicily.
28
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
-viz., that "the Horse's service and strength [in war] is principally
by help of his Rider, whereas the Lion's is his own". The Horse is,
therefore, only an auxiliary.)
No. 13.]
XIII. Regis Bohemie.
No. 14.]
Louis I. (also King of Hungary, 1516-1526).
(See No. VI.)
XIV. Bucis Burbonie.
CHARLES, Duke of Bourbon and Vendôme, grandfather of Henri IV.
It was toward this house that the Scottish Court was now look-
ing for a matrimonial alliance to secure a consort to their youthful
sovereign; which perhaps accounts for the presence here of a dukedom
of France. "Mary, daughter of the Duke of Vendôme, of the Bourbon
branch of the royal family, was finally selected as the intended Queen
of James V." (J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, iii., p. 349). (The
alliance however did not take place, and the king married—(1) the
short-lived Magdalene of France, (2) Mary of Lorraine.)
No. 15.]
XV. Ducis Gilriae.
DUKE OF (GUELDRES) GELDERLAND.*
The Queen of James II. was Mary of Gueldres, a circumstance
which may account for the presence of this continental dukedom of
the Empire.
No. 16.]
XVI. Deteris Aberdonie.
THE CITY OF OLD ABerdeen.
Created a Civitas and Burgh of Barony by a charter of James IV.,
August 21st, 1498 (Registrum Episc. Aberd., ii., p. 303).
"The arms
are a pot of lilies (which by their whiteness are an emblem of chastity),
* A glimpse of the family connection between Gelderland and Scotland is found in
“Alexander, Albaniæ dux, germanus regis, qui tunc in Geldria cum avunculo degebat,
reductus" (Boece, Vita Episc., p. 31).
REGAL SERIES-CONCLUDED.
29
the town being under the patronage of the Virgin Mary
tions on the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, Sp. Cl., p. 152).
(Collec-
With the above list of sovereign powers in Europe at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, compare the old list of kings of
the Latin world in the beginning of the twelfth, immediately before.
the creation of the Norman kingdom of Sicily-
France,
England,
Scotland,
Castile,
Aragon,
Navarre,
Sweden,
Denmark,
Hungary.
Consult also Gibbon's incisive note 100 thereon, in chap. lvi. (vii., p.
133). The Emperor is not here named, being assumed to be the
paramount ruler.
Remark also that Scotland is in the array, but
not Ireland, which indeed (as being within the domain of the King
of England, who is "Lord of Ireland," or Dominus Hybernie), does
not rank anywhere as a national unit. Note also, in this earlier list
of potentates, the absence of the Slavonic kingdoms of Poland and
Bohemia, whose recency or remoteness may account for their com-
paratively inferior position-last of the kingdoms-in our heraldic
regal series.
A passing reference is here due to the singular and quaint List
of Potentates at the close of the Cartulary of St. Nicholas, Aberdeen,
a transcript of which appears in the volume recently issued by the
New Spalding Club. The full interpretation of this List, which is in
Norman-French, and contains Saracen and Heathen as well as
Christian Powers, awaits further investigation.
END OF THE REGAL SERIES.
CHAPTER IV.
REGIS PROCERUMQUE SCOTORUM SERIES.
SERIES OF SCOTTISH TEMPORAL DIGNITIES-SOUTHERN Row.
No. 17.]
I. Regie Celsitudinis. *
JAMES V. Reign, 1513-1542.
THE King, contemporary with this scutcheon of "the Ruddy Lion,
ramped in gold," is James V., the son of the ill-fated but most
gallant of all the Stewarts, James IV. How the father was betrayed,
by his chivalrous promise to the French Queen, into the war waged
with England against his own brother-in-law, and ending in the disaster
of Flodden in 1513, belongs to a most tragic crisis of Scottish history.‡
* The title Celsitudo belongs to late Latin (Codex Theodos.), but its English form
Celsitude is very current in the Scottish poets of the contemporary period, such as Dunbar
and Lindsay, to denote the king's "Highness," for which afterwards "Majesty" became the
current style. See note on p. 17.
+ "Marmion."
‡ Sir David Lindsay (“ Testament of Papyngo," Works, i., p. 81) has half-a-dozen fine
stanzas on the virtues and sad fate of "King James the Feird," where, among other tributes,
occurs the following:
"And of his court through Europe sprang the fame
Of lusty lords and lovesome ladies young;
Triumphand tourneys, justing, and knightly game,
With all pastime according for ane king:
He was the gloire of princelie governyng".
As a tribute from his conquering foes we may take the proud lines (Surrey's Works,
Nott's Ed., p. 27), of the poet Surrey, his conqueror's grandson:
"How can ye thus beat a lion of the race,
That with his paws a crowned king devoured in the place?”
alluding either to the "Lion" in the Norfolk crest, or to the "Red Lion" of Mowbray, appear-
ing in the scutcheon of that Surrey who gained the victory over the "Red Lion Rampant ".
The counterpart heraldically to this literary blazon is the charge which was added to
ROYALTY OF SCOTLAND.
31
The elder prince has been variously judged both by contemporaries and
by posterity. From the pen of Erasmus we have a panegyric upon
his accomplishments.* Of his linguistic proficiency the Spanish am-
bassador of the period has left an interesting record.t He was the last
of our Scottish kings who could speak the language of "Albyn," the
older speech of the commonalty of Scotland, such as it had sounded
in the ancient time, while the Stewart was still a Fitz-Alan, and, in
harmony with this, he is known to have cherished kindly intentions
towards the Gaelic portion of his subjects (Tytler, v., p. 131). Whence
we may infer his ready patronage of the designs of Bishop Elphinston,
which resulted in the establishment of a University in Aberdeen, with
the silver bend of the Norfolk Arms, and which still continues therein, being given after
Flodden as augmentation. The bend is charged with a reminiscence of the fatal day—“ the
royal shield of Scotland," having "a demi-lion rampant pierced with an arrow". To this
allusion is made also in lines attributed to Surrey:
"That Lyon placed on our silver bend,
Which as a trophy beautifies our shield".
The ribald lines of Skelton are those of a churl:
"Whatever they say,
Jemmy is ded
And closed in led,
That was their own kynge ".-Dyce's Skelton, i., p. 182.
At the Heralds' College, London, where the Duke of Norfolk retains the style of
Hereditary Marshal of England, are still preserved relics of Flodden-viz., the sword and
dagger of James IV., also-the fateful gift-the turquoise ring sent him by the French
queen (Old and New London, vol. i., p. 300).
* "Erat ea corporis specie ut vel procul Regem posses agnoscere. Ingenii vis mira, incre-
dibilis rerum omnium cognitio, invicta animi magnitudo, vere regia pectoris sublimitas, summa
comitas, effusissima liberalitas. Denique nulla virtus erat quæ magnum deceret principem,
in qua ille non sic excelleret, ut inimicorum quoque suffragio laudaretur."-Erasmus, in his
"Adagia," on "Spartam nactus es " (quoted in Dr. Joseph Robertson's Inventories of Mary,
P. 17).
+ Don Pedro de Puebla reports to his master as follows:
"He [the King] speaks the following foreign languages: Latin very well; French,
German, Flemish, Italian, and Spanish. His own Scotch language is as different from English
as Aragonese from Castilian. The king speaks, besides, the language of the savages who live
in some parts of Scotland and on the islands. It is as different from Scotch as Biscayan is
from Castilian" (J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, iii., p. 213). We can forgive the ambas-
sador's representation of the Highlanders because of the felicity of his philological analogies,
which Bopp himself could not describe more accurately or felicitously. (A signature of
James IV. is found in Kilravock volume of Spalding Club, p. 179.)
32
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
(See
The
the special view to benefit the remoter parts of his dominion.
Preamble of Deed of Erection, Fasti Aberdonenses, pp. 3, 4.)
historian Pinkerton has a sketch of his character (History of Scotland,
ii., p. 2), and elsewhere he describes him acrimoniously as a monarch
"whose faults were few but fatal, whose virtues were many but use-
less". The severity of this judgment ought to be modified when it
is remembered that he not only founded the third of the Scottish
Universities, but encouraged the introduction into Scotland of the
art of printing, "that art which," as Pinkerton confesses, "is the art
that preserves all the others ".
Passing from the father to the son, we find that James V. must
have been still a minor when this heraldic shield was emblazoned in
his honour. He was born in April, 1512, in the palace of Linlithgow,
being the third son of James IV. and Margaret Tudor (his two elder
brothers having died in infancy). One of the most notable facts in his
history was the circumstance that in 1537 the then Pope, Paul III.,
bestowed on him the title of "Defender of the Christian Faith "-an
appellation, however, which James V. never used. (See Statuta Eccl.
Scot., p. cxxxviii.; also J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, iii., p. 343.)
His character is darkly drawn by Knox in the History of Reformation.
Compare Pinkerton's estimate (History of Scotland, ii., pp. 292-3); also
that of William Drummond, pp. 114-5 (edition of Drummond's Works,
Ed. 1711).
Few monarchs have received more frequent homage from contem-
porary poets.
1. Ariosto, according to Drummond* (ibid., p. 115), compliments
him under the name of Zerbino, Prince of Scotland:
"Zerbino, di bellezza e di valore
Sopra tutti i signori eminente,
Di virtù esempio e di bellezza raro”.
The fine tribute in Orl. Fur., x. 84, is interesting heraldically,
though not faultless in the representation :
"Vedi tra due unicorni il gran leone,
Che la spada d'argento tra nella zampa:
* Doubt has been cast on this view of Drummond, since Ariosto published the Orlando
in 1516, before James V. had shown any quality or promise (Mickle in note on Hoole's
Ariosto, xiii., 1. 39).
LITERARY TRIBUTES TO JAMES V.
33
Quell' è del Re di Scozia il gonfalone;
Il suo figliuol Zerbino ivi s' accampa.
Non è un si bello in tante altre persone ;
Natura il fece e poi ruppe la stampa ;
Non è, in cui tal virtù, tal grazia luca,
O tal passanza; ed è di Roscia Duca."
"Yon lion, placed two unicorns between,
That rampant* with a silver sword is seen,
Is for the King of Scotland's banner known;
Zerbino there encamps, his gallant son.
No form so graceful can your eyes behold,
For Nature made him and then broke the mould.
The title of the Duke of Ross he bears,
No chief with him for dauntless mind compares."-Hoole's Ariosto.
2. Ronsard, who in his boyhood was page to James V., and spent
some time at Holyrood, has the following tribute :
"Ce roy d'Ecosse estoit en la fleur de ses ans ;
Ses cheveux non tondus comme fin or liusans,
Cordonnez et cuspez flotans dessus sa face,
Et sur son col de laict luy donnoit bonne grace.
Son Porto estoit royal, son regard vigoureux,
De vertus et d'honneur et de guerre amoureux.
La douceur et la force, illustroient son visage,
Si que Venus et Mars en avoient fait partage."
3. Sir David Lindsay's kindly reminiscence of the King's boyish
years is too well known to need citation, containing the familiar lines
("The Complaynt to the King "):
'How as ane chapman beiris his pack,
I bure thy Grace upon my back," &c.
Also the stanza in the dedication of "The Dreme":
Quhen thou wes young, I bure thee in my arme
Full tenderly, till thou begouth to gaing,
And in thy bed oft happit thee full warme
With lute in hand, syne sweetly to thee sung," &c.
* In the literature of Heraldry there is a pleasing morceau on the royal arms of Scot-
land in Francis Douglas's East Coast of Scotland. It is quoted at length in Book of Bon-
Accord, p. 217. According to Cosmo Innes (Sketches, p. 113), the arms first appear on a seal
of Alexander II. about 1235, and so Seton (Scottish Heraldry, 192, 425). John H. Burton
deals with this subject in vol. ii., p. 65, of his History of Scotland.
E
34
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 18.]
II. Sanctissime Margarete.*
St. MARGARET, Queen of Malcolm (III.) Canmore. Born 1046; died
1093. Canonised in 1249 by Pope Innocent IV.
The insertion of this name and shield in the place where we should
expect the presence of some living queen, either reigning or queen
dowager, is a feature of some note. It was not, however, till 1537 that
James V. obtained the hand of the short-lived French princess, Mag-
dalene, and thereafter came to espouse his more famous Queen, Mary
of Lorraine. The fact of the King being at this time a minor at once
explains the absence of a reigning queen, but it is difficult to explain
the omission of the living Queen Dowager, Margaret Tudor of England,
the mother of the reigning Scottish sovereign. It is true that Margaret
Tudor was not very prudent or fortunate during her widowhood, and on
one occasion, presumably later than this blazon, caused Gavin Dunbar
to be put in ward (1524), so rendering herself obnoxious in his eyes.
Over and above the lurking jealousy felt towards the English ascend-
ency, which she represented, a feeling of which we have seen traces
in the previous series, the vagrancy of her affections may account
for her being thus entirely ignored. That she acted very imprudently †
* The shield of St. Margaret is the only one of the forty-eight that can be said to
bear a tinge of sentimental "fantasy". All the rest are veritable, and legitimate, being
either of living, or recently living, personages, or of then existing corporations. This
shield alone goes outside the then "visible diurnal sphere". On the whole, it remains
true that there is a notable and creditable absence of the fantastic in this heraldic roll,
especially when it is compared with the Heraldic MS. (lately reprinted) of Sir David
Lindsay, who, in a similar array, introduces the arms of Prester John (viz., the Cruci-
fixion), those of each of the Three Kings of Cologne, besides the "Nine Worthies "-three
Jewish, three Pagan, and three Christian. The blazoned book of Sir David is, however,
considerably subsequent to the erection of this roof; and hence, we may say, the keen
sense of the Aberdonian for the actual, rejecting all "nonsense," is, in our heraldic roll,
thus early manifest.
+ Compare Sir David Lindsay on the chequered and descending personal fortunes of
this Queen Margaret (Tudor) (“Testament of Papyngo," Works, vol. i., p. 83):
Quho was more heych in honour elevate
Nor was Margareit, our heych and mychtie princess?
Sic power was to hir appropriate,
Of King and Realme she was governoress :
Yit come one change, within one schorte proces;
ST. MARGARET, THE PATRONESS OF SCOTLAND.
35
is clear from the statements vouched for by the best historians,
that "Margaret Tudor divorces Angus, flirts with Albany, and has
Henry Stuart as her paramour" (Pinkerton, History of Scotland, ii. 245).
Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather, chap. 26, has the
sarcastic witticism, "It was the fate or the folly of Queen Margaret
to form rash marriages. Like her brother, Henry VIII. of England,
who tired of his wives, Margaret seems to have been addicted to tire of
her husbands; but she had not the power of cutting the heads from the
spouses whom she desired to be rid of."
She died at Methven, near Perth, 24th November, 1541 (J. H.
Burton, iii., p. 363), and was buried in the Carthusian Church of St.
John's Town (i.e., Perth), near the tomb of James I. At the time
of her death very little anticipation was entertained of the great
succession, which, through her, was to fall in 1603 to the Stewart
line.*
Yet it is interesting to note that, according to Lord Bacon,
the shrewd eye of her father, Henry VII. of England, saw the possi-
bilities in the future that actually became realities. (See the passage
in Bacon's Life of Henry VII., toward the close, "The same year
were the espousals," &c.)
Regarding the saintly and sainted Margaret who is acknowledged
in the heraldic array, it is noteworthy that she was chosen, with the
approval of Pope Clement X., Patroness of Scotland,† and had a peculiar
pre-eminence in connection with the Royal Family as well of England as
That peirle preclare, that lusty plesand Quene
Lang tyme durst nocht in to the Court be sene."
To the ascending personal fortunes of this Queen the other great Scottish poet of the
age had on three several occasions dedicated the early incense of his muse. Witness" The
Thistle and the Rose" of William Dunbar; also his other gem of Scottish poetry on the
occasion of the Queen's visit to Aberdeen, in May, 1511, with the refrain :
"Be blyth and blisful, Brugh of Aberdeen ".
A third tribute is the poem (No. 1xxxvii. in Small's Edition of Dunbar, Scottish Texts)
beginning, "Gladethe thoue Queyne of Scottis regioun,” in which she is celebrated as the
Mergreit," i.c., pearl above all the precious stones, which he enumerates; also as the
Roys, red and quhit, resplendent of colour'
•
*The Banquo vision of the unborn kings "That two gold balls and triple sceptres
carry" (" Macbeth," IV. 1, which is Shakspere's great allusion to the Succession), belongs to
the year 1606.
+ See note of Dr. Gregor in Rolland's Court of Venus, p. 205 (Scottish Texts).
36
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
of Scotland. Born in the year 1046 in Hungary,* where her father was
then an exile, she was sister of the unfortunate Edgar Atheling and
grandniece of the Confessor, and was married to Canmore in 1067.
Besides being a Queen in Scotland, she was also the mother of three
Kings (Edgar, Alexander I., and the saintly† David). Her name
concentrates all that is impressive and imposing in a great historic
memory, surcharged, however, with a momentous change in the for-
tunes, political and ecclesiastical, of her adopted country.
It is in her time and under her influence that the centre of political
gravity shifts from the Celtic side of Scotland to the Saxon side, and
Dunstaffnage and the West may be said to yield finally to Dunferm-
line and the East. Thenceforth we hear no more of the burial of
the Scottish kings as taking place at (Hy or) Iona. Malcolm (III.)
Canmore, unlike the two previous Malcolms, is interred at Dunferm-
line, as also his Queen, and the Dalriadic associations of Royalty
with the West are entirely broken. The last known Culdee or Gaelic
Bishop of St. Andrews dies in the same year with Malcolm (III.) Can-
more (E. W. Robertson, Scotland, i., p. 174), and the Culdees thereafter
become a shadow in history. In the Royal Family the nomenclature
is no longer Celtic; among the eight children of Margaret (six sons
and two daughters), not one bears a Celtic name (Dr. Grub, Ecclesias-
tical History of Scotland, i., p. 203). What is more to be regretted is
that the old ecclesiastical associations were greatly disturbed and
obscured, and the Celtic Church of St. Columba, which had long
been fading away from internal decay, became all but obliterated
under the influence that radiated from Queen Margaret. The result,
no doubt, was greater organic unity, a new and revived spiritual life
and activity, and more of architectural and artistic ornateness than
the Celtic period can show, but these advantages were purchased at
the cost of the independence of the Scottish Church, which came more
completely under subjection to the See of Rome. (On Queen Mar-
* "Dochter to Edward, prince and heretour to England, and of Agatha, dochter to
Salomone, King of Wngarie" (Sir David Lindsay, in his Heraldic Manuscript, Edinb., 1878).
+ "Saintly," for he was never actually canonised (J. H. Burton, History of Scotland,
ii., p. 4).
+ Queen'sferry and St. Margaret's Hope are names marking the footsteps of Margaret in
the region near Dunfermline.
f
ST. MARGARET, THE PATRONESS OF SCOTLAND.
37
garet as the centre of this great "revolution," see the very favourable
remarks of Joseph Robertson, Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxv., p. 116.)
The following is the summary of Dr. John Stuart regarding this
Queen in his Book of Deer (Pref., p. cxi.):
"The portrait of the Saxon princess, as it is drawn in the pages of
Turgot, her friend and spiritual adviser, commends her to our admira-
tion as one of the purest, the most humble, and beneficent of women,
while, as a queen, she appears to have combined with her personal graces
admirable majesty of conduct and true love of her adopted country".
(Consult further regarding St. Margaret,* Statuta Eccl. Scot., i., p. xxi.;
Skene's Celtic Scotland, ii., p. 344.)
The life of Queen Margaret, by Turgot, is the main source for the
personal details of her history. Bishop Turgot, however, was not her
sole spiritual adviser; she had the honour of enjoying likewise the
counsel of Lanfranc, who, next to Anselm, and apart from Becket, is
probably the greatest name in the roll of the Archbishops of Canterbury.
The armorial bearings which are here given to St. Margaret are
those assigned to Edward the Confessor. These arms, however, are
* It must be owing to the influence which centres round the personality of Margaret
that her name has been taken as a sobriquet for the Scottish nation, and hence the wits of
Queen Anne's time speak accordingly of "Northern Peg," the sister of "John Bull ".-It is
through this Queen, as mother of Matilda, Queen of Henry I., that our Queen Victoria is
directly descended from Alfred the Great. The early links are :
Alfred.
Edward the Elder.
Edmund the Elder.
Edgar.
Ethelred.
Edmund Ironside
(Half-brother of Edward the Confessor).
Edward the Exile.
MARGARET
(Sister of Edgar Atheling, grand-daughter of Edmund Ironside).
Matilda
(Queen of Henry I., A.D. 1100, whose union eventually fused Saxon and Norman royal blood,
in the person of Henry II.).
38
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
an ex post facto creation (Arms of Attribution). Although not contem-
porary with King Edward, they are still an ancient assignation, and
there is the further interest attaching to them that the quartering of
these insignia of the Confessor with his own Norfolk arms proved fatal
to young Surrey in 1547. It may be further noted that the sainted
Margaret has here an ordinary warrior's or prince's shield. The com-
paratively modern practice of giving ladies' arms in lozenge form (except
when queens regnant in their own right), though earlier in English
heraldry, is in Scotland, as a rule (apart from the instance of the Eng-
lish Joan of Beaufort, queen of James I. of Scotland, in 1439—Seton's
Heraldry, p. 208), later than this ascription. In Sir David Lindsay's
Heraldic MS., St. Margaret has the lozenge form of shield in common
with the other queens, also the ordinary impalement of arms. In this
heraldic ceiling, however, the introduction of a single or solitary instance
of the lozenge would have been felt to disturb the symmetry.
No. 19.]
III. Albanie Ducis.
JOHN,* Duke of Albany.
This prince of the blood-royal is grandson of James II., being "son
to Alexander, Duke of Albany, the brother of James III." (William
Drummond, p. 81). The older branch bearing this title lasted only
two generations, having come to an end in the execution of Murdoch
and his sons, at the Heading Hill of Stirling, 1425. The house of
Albany, to which, under its second creation, this Duke belonged, plays
a part in Scottish history somewhat like the house of Orleans in that
of France: both houses being of the blood-royal, but each antagonistic,
either openly or covertly, if not disloyal, to the main regal stem.
"John, Duke of Albany," says Pinkerton (History of Scotland,
ii., p. 133), "son of that Alexander who has been seen attempting to
wrest the Scottish sceptre from his brother, James III., whom he
termed a bastard, cannot be supposed to have been warmly attached to
the royal race." On the 13th November, 1516, Parliament declares
'Johne Duke of Albany, lauchfull sone of the said Alex' and dame
(6
* "Carissimus consanguineus noster, Johanes Dux Albanie, marchie, Garioth, Bolonie
et Alvernie comes, Vallis Annandie et Mannie dominus." (This designation is found in a
letter of James V. to the Pope, 1st May, 1517; cf. Theiners' Vetera Monumenta, p. 520.)
SERIES OF SCOTTISH NOBLES.
39
Agnes of Bouloigne, is the secund persoun of this realme”. In his
administration during the young King's minority, he never forgot his
French birth, signing himself, accordingly, Jehan, and he was a
wretched ruler. Hence he quitted the country on 20th May, 1524,
"loaded with the execrations of a people oppressed by the exactions.
and stung with the ignominy of his government ".
Only in Sir David Lindsay do we find anything like a slightly
favourable breeze of contemporary opinion about this Duke, viz., in the
"Papyngo," where he is styled "the prudent Duke of Albanie"; and
Douglas, in his Peerage of Scotland, characterises him, strangely, as a
"wise, brave, and virtuous prince ".
IV. Marchiar. Comitis.
DUNBAR, Earl of March. †
[No. 20.
The last of the Dunbars who held this title was George, eleventh
Earl, subjected to forfeiture in 1434. The next we hear of the title is
its bestowal on Alexander, Duke of Albany, in 1478; but, he having
also forfeited it through rebellion, the dignity reverted to the Crown.
James VI. conferred it on Robert Stewart, second son of the Earl
of Lennox. In the Scottish Peerage the name survives in the title of
Earl of Wemyss and March. The title of Earl of March also appears
among the honours of the Lennox stem of the ducal house of Gordon.
This is the highest in rank among the then existing Scottish
earldoms, but it was one of those that had been crushed by James I.,
as is referred to with more detail under (Mar) No. VIII. (On Cospatric ‡
(usually explained as Comes Patricius), who got from Malcolm III. (Can-
more) the castle of Dunbar, and became the ancestor of the noble family
of Dunbar, long prominent among the barons of the South as Earls of
Lothian or March, see E. W. Robertson, Scotland, &c., i., p. 138.)
* In Skelton, the English contemporary laureate, will be found scurrilous satires on
this Duke of Albany and on Scotland at same time. Medals in honour of this Duke appear
in Mr. Cochran-Patrick's Medals of Scotland, pp. 35, 36.
(6
+ The designation from the "March," or Marches" (of which there were three-East,
Middle, and West), was not confined to one family, and hence there is liability to confusion.
Albany we find declared "Earl of March
Earl of March" (W. Drummond, p. 83), and “Lord Home, in
James IV.'s time, is warden of all the Marches" (Pinkerton, ii., p. 93).
Gospatric is a rival spelling, well authenticated.
40
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 21.]
V. Moravie Comitis Randulphi.
The arms of Randolph, Earl of Moray, the same as those illus-
triously described by Froissart. The title was now held by James
Stewart, natural son of James IV. by the Lord Kennedy's daughter.
He was created by letters patent in 1501, and held it till 1544, when,
by his death without male issue, it reverted to the Crown. After a
short bestowal upon the Earl of Huntly, it was given to another
natural son of royalty, viz., James Stewart, Prior of St. Andrews,
who plays so prominent a part as the Regent Moray in the time of
his ill-fated half-sister, Queen Mary.
The then existing Earl of Moray is here ignored by Gavin Dunbar,
who gives effect to the older associations binding the title to Randolph,
the friend of Robert Bruce in the Independence struggle. Being a
native of the county of Moray and also of the lineage of Randolph,
Gavin Dunbar was no doubt jealous of the due honour appertaining to
such an earldom.
The history of this earldom goes deep into the early annals of Scot-
land. Among the salient points may be observed, (1) the extinction of
the Celtic earldom, or rather kingship, in 1130, when David I. crushed
the rebellion of Angus, Earl of Moray, at the battle of Stracathro
(Skene's Celtic Scotland, iii., p. 7); (2) thereafter, its suppression till the
time of Bruce, who bestowed it upon his nephew, Randolph; and
(3) lastly, the struggle for the earldom in the reign of Queen Mary, a
contest in which the house of Huntly was nearly overthrown.
No. 22.]
VI. Douglasie Comitis.
Recognition is here given to the first or earliest stem of Douglases,*
called the "Black" Douglases, who rose into eminence after the time
* On the "Bloody Heart" in the Douglas shield, see the ballad of the "Battle of
Otterbourne" (Bishop Percy text):
"The blodye harte in the Dowglas arms,
Hys standerde stode on hye;
That every man myght full well knowe;
By syde stode starres thre.
The whyte Lyon on the Ynglysh parte,
Forsoth, as I you sayne,
SERIES OF SCOTTISH NOBLES.
4I
of the good Sir James Douglas, Robert Bruce's friend, but at this period
their fortunes were shattered and broken. The last of these earls was
James, ninth Earl of Douglas, who, after the misfortunes of his house
in the rebellion of 1455, escaped to England, and finally retired to
the Abbey of Lindores, and died a monk in 1488. With him the title
ended, and there was, therefore, no Earl of Douglas at this period; and
the title seems here retained only as the shadow of the mighty name.
VII. Angusie Comitis.
**
[No. 23.
ARCHIBALD, sixth Earl of Angus. Succeeded 1514; died 1556.
The coat armorial is here not that of the Douglas, the then Earl
of Angus, one of whose line figures so prominently in "Marmion,'
but of the Umfravilles,† who held that earldom a long period before.
Still, this rank and place, though not the arms, must belong to the
representative of the Red Douglases of the time-viz., Archibald, ‡
sixth Earl of Angus.
The earldom of Angus passed to the house of Douglas by marriage
The lucetts and the cressaunts both ;
The Skotts faught them agayne."
The blazon is tolerably correct, except that "Above stode starres thre" would now be
more accurate than "By syde". See the interesting note of Bishop Percy on the heraldry
of the passage.
The date of the battle was 5th August, 1388, but the date of the
poem was probably under Henry VI., from 1422-61.
* Compare the lines of Sir David Lindsay, quoted under No. VII., beneath.
+ On the mystic meaning of the "cinque-foil," as betokening the five senses and their
mastery, as under control, see Guillim, p. 116.
‡ The vicissitudes in the fortunes of the house of Douglas, in both “Black” and “Red”
branches, struck the contemporary age. Witness these lines, in the "Testament of the
Papyngo" (anno 1530), by Sir D. Lindsay:
Quhare bene the douchty Erlis of Dowglas,
Quhilkis royallie in to this region rang? [i.c., reigned]
Forfalt, and slane, quhat nedith more proces?
The Erle of Marche wes merschellit tham amang;
Dame Curia thame dulefullie doun thrang ;
And now, of lait, quho clam more heych amang us [i.e., clomb or climbed]
Nor did Archebalde, umquhyle the Erle of Angus?"
-Sir D. Lindsay's Works (Ed. 1871), vol. i., p. 84.
F
42
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
about 1381. From George, third son of William, first Earl of Doug-
las, the Douglas house of Angus lineally descended. The bestowal
upon this house of Angus of the territory appertaining to the Earl of
Douglas was a political error, which reproduced in the younger line
the same exorbitant ascendency which had been so harshly repressed
in the elder line (Pinkerton, i., p. 238).
The Earl contemporary with Bishop Dunbar is grandson of
Àrchibald,* " Bell the Cat," whom he succeeded in the earldom direct,
owing to the death of the heir, his father, at Flodden. He played an
important but wayward part in the politics of the time. He married the
Queen-mother, Margaret Tudor, by whom he had issue, Lady Margaret
Douglas, afterwards the mother of Darnley. In this succession, there-
fore, Darnley was grandson of Angus, and through him the blood of his
grandfather Angus passed into the line of the Stewart kings who reigned
in England, beginning with Darnley's son, James VI.† This Angus,
the progenitor of kings, was vain and arrogant, a cruel, thoughtless
man, and his quarrel with his wife, the Queen Dowager, was one of the
scandals of a scandalous age. His character is found in W. Drummond
(p. 82), where a full-length contemporary portrait of his character is
given, as painted to Albany by Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews.
* The Angus who is "Bell the Cat" figures, in 1495, together with William, Bishop
of Aberdeen, as witness to a royal charter of James IV. (Collections on the Shires of Aberdeen
and Banff, p. 263), as "Comes Angusie, Dominus Dowglas ".
+ Earl of Angus + Margaret Tudor.
Lady Margaret Douglas.
m. Matthew, Earl of Lennox.
James IV. + Margaret Tudor.
James V.
Henry, Lord Darnley-
+
m. Mary of Lorraine.
1
-Queen Mary Stuart.
James VI. (I. of England).
On this descent from Margaret Tudor, Sir Robert Gordon shrewdly remarks (Earldom
of Sutherland, p. 249):
"Ther succeeded therfor to the kingdome of England James the Sixth descended
of the same Margaret, both by father and mother; so that by a rare event in the
pedigries of Kings, it seemed as iff the divyne Provydence (to extinguish and take away all
invy and note of a stranger) had doubled upon his person within the circuit of one aige, the
royal blood of England to both parents". It is worthy of remark that the name of Stewart
for the English section of the dynasty (James I., Charles I., &c.), comes, not, as most people
deem or assume, through the mother, Queen Mary, but through the father, Darnley, who also
was a Stewart.
SERIES OF SCOTTISH NOBLES.
43
VIII. Marrie Comitis.
[No. 24.
The earldom * of Mar, with the old earldoms of Strathern, March,
and Lennox, had been crushed down by the first James, in order that
its power and territories might be absorbed under the Crown. Accord-
ingly, since 1435, the earldom had been in a kind of interregnum, more
or less of an appanage to the royal house of Stewart. There was a
strange fatality attending it: "Every one of the three Stewart Earls
[to whom it was successively granted] was cut off, either in the bud or
in the flower of his age. The dignity appeared to revolt against con-
tinued existence except in the lawful line." The last Earl of Mar, in the
period preceding 1520, was John Stewart, third son of James III. He
died in 1502, at the age of seventeen. (See "Kalendar of Ferne," in
Bishop Forbes' Kalendars, &c., p. xxviii.) After his death there was no
attempt at regranting the title, either under James IV. or James V., until
Queen Mary's reign. After an erroneous temporary concession of it, in
1561-2, to her illegitimate brother, James Stewart, Prior of St. Andrews,
which concession was subsequently withdrawn, Mary ultimately, in 1565,
restored, or professed to restore, the old line in the family of Erskine,
heir-general to the ancient earldom. (This earldom, in abeyance in
1520, seems here retained in this heraldic array, partly for old associa-
tions, as coming down from the Pictish time, and partly as territorially
located in the district of Aberdeen.) In later time John, eleventh Earl
of Mar (attainted in 1716), was made Duke of Mar in 1715 by the
Chevalier St. George, and through his vaulting ambition the earldom
came under a cloud, from which, through various Parliamentary vicis-
situdes, it has only recently emerged.†
* Ariosto (Orl. Fur., x. 85; also xvi. 55), by a singular second sight of the future evanescent
titular honour, has strangely got hold of, among the Scottish chiefs, a “Duca di Marra, Che
nel travaglio porta il leopardo ".
+ Much interest attaches to the fateful history of this earldom, of which there are traces
as far back as A.D. 1014. The two volumes of the late accomplished Earl of Crawford on the
Mar peerage-question exhibit the points at issue; and the championship which he has
bestowed on the claim of the heir-general inheriting through the female goes deep into the
Scottish history both of the Celtic and Pictish periods. Of this earldom of Mar, Lord
Crawford says:
"It is the only survivor of the ancient, I may say prehistoric, mormaerships of
Scotland its extinction would be tantamount to the loss of one of the brightest jewels
which adorn the British crown, and I cannot consent to see it crushed down unjustly "
44
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 25.]
IX. Sutherlan. Comitis.
ADAM (GORDON), fourteenth Earl of Sutherland.
About the year 1514, Gordons came in to succeed the "Souther-
lans". The succession fell, on the death of her brother, John, ninth
Earl, without legitimate issue, to Elizabeth Sutherland, wife of Adam
Gordon of Aboyne, and her husband, by the custom of the age, assumed
the title. From them descended Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, wife
of the Marquis of Stafford, who was created in 1833 Duke of Sutherland
in the peerage of the United Kingdom. The stars of De Moravia in the
Sutherland shield have thus shone long and far. This Adam, fourteenth
Earl, died in Aboyne, 1537, and was there buried, leaving the reputation
of being "a very provident, valiant, and wyse man" (Sir R. Gordon,
Earldom of Sutherland, p. 106). The same authority says quaintly
regarding him: "This Adam, Earle of Southerland, and his brother,
Alexander, Earle of Huntlie, did both live to bury their eldest sones,
gentlemen of singular hope and of great expectation, which office by
course of nature they should have executed to their fathers" (ibid., p. 183).
No. 26.]
X. Crafurdie Comitis.
DAVID,* eighth Earl of Crawford; Earl from 1517-1542.
The head of the house of Lindsay succeeded on the death of his
father, Alexander, seventh Earl, who died in 1517. This earldom
(dating from 1388) is of note as having been "the third created since
the extinction of the Celtic dynasty, that of Douglas (created by David
(Lord Crawford's Earldom of Mar, i., p. 40). [In calling it the only survivor, the noble
writer seems to have overlooked the title of Sutherland in this regard.]
So (i., p. 176) his Lordship quotes Mr. Riddell in corroboration, who says:
"Mar is not only now the oldest Scottish earldom by descent, but in many respects the
most remarkable in the Empire; for the present Earl [1842] is the direct heir-at-law, through
a long and illustrious ancestry, of persons who were Earls of Mar ab initio, and never known
under any other character.
*
"Certa retro series' comitum, 'sed cujus origo
Oceani cum fonte latet.'"
In Sir D. Lindsay's "Squyer Meldrum" occurs the line:
'First, David Erll of Craufuird, wise and wicht".
SERIES OF SCOTTISH NOBLES.
45
II.) having been the second, and that of Moray (created by Robert
Bruce) the first" (Lives of the Lindsays, vol. i., p. 97).
In 1489, the title of Duke of Montrose was bestowed on the then
fourth Earl of Crawford, but only for the life of the holder (Douglas,
Peerage of Scotland, p. 158). In the roll of Parliament of 1489 appears
"Dux de Montross" at the head of the "Barones" or Nobility.
XI. Huntlie Comitis.
Alexander, third Earl of Huntly. Died 1523.
[No. 27.
This Earl Alexander, head of the house of Gordon, is the elder
brother of Adam Gordon, who became Earl of Sutherland by his
marriage with the heiress of the Sutherlands. (See No. IX.)
The original family of Gordon, which proceeded from the Borders,
bringing thence the name of Huntly, came, in respect to its eldest
branch, to a close in the male line in the person of Sir Adam Gordon
("Dominus de Gordon et Huntly "), killed at the battle of Homildon
in 1402.
He left an only daughter, Elizabeth, who married Sir
Alexander Seton, second son of Sir William Seton of that Ilk,
ancestor of the Earls of Winton. This Sir Alexander Seton obtained
charters in which he was designed "Alexander Seton, Lord of Gordon
and Huntly". The son of Sir Alexander Seton* and Elizabeth Gordon
* The representation of the Gordons in the male succession is believed to belong to the
Gordons of Pitlurg. The titled houses bearing in our day the dukedom and the marquisate are
known to be properly Setons, and it is still common to hear them spoken of around the firesides
of the North as the "Seton-Gordons". The circumstance is of some note, as we learn that the
great ornament of their name and line, Lord Byron, has left it on record, that his mother (née
Miss Gordon of Gight) made this a point of pride as to her ancestral line: "My mother,"
says the poet, was as haughty as Lucifer with her descent from the Stuarts and her right
line from the old Gordons-not the Seyton-Gordons, as she disdainfully termed the ducal
branch". The poet, when a boy, according to Moore, his biographer, made himself out and
out a Scotsman (Life, chap. 12), insisting on being called "George Byron Gordon ". It is a
misfortune that the poet did not persevere in this resolve, as in that case the laurel of the
Muse would have wreathed with yet more conspicuous lustre the great Aberdeenshire name.
[This shows, I fear, that Mrs. Gordon Byron was indifferently versed in her own pedigree, as
the Gordons of Gight were indubitably "Seton-Gordons," descending from Sir William
Gordon, son of George, second Earl of Huntly, and the Princess Annabella Stuart. Sir
William received Gight from his father, who acquired it from the daughters of Sir Patrick
Maitland of Gight.-Note by Correspondent.]-Seal of this third Earl of Huntly, 1503, in
Laing's Scottish Seals, ii., p. 72.
46
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
is Alexander, Lord Gordon, who is created Earl of Huntly in 1449,
and performs at the battle of Brechin the service of "keeping the
king's crown on the king's head" by crushing the rebellious movement
of Earl Crawford, confederate with Earl Douglas. The ducal house of
Gordon and the marquisate of Huntly, which are afterwards to diverge,
are as yet both in the loins of this Earl.
No. 28.]
XII. Archadie Comitis.
COLIN, third Earl of Argyle. Succeeded 1513; died 1533.
His father, the previous Earl (Archibald, second Earl), fell at
Flodden. He is the chief of the Clan Campbell, whose representative
appears in the roll of the Barons in Robert Bruce's time (see p. 50).
The Celtic title of MacCailin* Mor signifies "son of the great Colin,"
a chieftain who flourished about the year 1300.
No. 29.]
XIII. Erolie Comitis.
WILLIAM, Sixth Earl of Errol. Son of the fifth Earl, who perished at
Flodden in 1513.
He is the head of the house of Hay,† and hereditary Constable ‡ of
Scotland. The title is derived from the parish of Errol, near Perth,
* "MacCallum More," though now imbedded in our literature, is a mistake in form,
being one of Sir Walter's venial mistakes in Gaelic transliterations. It is unfortunate that his
genius has stamped its indelible impression on what is an error; for "Callum" is Celtic for
Malcolm," whereas the potent chief from whom the race of Campbell received its great pro-
pulsion bore the name of "Colin". (The Gallic “Cailean or "Colin" is said to be only
another form of "Cuilean," "whelp ".)
+ The classical scholar will turn to Buchanan's charming narrative of the story (Hist.,
Book vi.) and will not feel less enjoyment because of the croak of the historical critic as to the
anachronism of a surname introduced before surnames yet were (E. W. Robertson, Scotland,
&c., i., p. 117). The reference to "the Arms" is in these words: "Insignia ferenda, uti mos
est nobilitati, data: scutum argenteum, in cujus solo tria scuta rubricata insunt ". The motto
of the family," Serva jugum," alludes to the "yoke of the plough," said to have been used so
effectually by the husbandman and his two sons.—About this motto a curious local jest was
once current. Some forty years ago a tavern in the hollow of Spital exhibited the Errol arms
with the Latin motto in full display. The jocular students of those days regularly rendered
it accordingly, "Serve the jug," much to the satisfaction of the Boniface within.
Constable is from the French "Connestabile," from "Comes stabuli ".
SERIES OF SCOTTISH NOBLES.
47
and tradition, or rather fable, strives to connect the rise of the family
with that locality, at the battle of the "Leys o' Luncarty" against the
Danes about A.D. 980. The legend as to the sudden services in battle of
the peasant and his sons is the same story as appears in "Cymbeline"
(Act v., Sc. 3) (Lives of Lindsays, Pref., p. xviii.). [It is worthy of
note that Ariosto (Orl. Fur., x. 87) has heard of the "Conte d'Erelia "
-i.e., Errol-among the Scottish chiefs.]
[The real origin of the house must be sought for in the rise of the
great Norman "de la Hayes," whose name appears in the roll of
Battle Abbey, and who were great manorial seigneurs in England
before David I. brought his Southern friends in such numbers north-
ward. A protest must, therefore, be entered against the story of Boece,
who boldly derives them from a "Celtic savage race, yet represented
as ploughing where ploughs were unheard of for centuries later".] In
Barbour, the name is always "de la Haye,” and see No. 18 in the roll
of Bruce's Barons, p. 50.
XIV. Mariscalli Comitis.
[No. 30.
WILLIAM, third Earl Marischal.* Succeeded about 1510; died 1530.
Head of the house of Keith. Had charge of the young prince,
James V., in his minority, in the castle of Edinburgh, 1520.
* The function of the Marischal or "Marc-scalc" (i.e., horse-servant; cf. schal of sene-
schal) was originally, like that of the Constable, connected with the royal stable. In
the Salic Law the "Maréchal" is counted among the "un-frei" servitors, and is coupled
with the "faber ferrarius" or "smith," important precursor of the engineer of our day.
In a still more primitive state of society, as in that of ancient Thrace, the king is on a level
with his groom (Mòntaigne, i., chap. 40). The duties of such an officer increased in dignity
with the growing importance of the chevalerie, until at last the name has assumed the form
of "Marshal," ""Field-Marshal," or commander of the whole army, and so has virtually
become in modern times the highest military title. In ancient days the "Magister Equitum
in Rome seemed at one time likely to attain an importance like that of the "Marischal
in medieval times, but the cavalry played an inferior rôle relatively in the Roman military
economy, and so the "Magister Equitum" under Rome subsided eventually into comparative
obscurity. (See E. W. Robertson (Scotland, &c., i., pp. 313, 315), who thinks it a composite
word, with the first part (i.e., marc ") Celtic, the second Teutonic-i.e., "schalk". But
Dieffenbach considers the German form of Marschal, Seneschal, &c., to have been borrowed
by the Germans from the Romance Nations). The ascent in dignity of the name "Marshal
is worth noting, in contrast with the descent in dignity of the title "Constable," unless we
bring in the "Provost-Marshal," with his coercive functions, to redress the balance,
"
48
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
The Scottish form of this title bears homage to the French
"Maréchal" rather than to the English dissyllabic "Marshal ".
On the various and chequered fortunes of this house-the sole
family among the nobles of Scotland that had the exclusive honour of
founding a College which grew into a University-see Collections on
Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, pp. 191-2, Sp. Cl.
No. 31.]
XV. Bochtuil[i]e Comitis.
PATRICK HEPBURN, Earl of Bothwell. Succeeded 1513;* died 1533.†
Father of the Patrick (third Earl of Bothwell) who, in Pitscottie's
picturesque narrative of the palace gossip of the time, is the rival of the
Earl of Lennox for favour at the Court of Mary of Guise. He is also
the grandfather of the notorious James, last Earl of Bothwell, the
husband of Queen Mary, who created him Duke of Orkney.
The creation of this ill-fated earldom‡ was effected under special
circumstances contrasting sorely with its lurid eclipse, after a century, in
gloom and shame. In the Acts of Parliament of 1488 appears a formal
deed setting forth the virtues of nobility in the case of "Patricius,"
who, using his great ascendency which he acquired with the young
King after the battle of Sauchie, is created Earl, "and is girt with a
sword, as the manner is, in order that himself and his heirs may in all
time coming shine fulgeant with the dignity of Earl" (Acts of Parlia-
ment of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 206).
No. 32.]
XVI. Nove Aberdonie.
THE CITY OF ABERDeen.
The three towers on the shield have been thought to be significant
* The previous Earl, who fell at Flodden (1513), figures in the poem of " Flodden Field,"
edited by Henry Weber (8vo, Edinb., 1808), p. 111.
+ Died 1534 (Sir R. Douglas, Peerage of Scotland).
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh says quaintly: "It was hereditary to the house of
Hailes to be kind to the widow Queens, as Patrick to Queen Jean, widow of King James I.;
his son to Queen Mary of Gelderland; Patrick, Earl of Bothwell, to Queen Mary of Lorraine,
widow of King James V.; his son to Queen Mary" (Cosmo Innes, in National Manu-
scripts of Scotland, part iii., No. xxiv.).
ROLL OF NOBILITY IN TIME OF BRUCE.
49
of the triple hills (Collections on Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, pp. 43,
124-5, Sp. Cl.), formerly within the Burgh, viz., Castle-hill, Gallow-
hill, or Port-hill, and St. Catherine's-hill. (See Mr. Farquhar Shand's
Preface to Bishop Patrick Forbes' Funerals, p. xxiv., Spottiswood Club.)
In p. 20 of Parson Gordon's Description of both Towns of Aberdeen
(Sp. Cl.) is found a detailed description, not entirely accurate, of the
arms of the city.
** ROLL OF SCOTTISH NOBILITY IN TIME OF ROBERT BRUCE, 1320.
From the famous letter of Barons of Scotland to Pope John
XXII.,* who was one of the Avignon series of Popes and of French
origin. In this document, which was drawn up at the Abbey of
Arbroath in justification of the Scottish claim to political independ-
ence, we have the muster roll of the nobility of Scotland at a date
exactly two centuries before the period when Gavin Dunbar designed
the heraldic ceiling. The Bishops and clergy are not included, pro-
bably as having already given, as early as 1309, under circumstances
indicating still greater courage, long before the fortunes of Bruce
came to be assured, a similar declaration in favour of the Bruce
(found as No. xvii. of Part v. of National Manuscripts of Scotland).
(The County of Angus has also the honour of being the scene where
this earlier declaration on the part of the clergy was enacted. It
was framed at the Church of the Friars Minors at Dundee.)
1. Duncanus, Comes de Fyfe.
2. Thomas Ranulphi, Comes Moraviæ, Dominus Manniæ et
Vallis Anandiæ.
* See National Manuscripts of Scotland, Part ii., No. xxiv.-This great document, of
which our Scottish nation has reason to be proud, is among the most memorable State Papers
ever penned in the annals of any kingdom. It is simply magnificent in its comparison of
Robert Bruce to Judas Machabæus, and is ever memorable for the declaration that even if
Robert Bruce were to give up the struggle for independence they would disown and depose
him. As a piece of composition, it ought to be studied in every Grammar School in Scot-
land; and Cosmo Innes applauds the schoolmaster who used this letter as an exercise for
his boys in Latin, holding that its patriotism atoned for any defects in its Latinity.—From
such inspiration Barbour no doubt drew his patriotic outburst, "Ah, fredome is a nobil
thing!"
G
萋
​50
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
3. Patricius de Dunbar, Comes Marchiæ.
4. Malisius, Comes de Strathern.
5. Malcolmus, Comes de Levenax.
6. Willielmus, Comes de Ross.
7. Magnus, Comes Cathaniae et Orcadiæ.
8. Willielmus, Comes Sutherlandiæ.
9. Walterus, Senescallus Scotia.
10. Willielmus de Soules, Battelarius Scotiæ.
II. Jacobus, Dominus de Douglas.
12. Rogerus de Moubray.
13. David Dominus de Brechine.
14. David de Grahame.
15. Ingelramus de Umfraville.
16. Joannes de Meneteith, Custos Comitatus de Meneteith.
17. Alexander Frazer.
18. Gilbertus de Haia, Constabularius Scotia.
19. Robertus de Keith, Mariscallus Scotia.
20. Henricus de Sancto Claro.
21. Joannes de Grahame.
22. David de Lindesey.
23. Willielmus Olifant.
24. Patricius de Grahame.
25. Joannes de Fenton.
26. Willielmus de Abernethie.
27. David de Weyms.
28. Willielmus de Monte Fixo.*
29. Fergusius de Ardrosan.
*
30. Eustachius de Maxwell.
31. Willielmus de Ramsay.
32. Willielmus de Monte Alto.†
33. Alanus de Moravia.
34. Dowenaldus Campbell.
35. Joannes Camburn.‡
Probably Mount-Fitchet.
+ Probably = Monhaut, or Mowat, perhaps from Mont-haut in Brittany on the frontier
of Normandy.
Probably Cambroun,
=
ROLL OF NOBILITY IN TIME OF BRUCE.
51
36. Reginaldus de Chen.
37. Alexander de Seton.
38. Andreas de Lescelyne.
39. Et Alexander de Straton.
(Caeterique Barones et Libere tenentes, &c.)*
* The student of Scottish History will find in the examination of this Roll many points
of great interest in contrast with the Roll of nobility which we have been considering, as it
appears emblazoned two centuries later in the Heraldic Ceiling. We can only briefly note
meantime the presence here of some of the old Pictish earldoms still surviving (Fife,
Strathern), but now being broken in upon by the newer creations, such as Randolph, Earl
of Moray; the rise of families of hereditary officials not yet in the titled Peerage, Steward,
Constable, Butler, &c.; the absence of the house of Gordon, who are still in vassalage to
the Earls of March, and who joined Bruce later; the advent of the yet untitled houses
of Douglas, Lindsay, Grahame (three entries), St. Clair, &c., and of the Norman families,
engrafted on Celtic stems, such as Frazer or Frisel, and also the great race of Campbell.
END OF SERIES OF SCOTTISH ROYALTY AND NOBILITY.
CHAPTER V.
ECCLESIÆ SCOTICANÆ EPISCOPORUM SERIES.
No. 33.]
SCOTTISH ECCLESIASTICAL DIGNITIES.-CENTRE Row.
I. Pontificis Romani.*
POPE LEO X. (1513-21).
THE Roman Pontiff who is contemporary with the erection of the
heraldic ceiling is Giovanni de' Medici, otherwise Leo X., whom,
therefore, Gavin Dunbar has placed as the Head of the Church, and
consequently of the Scottish Hierarchy. He was the second son of
Lorenzo the Magnificent,† and became the pupil of Politian; was
born at Florence in 1475, and died on the 1st December, 1521, after
a Pontificate of eight years eight months and twenty days. He
was the first of the Medici family to attain the Tiara.
The age in which he appeared was the period when art was being
breathed upon by the spirit of antiquity, and the Renaissance on the
*
* The three fleurs-de-lis on one of the torteaux in orle," or, as they are rather styled,
'palle" or balls, in this pontifical shield, are memorable, as showing the intimate alliance
"entre la maison de France et celle de Medicis". Montaigne remarks, in his visit to
Florence (Voyages, ii. 56), that throughout the city, and notably in the palace, "les
fleurs-de-lis tiennent le premier rang d'honneur ". It was Louis XI. who, in 1465, as
Lorenzo himself says (Roscoe, Life of Lorenzo, p. 493), "in acknowledgment of the
friendship between our family and the house of France, decorated our arms with three golden
fleurs-de-lis on a field azure, which we now bear. I have the King's letters patent by me,
with his seal attached."-In Leo X.'s Pontifical seal, the Medici arms are given without the
French appendage (Trésor Numismatique, Sceaux des Communes, &c., p. 40).
+ Giovanni's mother was one of the Orsini family, which gave occasion to various
epigrams on the singular descent of a Leo from an Ursa.
POPE LEO X.
53
south side of the Alps was in full development. As the patron of art
and letters, Leo X. occupies an epoch-making position, and hence the
apostrophe of Pope :
"But see, each muse in Leo's golden days
Starts from her trance and trims her withered bays".
Notwithstanding the blaze of splendour that now surrounds his
name, it is remarkable that the recent rise of his house from the ranks
of the mercantile aristocracy was regarded in his own age as that of
parvenus, and our own Mary, who had felt the hauteur of Catherine
de' Medici at the French Court, once let fall the gibe that she (Cathe-
rine) was none other than "a merchant's daughter" (figlia d'un
mercante) (Jos. Robertson's Inventories, &c., p. xv.). This house,
however, was destined to give three occupants to the Papal Chair
subsequent to Leo X. (viz., Clement VII., Pius IV., and Leo XI.),
a larger number than any other single Italian family can boast of
having supplied.
The Popedom in Leo's time, is now at its culminating point of
power and splendour.* Territorially considered, the Roman See had
in immediate dependence, at the time of Leo X., a larger portion of
Italy than at any other single period that can be named. Tuscany had
come as a patrimonial appanage to the States of the Church, so that
Central Italy was in entire subjection to the Papal sway. As regards
his intellectual position, Leo himself does much to favour the advance
of science, as well as of art and literature. He prepares the way for
the Gregorian reform of the Calendar, receives the dedication, under the
Greek verses of Musurus, of the Editio Princeps of Plato, accepts, in his
early days as Cardinal, the same honour from Erasmus in the dedica-
tion of the Greek New Testament, is the ardent patron of Greek
learning, indites Latin iambic verses upon occasion, and is in his time
the centre and leader of the Renaissance, a movement which was
ultimately to dissolve the more visible links of the Papal power. The
irony of history has been seldom seen in a form so notable-the chief
"
* The words of Erasmus may justify the ascription: 'Quantum Romani Pontificis
fastigium inter reliquos mortales eminet, tantum LEO inter Romanos pontifices excellit"
(Erasmus, Epist. 30).
54
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
magician busy in dissolving the spell by which he held the world.
enchained.*
In forming a judgment of the character of Leo X., we can only
allude in general terms to the estimates, more or less favourable,
advanced by such Northern authors as Ranke or Roscoe. The delinea-
tions by his own countrymen, Paul Sarpi and Pallavicini, are of more
interest and value, and deserve to be given at large, as being carefully
drawn but mutually confirmatory portraitures by rival and in some
respects antagonistic artists. They are as follows:
"Leo X.," says Paul Sarpi, "displayed singular proficiency in
polite literature, wonderful humanity, benevolence and mildness; the
greatest liberality and an extreme inclination to favour excellent and
learned men; insomuch that for a long course of years, no one had sat
on the pontifical throne that could in any degree be compared to him.
He would indeed have been a perfect pontiff, if to these accomplish-
ments he had united some knowledge in matters of religion, and a
greater inclination to piety, to neither of which he appeared to pay
any great attention."
These animadversions of Fra Paolo are thus adverted to by his
opponent Pallavicini, who has entered very fully into the consideration
of this part of the character of Leo X. "It has been asserted by Paolo,"
says this writer, "that Leo was better acquainted with profane litera-
ture than with that called sacred, and which appertains to religion, in
which I by no means contradict him. Having received from God a
most capacious mind and a studious disposition, and finding himself
* Ariosto's grand stanza in his honour shows a sense of the gathering storms then encir-
cling the Pontifical throne :
"Tu, gran Leone, a cui premon le terga
Delle chiave del Ciel le gravi some," &c.—Orl. Fur., xvii. 79.
Thus translated by Hoole :
"Thou, mighty Leo, to whose hand is given
The glorious charge to bear the keys of Heaven,
If thine the trust our Italy to keep,
Let her not perish in lethargic sleep:
Thou art her shepherd: God on thee bestows
The sacred crook, and, Leo, thee He chose,
That thy loud roar might terror round extend,
And thy strong arm thy sheep from wolves defend ".
POPE LEO X.
55
whilst yet almost in his infancy placed in the supreme senate of the
Church, Leo was wanting in his duty by neglecting to cultivate that
department of literature, which is not only the most noble, but was the
most becoming his station. This defect was more apparent when, being
constituted at thirty-seven years of age the president and chief of the
Christian religion, he not only continued to devote himself to the
curiosity of profane studies, but even called into the Sanctuary of
religion itself those who were better acquainted with the fables of Greece
and the delights of poetry, than with the history of the Church and the
doctrines of the fathers. Nor will I affirm," says the same author,
"that he was as much devoted to piety as his station required, nor
undertake to commend or to excuse all the conduct of Leo X., because
to pass over that which exists in suspicion, rather than in proof [as
scandal always delights to affix her spots on the brightest characters,
that their deformity may be more apparent], it is certain that the
attention which he paid to the chase,* to amusements, and to pompous
exhibitions, although it might in part be attributed to the manners of
the age, in part to his high rank, and in part to his own natural dispo-
sition, was no slight imperfection in one who had attained that eminence
among mankind which requires the utmost degree of perfection."
It was from this pope (Leo X.) that Gavin Dunbar received his
promotion to the See of Aberdeen, and hence the place of honour here
accorded to him. The erector of the ceiling lived to see two other Popes
ascend the Pontifical Chair-viz., Adrian VI., in 1522, and Clement
VII., in 1523. The last, indeed, outlived Bishop Dunbar by two years,
having survived to 1534. It was at this time that the final change
took place whereby only Italians have been preferred to the Pontificate,
Adrian VI., a native of Utrecht, the tutor of Charles V., having been
the last occupant of the Papal See, not of Italian birth.t
* Without dwelling on the darker insinuations descending from Leo's time as to his
character and Pagan or infidel opinions, it does appear that his addiction to the pleasures of
the chase is vouched for under the best testimony, as the following note (Roscoe, vol. ii., p.
510) shows, describing his attire on these occasions: "Fuit cum stola, sed pejus sine rochetto,
et quod pessimum, cum stivalibus sive ocreis (greaves or leggin's) in pedes, munitus ". Re-
garding his personal appearance generally, see Roscoe (vol. ii. 355 and 377).
+ Not a few Spaniards and Frenchmen in the middle ages rose to the Papal Chair, but
none from the British Isles, except once, in the case of an Englishman (Breakspear), whom
we shall have to refer to afterwards, and who, in his actings as Pope, did not forget that he
56
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 34.]
II. Sanctiand. Archiep.
Archbishop ANDREW FORMAN (1514-22).
The Archiepiscopal See of St. Andrews* was then held by Andrew
Forman or Foreman, son of Foreman of Hutton in Berwickshire;
previously Archbishop of Bourges, in the centre of France, and, in
Scotland, Bishop of Moray. Was Primate and Legate, and a great
pluralist, who brought discredit on the Romish Hierarchy. Before
1472 the See was only episcopal; for, although many attempts were
made to obtain the Pallium from the Pope, and even the "sore sanct to
the crown," King David, endeavoured to secure the concession, the
English influence at the Court of Rome was always successful in pre-
venting any acknowledgment of any of the Scottish ecclesiastical
dignitaries as Archbishop and Metropolitan; until at length Sixtus IV.
raised St. Andrews in that year (1472) to the rank of an Archbishopric.
The dignitary, now occupying the See, was largely employed in
public capacities and embassies. Among other offices of trust he had
acted as one of the three Scottish commissioners charged to negotiate
the marriage of Margaret Tudor with James IV., on which so much
was to hinge in aftertime. (See Pinkerton, ii., pp. 39, 65, 85-6; also
William Drummond, p. 82.)
The contest for the Archiepiscopal See of St. Andrews, consequent
on the death of Elphinston, who had been nominated to that high
position, which, however, he never filled, was fierce and animated.
Hepburn, the Prior of St. Andrews, and Gawain Douglas, Bishop of
was an Englishman. He is known in the line of Popes under the name of Adrian IV.
Alexander V. was nearly another instance; but though a graduate of Oxford-the sole
graduate of either English University that wore the Tiara-he was by birth a Cretan. Thus
no Scotsman or Irishman ever rose to the Papal Chair, and although a Pope travelled in Scot-
land, he was not Pope at the time (Æneas Sylvius, afterwards (1458) Pope Pius II.) (Piccolo-
mini). See notes of his Scottish travels in Stat. Eccl. Scot., p. xci.
* St. Andrew is also the patron saint of the Cathedral of Wells in Somerset, being
chosen as "mitissimus Apostolorum" (Dean Plumptre on Wells, Contemporary Review,
January, 1888). The Scots were not unaware of his priority, as a disciple, to his brother
St. Peter. Cf. Fordun (Scotichronicon, 6-49), where there is praise of "Sanctorum mitissimi
Andreae apostoli . . . vocatione etiam ad apostolatum primi". On the story of St. Regulus,
or St. Rule, which has Greek or Byzantine rather than Roman associations, see Quarterly
Review, vol. lxxxv., p. 109.
ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
57
Dunkeld, whose escutcheons are both found appearing later in this
series, had been among the competitors against Forman. Douglas
had the English influence on his side, being presented to it by the
Queen; Hepburn was chosen by the Chapter of the Canons, but
Forman had the Papal influence, and ultimately prevailed.
In Drummond's History, p. 82, there is an interesting sketch of
Forman's character, as portrayed by John Hepburn, Prior of St.
Andrews, at the time when he (the Prior) is instructing John, Duke of
Albany, on his return from France, as to the intricacies of Scottish
polity. "The third (powerful agent)," says he, "was the Archbishop
Andw Forman, once secretary to the Pope, who, though he was not
of any noble stem or descent of blood, nor, for his followers, friends, and
adherents, much to be taken notice of or feared, yet considering him, as
his legateship, plurality of benefices, many pensions from princes, had
guilded him over, and, balancing him by his present treasure, he could
make a weak party strong and add weight to what side soever he inclined.
He was therefore with piercing eyes to be looked into, and all his actions
and ways to be observed.” *
III. Glasguen. Archiep.
[No. 35.
Archbishop JAMES BEATON, 1509-22 (Glasg.); 1522-39 (St. And.).
The See of Glasgow + became Archiepiscopal in 1491 (Cosmo
Innes, Sketches, p. 61), under Bull of Innocent VIII. Long before, how-
* It is of Andrew Foreman that Pitscottie (p. 255) tells the absurd anecdote, that having
once to entertain the Pope and Cardinals at dinner, and being in the act of saying grace, the
Bishop, "who was not ane guid schollar, nor had not guid Latine," was perplexed and put
out by the responses of the Italians, and losing presence of mind and patience, "he wist not
weill how to proceed fordward, bot happened in guid Scottis, in this manner, sayand quhilk
they understuid not, 'The divill I give yow, all false cardinallis, to, in nomine Patris, Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti’. Amen,' quoth they. Then the bishop and his men leugh, and all the
cardinallis themselffis." (Seals of Andrew Foreman in H. Laing's Scottish Seals, i. 148; ii.
176.)
+ The Chapter of the Cathedral of Glasgow had the distinction of enrolling James IV.
among its Canons: a circumstance not forgotten in Joseph Robertson's glowing panegyric
on Glasgow Cathedral and its historic memories: "It has seen a king serving at its altars; for
as the Emperor was a canon of Cologne, and the French monarch a prebendary of Tours,
so a Scottish sovereign-the devout and chivalrous King James of Flodden-had a stall in
the choir and a seat in the Chapter of Glasgow" (Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxv., p. 135).—In
Spain, the king is canon of Leon, of Burgos, and of Toledo, with appropriate stalls.
H
*
58
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
ever, in 1174, Pope Alexander III. declared Glasgow to be " specialem
filiam nostram nullo mediante," intended, no doubt, as a rebuke to York
and its pretensions (E. W. Robertson, i., p. 182).
James Beaton (or Bethune), sixth and youngest son of John Beaton
of Balfour in Fife, was Archbishop from 1509 to 1522; afterwards trans-
lated to St. Andrews. He became, for a short time, Chancellor of
Scotland in 1515, after the death of Bishop Elphinston. To him, as
well as to the young king, Boece dedicated his History of Scotland.
He is the uncle of the more famous Cardinal (David Beaton); and
his best title to remembrance is that he founded St. Mary's College
in St. Andrews.* It was this Beaton to whom Gawain Douglas
made the famous remark when, in their altercation, was heard the
rattle of Beaton's corslet: "My Lord, your conscience is not guid,
for I hear it clattering" (Pitscottie). (Seal of Archb. Beaton, in
Laing, i. 149.)
The brilliant nephew (Cardinal David Beaton), who was after-
wards to set like a lurid star under so tragic a destiny, has not at
this time (1520) appeared above the horizon. Bishop of Mirepoix
in Languedoc, he became also Abbot of Arbroath, and in 1538
Coadjutor-Archbishop and Cardinal. Excepting Walter Wardlaw
of Glasgow who was made Cardinal in 1385, David Beaton appears
to be the sole prelate of Scotland on whom, under the undivided
Western Church, the dignity of Cardinal was bestowed (Stat. Eccl.
Scot., p. 130).
*
Among the experiences of this prelate was the rough handling which he received in
1524, after his translation to Glasgow, when he was "wardit," together with Gavin Dunbar,
by the Queen-Mother. (See Appendix, on Life of Gavin Dunbar.) It was this Archbishop
Beaton who, at a later period, officiated at the marriage of King James V. to Mary of Lorraine
in the Cathedral of St. Andrews (June, 1538) (Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, p. 36).
In the vicissitudes of courtly fortune, he is a mark for the commiseration of Sir D. Lindsay
("Testament of Papyngo "):
"The Archebischop of Sanct Androus, James Betoun,
Chancellare and Primate in power pastorall,
Clam, nyxt the kyng, moste heych in this regioun,
The ledder schuke, he lap, and gat ane fall," &c.
This is a companion picture to Sir David's well-known poem on the younger Beaton, "The
Tragedie of the Cardinall ".
ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
59
IV. Dunkelden. Episcopi.
GAVIN or GAWAIN DOUGLAS * (Bishop, 1516-22).
[No. 36.
The honour of standing next to the two Archbishops, and, therefore,
of appearing foremost among the Bishops, appertains to the gifted scion
of the house of Douglas, son, brother, and uncle to Earls of Angus, the
immortal Gawain, who then held the Bishopric of Dunkeld. From its
relation to Iona and to St. Columba,† this See usually, if not always,
ranked next to the two Archiepiscopal Sees. Hence Wyntoun (Cron.,
vi. 8) pronounces Dunkeld "off oure byschoprykis, off renowne The
thryd, and reputatioun". In temporal benefits, as well as in spiritual
rank, it was an eligible position; and Gawain himself describes it as
"an rycht guid Byschopry of rent, and the thryd seyt (i.e., See) of
the realm" (Letter of Gawain Douglas, Small's Edition, p. xxxvi.).
Gawain is the third and youngest son of Archibald, fifth Earl of
Angus ("Bell the Cat"), by Elizabeth, only daughter of Robert, Lord
* The following are the chief literary tributes to Gawain Douglas, taken from his con-
temporaries: (1) “Ane richt nobill and worschipfull clerk " (Head of MS. of Douglas's Virgil
in Trinity College, Cambridge. See Small's Edition of Gavin Douglas, i., p. clxxiii.).
(2) "The Palace of Honour,
Maid be Gawine dowglas of Dunkell,
Bischop, and als ane honest oratour,
Profound poet and perfite Philosophour;
Into his dayis, above all bure the bell.'
(Jhone Rolland in "Court of Venus," p. xx. of Dr. Gregor's Edition (Scottish Text Society).
Or, Sir David Lindsay's tribute ("Testament of Papyngo ") :—
(3) "Allace! for me, quhilk lamp wes of this land,
Of eloquence the flowand balmy strand,
And in our Inglis rethorick, the rose,
As of rubeis the charbunckle bene chose,
And, as Phebus dois Cynthia precell,
So Gawane Dowglas, Byschope of Dunkell," &c.
+ The erection of Dunkeld into a Bishop's See falls within the reign of the Pictish Con-
stantine, 789-820, and is the sole act of that prince transmitted to us. This event was the
direct consequence of the inroads of the Northern and still Pagan Vikings, whose ravages
forced the monks to leave Iona, bearing with them to Dunkeld a portion of the relics of St.
Columba (E. W. Robertson's Scotland, &c., i., pp. 23-41; also, Cosmo Innes, Sketches, p.
207: J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, i., pp. 305-6).
60
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Boyd, High Chamberlain of Scotland. Born about 1474; Rector of
Hawick, 1496; Provost of St. Giles, 1509; he was one of the com-
petitors for the Archiepiscopal See of St. Andrews when Forman was
successful. Had a stormy entry into his Bishopric in 1516; "when
he came to take possession of his throne, he was opposed by a
shower of shot from the cathedral tower and bishop's palace; and it
was not until the power of his still mighty house had been gathered
from Fife and Angus that he obtained access to his church-' thanks
to the intercession of St. Columba,' says the Chronicle, without loss
of life or limb '" (Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxv., p. 142).
6
Involved in the political struggles in which his nephew, the Earl
of Angus, was expelled by the Regent Albany, Gawain was forced to
betake himself to England, where we find him in a famous autograph
letter appealing to Wolsey in 1521. From this letter we gather that
Bishop Douglas came to solicit the aid of Henry VIII. in restoring his
nephew Angus to power, on the plea of thereby securing the safety of the
young King, James V., who was alleged to be in danger from the ambi-
tious designs of Albany, in whose hands he was. The Bishop was
favourably received by the English King, who assigned him a pension.
Gawain, however, had the misfortune to fall a victim to the plague in
September, 1522, and died in the house of Thomas, Lord Dacre, in St.
Clement's Parish, London. He was buried in the Savoy Chapel, Strand,
where is still seen the memorial inscription on a brass tablet marking
his grave, as also that of Bishop Halsey, beside whom he was laid.
There is an interesting tribute in verse in Gawain's praise by Dyer
(Poems, 1801, p. 89), but everything else is pale in presence of the sixth
canto of "Marmion," where Scott portrays, alongside of old Angus at
Tantallan, his brilliant son, who is described as-
"More pleased that in a barbarous age
He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page,
Than that beneath his rule he held
The Bishopric of fair Dunkeld ".*
* On the ecclesiastical character of Gawain, see the cautious estimate by Dr. Grub
(Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, i., pp. 401-2):—“A facsimile of the famous autograph
letter of Gawain (he signs himself Gawyn) to Cardinal Wolsey, dated from Waltham's Cross,
Christmas Eve, in 1521, is found in National MSS. of Scotland (Part iii., No. xv.), as also a
facsimile of a page of his Virgil, written by his Amanuensis (No. xiv. of same vol.).—The play-
ful spirit of the poet has found expression in travestying his own name. At the end of the
ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
61
A poet he is of no mean order, and author of one of the great
monuments of Scottish literature, the translation of Virgil's Æneid,
which forms his greatest literary achievement. One of his lesser poems.
is the "Palace of Honour," remarkable as containing an allegory in.
which human life is represented as a journey. The Pilgrim's Progress
of Bunyan is said by Chambers to have been anticipated in its con-
ception by this poem of Gawain Douglas.
A notable feature in his greatest work, the translation of the
Eneid, is the prefixing of original prologues, full of discursive matter
of his own, by way of introduction to each book. It was these pro-
logues of Gawain that suggested to Scott the much admired Intro-
ductions to the Cantos of "Marmion," which are, in method, a direct
imitation of Gawain's poetic procedure. (Seal of Gawain Douglas in
Laing, ii. 172.)
V. Gabini Aberdonensis.
GAVIN DUNBAR (Bishop 1518-32).
[No. 37.
It is noteworthy that this is the only Christian name or prænomen
allowed to appear, or at all events appearing, among the escrols of the
various shields. All the other designations are official; none except
this one is personal, and the circumstance is easily explained by the
fact that we have here presented to us the name of the then living
occupant of the See, who was also the Erector of the Ceiling. As the
details regarding this Bishop might swell out beyond all due proportion
compared with others of the series, it is thought proper to introduce
a separate notice in one of the Appendices. (Seal of Gavin Dunbar in
vol. ii. of the Registrum; also referred to in Laing, ii., pp. 154 and 174.)
The See of Aberdeen holds here its normal and fixed position
Twelfth Book of the Eneid (Small's Edition, vol. iv., p. 167), we come upon these lines,
giving a curious rebus on his own name :-
To knaw the naym of the Translatour.
"The Gaw onbrokyn mydlyt with the wyne,
The Dow jonyt with the Glas richt in a lyne;
Quha knawis nocht the Translatouris name,
Seyk na forthar: for lo with lytill pane
Spy weill this vers: men clepis him swa at haym.
-Quod the Compilar G. Dowglace."
2
62
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
among the Scottish Sees. In the rolls of Parliament, the regular order
of enumeration is-(1) St. Andrews, (2) Glasgow, (3) Dunkeld, (4)
Aberdeen. The chief exception occurs in the Papal Bull, referred to
afterwards, of Innocent III., p. 67.
No. 38.]
VI. Moravien. Episcopi.
JAMES HEPBUBN (Bishop 1514 *-24).
"Son of a rebellious race" (Dr. Joseph Robertson in Stat. Eccl.
Scot., p. cxxix.). Son of Adam, second Lord Hailes, and brother to
Patrick, the first Earl of Bothwell (Keith's Catalogue of Scottish
Bishops). (Seal of James Hepburn in Laing, i. 157.)
No. 39.]
VII. Rossen. Epi.
ROBERT COCKBURN (Bishop 1507-21).
On death of Gawain Douglas in 1522, Cockburn was translated to
Dunkeld, which See he held till 1526. (Seal of R. Cockburn in Laing,
ii. 172, 183.)
No. 40.]
VIII. Brechinen. Episcopi.
JOHN HEPBURN (Bishop 1517-58).
Of the family of Bothwell. Bishop John Leslie (de rebus gestis
Scotorum) has an estimate at some length of the character of this prelate.
He is second son to Patrick (third Lord Hailes and first Earl of
Bothwell). (Seal of John Hepburn in Laing, i. 159.)
A church existed at Brechin as early as 1010, at which time,
according to Joseph Robertson, the famous bell-tower of Brechin
was built by Irish Churchmen (Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxv., p. 114.
See also Skene's Celtic Scotland, ii., p. 332).
No. 41.]
IX. Cathanen. Episcopi.
ANDREW STEWART (Bishop 1518-42).
Son to John, first Earl of Athol.
* Made bishop in 1516, according to Douglas in his Peerage of Scotland.
ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
63
X. Candide Case Episcopi.
DAVID ARNOT* (Bishop 1509-26).
[No. 42.
The Bishopric of Whithorn, or Galloway,† had a long history, and
was in early time subject to the See of York. The Lords of Galloway
in the Celtic time were almost independent sovereigns, and the district
had laws peculiar to itself (Cosmo Innes, Sketches, pp. 96-7; also p. 207.
For early history of this See, consult E. W. Robertson, Scotland, &c., i.,
pp. 357-8). Thomas Innes (Ecclesiastical History, p. 155) considers that
the fixity of this See, and of that of Glasgow, compared with the
migratory character of the other older Sees, was due to their being
within the Imperial province of Valentia, and so partaking of the fixity
of the ecclesiastical system of the Empire. This See being, in early
times, taken as suffragan of York, Bede gives it as one of the Bishoprics
of the Northumbrian province (Bede, v. 24), and hence it is not included
in the enumeration of the Nine Scottish Sees in the Bull of Pope
Innocent III. (1198-1214), or in that of Pope Honorius, 1218.
XI. Dumblanen Episcopi.
JAMES CHISHOLM (Bishop 1486-1526).
[No. 43.
Eldest son of Edmond Chisholm of Cromlix, near Dunblane, who
was a son of Chisholm of that Ilk in Roxburghshire. Resigned in 1526
in favour of his brother, William Chisholm, and lived till 1534. (Seal
* Son to John Arnot of that Ilk, by Katharine Melvil his wife, daughter to Melvil of
Carnbie (Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops).
+ Apart from the questionable traditions (Skene's Celtic Scotland, i., p. 299) as to the
priority of St. Andrews through the story of St. Regulus,-the nucleus of which belongs to the
9th century (Jos. Robertson); an attempt, no doubt, to antedate the claims of St. Andrews so
as to compare with the more real and rival antiquity of Hy or Iona,-the See of Whithorn
can claim on good grounds an antiquity higher than any other of the Scottish Sees. Its
founder, St. Ninian, the British Bishop, is generally placed as far back as from 400 to 450,
and Whithorn is, therefore, styled by Joseph Robertson "the oldest bishopric north of the
Humber". St. Ninian had studied at Rome, and on that headland of Galloway where he chose
the chief seat of his mission, “he built a church of stone, in a way unusual among the
Britons". It was dedicated by him to St. Martin of Tours, from whom he obtained masons
to shape its walls after the Roman fashion" (Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxv., pp. 108-9). Such
was the origin of the "Candida Casa," or "White-walled House," lighting up the shores of
Galloway.
64
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
in Laing, ii. 180.) The See of Dunblane was closely connected with
the old Celtic earldom of Strathern, the only family among Scottish
subjects that could claim to have founded a bishopric. In the early
Stewart time (1371) Strathern was constituted the sole county Pala-
tine of the Scottish kingdom. Ultimately, however, the title of Earl,
now Duke, of Strathern has been included among those appropriated
to the Royal Family.
No. 44.]
XII. Lismoren. Episcopi.
DAVID HAMILTON (Bishop 1504-22).
The Bishopric of Argyle or Lismore * was disjoined from the great
diocese of Dunkeld about the year 1200, under circumstances related in
Dr. Grub's Ecclesiastical History, i., pp. 301-2. The contemporary
Bishop was of the Arran family, a brother of James, Earl of Arran,
and was Commendator of Dryburgh and Glenluce.
No. 45.]
XIII. Orchaden. Episcopi.
EDWARD STEWART (Bishop of Orkney, 1513- ).
This Bishop is praised by Hector Boece. He is said to have
consecrated the Chapel of King's College (Collections on Shires of Aber-
deen and Banff, p. 210). The diocese of Orkney was then only recently
annexed, or rather added, to the Scottish Church. In 1468, the
Orkneys had been mortgaged by the Danish Crown for payment of the
dowry of the Danish bride of James III. Up to that period the Bishop
of Orkney was the suffragan of the Norwegian Archbishop of Dron-
theim, but, in 1472, on the erection of St. Andrews into an Archiepis-
copal See, the Orkneys became a diocese of the Scottish Church.
This annexation is the more remarkable, as it was not until the
beginning of the seventeenth century that these islands were brought
under the civil jurisdiction of the Scottish Law (Stat. Eccl. Scot.,
ii., p. 293). Compare the pleasing sketch of the See of Orkney and
its saint (St. Magnus), in Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxv., pp. 122-4).
* According to E. W. Robertson (Scotland, &c., ii., p. 12), " the earliest mention of the
diocese of Lismore or Argyle occurs in a charter from Alexander II. to Harald, the first
Bishop, dated in 1228 (Reg. Morav., No. 32) ".
ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
65
XIV. Sodoren. Episcopi.
Bishop of the Isles.t
[No. 46.
Interregnum in the See. It is uncertain who was Bishop between
George Hepburn, killed at Flodden in 1513, and John Electus in 1526.
The Bishopric of the Isles embraced the Hebrides, which were
ceded by Norway to Scotland in 1266, after the victory of Largs. In
the cession, however, there was originally a reservation of the archie-
piscopal rights of Drontheim (Stat. Eccl. Scot., ii., p. 293).
XV. Prioris Sancti Andr.
JOHN HEPBURN (Prior of St. Andrews).
[No. 47.
Founder of St. Leonard's College in St. Andrews in 1512, and
brother of the Bishop of Moray. See No. VI. of this series. Seal, as
Prior, in Laing, i., p. 200..
Brother also of Patrick Hepburn, first Earl of Bothwell, whose
son, Patrick, was educated by his uncle, John, Prior of St. Andrews,
and succeeded him in the position of Prior, eventually becoming, in 1534,
Bishop of Moray. John, the Prior, gets the ear of John, Duke of
Albany, and is "a great and shrewd intriguer" (W. Drummond, p. 81).
"This man being of a subtle wit, malicious, crafty, rich, and endued
with some courtly eloquence turned his only Privado" (W.
Drummond, pp. 82-3).
•
Owing to the supremacy of the Archiepiscopal See with which the
Priory was associated, the Prior of St. Andrews ‡ ranked next to the
* On the vicissitudes of this bishopric, and its relation to the Abbacy of Iona, with
which it is found finally conjoined in 1506, see the historical résumé by Dr. Skene, in papers
of Scottish Society of Antiquaries, vol. x., pp. 207-9; also C. Innes, Sketches, &c., p. 207.
That is, the " Sudereys," or Southern Isles, whence comes the title of the English.
Insular See, "Sodor and Man". The "Sudereys" were so called by the Norsemen, in contra-
distinction to the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, which were also subject to their
sway. This is the view of W. F. Skene (Celtic Scotland, iii., p. 29), who is at issue with E. W.
Robertson (Scotland, i., pp. 167, 350) in his explanation of "Sudereys," as merely the "Southern
Hebrides," and also with J. H. Burton (ii., p. 103), in taking as the line of demarcation, betwixt
Nordereys and Sudereys, the point of Ardnamurchan.
+
See the singular chapter in Fordun's Scotichronicon (vi. 49), on the dignity of the
Prior of St. Andrews.
I
66
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Bishops, and, what is more notable, took precedence not only of all
the Priors, but even of the Abbots, including the Abbots of proud Kelso
and Arbroath.
For some further account of Prior John Hepburn, see p. 57.
No. 48.]
XVI. Alme Huj's Universitatis.
THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
Ranks third among the Scottish Universities, as dating from 1494,
when it was constituted by Papal Bull of Privileges, with all the
amplitude belonging to the mother Universities of Paris and Bologna.
For its history, see Fasti Aberdonenses (Sp. Cl.).
The arms,* as represented on this shield, seem suggested by those
of the University of Paris.
ON THE ROLL OF SCOTTISH BISHOPRICS AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.
Three distinct stages are historically discernible in the development
and expansion of the Scottish Hierarchy. These stages are coincident
with corresponding stages in the national expansion. The first is the
early Celtic period anterior to David I. (1124, Four Bishoprics). The
second is the period from accession of David I. to that of Alexander III.
(Nine Bishoprics). The third is the period from Alexander III. to the
Reformation (Twelve, and finally Thirteen, Bishoprics).
The expansion in the second period was gained mainly on the
Southern frontier, in the region of Lothian and Strathclyde. The
expansion in the third period was gained chiefly on the North and
West, at the expense of Norway and Denmark: first, by the victory
of Largs in 1263, and the consequent accession of the Isles; second,
by the cession of Orkney and Shetland in 1468. This last expansion
completed the Scottish Hierarchy up to the number of thirteen, at
* The arms of the University of Paris were the arms of France, viz., the fleurs-de-lis, but
differenced by a hand issuing from clouds and holding a volume among the lilies. Hence
Bulæus (Hist. Univ. Paris., i., p. 261): "Quod ad Lilia spectat, quæ trina sunt in Sigillo
Rectoris in triquetram, sicut et Regia, in plano scuto disposita, clarum est ab ipso Fundatore
fuisse communicata. Et certe quis dubitabit, quin manus illa librum tenens, e cœlo delapsa,
qua sigillum in suprema parte adaugetur et oneratur, indicet Carolum Magnum .... suam
instituisse Academiam?" In further describing these arms he speaks of them as being “in
campo azurco".
ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
67
which it stands at the period of Gavin Dunbar and down, to the
Reformation.
A few details on these stages of development may here be sub-
joined. Besides the variations in the number, there emerge important
divergences, easily explicable for the most part, in the order in which
the Sees are from time to time enumerated.
I. PERIOD BEFORE DAVID I. (Accession in 1124).
Wyntoun (bk. vii., 6, 33) has the following regarding King David :
'Byschaprykis he fand bot foure or thre,
Bot, or he deyd, nyne left he ".
These "foure or thre" early bishoprics his commentator (D. Mac-
pherson) defines as follows:
Viz., St. Andrews, Dunkeld, Moray, and most probably Catness,
existing before the time of David; which with Glasgow (founded by
him when Earl of Cumberland), Aberdeen, Brechin, Dunblane, and
Ross, made up the number of nine bishopricks at his death. Galloway
seems not to have been reckoned; either because it was then a
suffragan of the ecclesiastical province of York, or as having no bishop
from the time of the Northumbrian government in that country till the
settlement of Fergus, a lord of it, in the 12th century. And, accord-
ingly, we find that Galloway (or Candida Casa) was not reckoned
among the Bishops' Sees of Scotland in the enumeration of them by
Pope Honorius in 1218, wherein the above nine are named." Skene
(Celtic Scotland, ii., p. 377) considers Glasgow, not Caithness, to have
formed one of the four bishoprics existing at David's accession.
The single reign of David, the son of St. Margaret, exhibits,
therefore, at one projection, an expansion of the Scottish Hierarchy
greater than all the other reigns of subsequent kings, singly or col-
lectively, can show.
2. PERIOD AFTER DAVID I. TO ALEXANDER III. (1153-1249).
1155.
1. Glasgow.
1198-1216.
1. St. Andrews.
2. Glasgow.
1218.
1. St. Andrews.
2. Dunblane.
2. Whithorn.
3. St. Andrews.
4. Dunblane.
3. Dunkeld.
4. Dunblane.
4. Dunkeld.
3. Glasgow.
68
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
5. Dunkeld.
6. Brechin.
7. Aberdeen [Galfrido
Apperdunensi].
8. Moray.
9. Ross.
10. Caithness.*
5. Brechin.
6. Aberdeen.
7. Moray.
8. Ross.
9. Caithness. †
5. Brechin.
6. Aberdeen.
7. Moray.
8. Ross.
9. Caithness. +
These three lists, out of what may be called the second period,
resemble each other in two great features. 1. Apart from the varia-
tion caused by the presence of Whithorn or Candida Casa in the first
list, they all present the same group for the first four Southern Sees,
though in a different order. 2. They are identical as regards the
order in which the remaining five Northern Sees are enumerated.
The order of these last is simply geographical. In the first group,
however—that, namely, of the Southern Sees-the variation of order
seems to have turned more on claims to ecclesiastical primacy than
on geographical considerations.
3. PERIOD AFTER ALEXANDER III. (Accession 1249), TO REFORMATION.
Now that Galloway, in the previous reign, has been absorbed into
the kingdom, the chief expansion of Scotland takes place on its
Western side by the victory of Largs, and the number of bishoprics
of the realm rises successively to twelve, and finally to thirteen.
They are found enumerated in their normal order in the Acts of
Parliament of Scotland (vol. i., p. 85).
The manifesto of the clergy in favour of Bruce in 1309, to which
reference was made on p. 49 preceding, gives no order of classifi-
cation. It runs in the name of the Bishops collectively, probably for
prudential reasons.
But in 1371, on the accession of Robert II., the order of the
Bishops in affixing their seals to the "Declaration" of that date,
* Bull of Pope Adrian IV. (Breakspear the Englishman), 1155 (enjoining "submission to
Roger of York, your Metropolitan," a command obeyed only by the Bishop of Whithorn).
+ Bull of Pope Innocent III., 1198-1216.
Great Bull of Pope Honorius III., 1216-27 (No. xlvii. of National MSS. of Scotland,
Part i.).
ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.
69
fixing the succession to the. Crown, runs thus: (1) St. Andrews,
(2) Glasgow, (3) Dunkeld, (4) Aberdeen, (5) Moray, (6) Ross, (7)
Dunblane, (8) Caithness, (9) Argyle, (10) Galloway or Whithorn.
(See 'National MSS. of Scotland, Part ii., No. xliii. A.)
The order and grouping of the Bishoprics continued with little
variation in this shape during the third period till the Reformation.
It will be noted that, while Aberdeen had in the second period only a
geographical rank, in the third period. the importance of the See has
obtained for it a rank inferior only to the three more or less Primatial
Bishoprics, so that, as in the heraldic ceiling, its normal order is that
of fourth among the Scottish Sees.* See Bishop Leslie on the Scottish
Hierarchy (Sc. Texts, i., p. 108).
A very lucid account is given by Thomas Innes (History of Scot-
land, Sp. Cl.) of the order of establishment and general grouping of
the Scottish Sees. Their development may be said to mark the stages
of the national expansion, and the student of Scottish history will note
their successive sequence, star after star, as it were, coming out in
the Northern sky, in a certain mutual relation and dependence.
Lastly, as the ecclesiastical series terminates in the University, it
may be proper to remark that the order of development under which the
Scottish Universities, so far as founded by Bishops, severally sprang up,
proceeded in the same sequence as the order in dignity of the four
great Sees, the only exception being that Dunkeld, not having had
an Elphinston or a Wardlaw among its prelates, drops out of this
Academic array. The relation of the Church to the three older
Universities, of which she was the Foundress, is therefore seen in
the following juxtaposition.
1
Sees in final order of Precedence
(order same as in heraldic ceiling).
I. See of St. Andrews.
>
Pre-Reformation Universities (in order of
foundation).
1. University of St. Andrews, founded 1411.
2. See of Glasgow.
3. See of Dunkeld.
4. See of Aberdeen.
2. University of Glasgow,
3. University of Aberdeen,
1453.
1494.
* A deviation from the usual order occurs in the Parliament of 1289 (Margaret, Maid
of Norway), where "Evesque Moray" stands before "Aberdeen" (p. 441 of Acts of Scottish
Parliament, vol. i.).
CHAPTER VI.
HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS.
Envida fatorum Series, summisque negatum Stare diu.-
Perish the Roses and the Flowers of Kings.
If we turn our attention to the general aspects of the political and
ecclesiastical horizon, as it shaped itself nearly four centuries ago to
the eye and mind of the pre-Reformation age, we find hardly less interest
and instruction in the phenomena that are absent and as yet unapparent,
than in those that are present and visibly recognised. Hence it is of
importance not only to advert to the particulars selected for delineation,
but also to reckon up what the tableau conceals, or at least does not
reveal, of the vision underneath the then horizon. In the general
survey of these historical features which we now propose, it will
therefore be necessary to note, as they emerge, the more notable
negative as well as the positive and outstanding phenomena.
The first head of remark, to which we draw attention, is the-
I. PROMINENCE OF THE EMPIRE.
In the Heraldic array that is now before us, we have-under the
precedency of the Emperor as a kind of Lord-Paramount in civil
jurisdiction, co-ordinate with the Pope in his spiritual jurisdiction—
an image of the World, as then conceived by Western Christendom.
The political system of Europe is, therefore, still regarded, ac-
cording to this representation, as cast in the mould of the Roman
Empire, which continues to be conceived as a unity under one
Imperial head. Hence the style of the Imperial chief is known to
have been thus framed: "Carolus V., divina favente clementia,
PROMINENCE OF THE EMPIRE.
71
Romanorum Imperator Augustus ac rex Germaniæ, Hispaniarum, &c."
To us in these days it is difficult to imagine the time when all the
Powers were assumed as standing in a certain relation of subordination
to a superior Power, one, at all events, nominally superior. In regard
to the succession to the "Imperium Romanum," there are in our time
virtually four claimants in the field: the House of Hapsburg, as the
successors of the Medieval Kaisers, or, as they were loosely styled,
the "Emperors of Almaigne"; * the House of Hohenzollern, as the
de facto rulers of Germany; the Czar or House of Romanoff, as claiming
to be heirs of the Eastern Emperors; and the dormant claim of France
under the Bonapartes to represent the Western Empire of Charle-
magne. But, in the tableau of this heraldic ceiling, the House of
Hapsburg of that day is alone regarded as possessed of the "Imperium".
One of the most valuable and fruitful results of recent historical in-
vestigation has been to familiarise the student of medieval history with
the importance of the "Imperium," + considered as a political conception
long surviving the power that gave it birth, and as an idea dominating
the movements of the middle ages, and giving a central unity to their
various oscillations. In Dante, as is well known, the vision of the
Empire with its "Pax Romana," giving repose to the troubled nations,
assumes a sanctity and a majesty in his aspirations that almost blends
it with the vision of a Kingdom of God in this lower world.
Of the prominence of this idea, we find evidence here presented,
not without significance, in the position of the Imperial Eagle, as
heading in this array the series of sovereigns. The Eagle is, how-
ever, at this period only nominally Roman: it belongs, at the epoch
represented, to the ruler of the Teutonic race; and it is one of the
paradoxes of history which needs some research to understand, how
it came that, by the time we reach the eve of the Reformation, the
"Imperium" is virtually acknowledged and exercised only by the
race that originally, in the early centuries, repelled its yoke, and how
that very Germanic race, having served itself heir to the Imperial
sceptre which, under Arminius, it disowned, and afterwards gradually
shattered, snatched up the broken fragments and strove to knit them
* From the play of " Edward III.," Act 1, Scene 1 (attributed to Shakspere).
+ Very important, in this regard, is Professor Bryce's work, The Holy Roman Empire.
Also J. H. Burton (History of Scotland, i., pp. 390-1).
72
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
}
together into a convenient weapon for a "Princeps" of their own
race to wield.
1
No more notable spectacle is furnished by all the ages than this,
of which we have here a visible presentment, and which we may call
briefly the Teutonising of the Roman "Imperium".
Imperium". Here, in the
headship of a German as sole Emperor in Europe, we come to discern
that the nation which Tacitus in the first century descried dimly as,
by their rude virtues, the future hope of the world-that nation which
the older Empire tried in vain to absorb has taken up the sceptre
now fallen from the grasp of the effete Roman, and in the sixteenth
century is found dominating over its old oppressors-Arminius, as it
were, by strange metamorphosis, masquerading as Augustus-and
ruling the Italian peoples with their own weapons and their own
formulæ, which had been invented to subjugate all others than them-
selves. A consciousness of this revolution expressed itself in the
proud words of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa: "The ornaments
and virtues of empire have migrated beyond the Alps to a more
deserving people" (Gibbon, vol. viii., p. 207). .
2. POLITICAL FEATURES.
Among the features worthy of attention under this head is the unity
which is recognised as belonging both to France and to England—each
being taken as a political integer-compared with the fragmentary
condition in which, for example, Spain appears. There is, there-
fore, no recognition of the once formidable Burgundy alongside of
France, much less of Brittany; the work of Louis XI. has left no
room for such satellites of the French monarchy; and similarly, to our
surprise, neither Wales nor Ireland gets any acknowledgment of
nationality apart from England. It is otherwise with Spain, where it
is manifest that the work of unification was not regarded as yet
complete, and hence we have the Iberian peninsula apportioned
between virtually five sovereignties: Leon and Castile (with arms
quartered, indicating a union of juxtaposition and not amalgamation),
Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal, the three last having each separate
and independent armorial insignia.
It is further worthy of note that none but Christian Powers of the
West are admitted into the array. Accordingly the Grand Turk, or,
POLITICAL FEATURES.
73
as he is styled in the far East, the "Sultan of Roum," finds no place,
though Montaigne, in that same century-the sixteenth-pronounced
"his empire the most potent then on earth"; but the Christianised
kingdom of the race. which is kindred to the Turk (the Magyars of
Hungary) receives due recognition.
Perhaps, to us nowadays, the most notable apparent lacuna is the
absence of any acknowledgment of the power that has arisen to be the
great Colossus of the East, the then Grand Duke of Muscovy. It was,
however, only in 1547-a date later than that of our monumental record
-that he assumed the title of Czar, and in that capacity he claims, in
our day, to represent the submerged Eastern Empire. This absence is
all the more remarkable that already in the previous reign, that of
James IV., the country of Muscovy and its prince are well known
commercially to the Scottish people (Pinkerton, History of Scotland, ii.,
pp. 59-61). The Slavonic communities, of which the Czar is now the
most potent prince, are here represented only by the kingdoms of
Bohemia and Poland, and these are no doubt admitted into the array
solely as belonging to those Western communities that owned allegiance
to the See of Rome. The probable reason for the omission of
Muscovy is because there was no desire, rather a disinclination, to
acknowledge more than one Empire with one Kaiser on the globe,
and the fact of only one Emperor, therefore, being acknowledged
by medieval Europe, is a circumstance which goes far to explain
this notable exclusion of the Muscovite, as well as the ignoring
of the Eastern Church, of which the Czar stands forth in our time.
the champion.
That Scotland,* while claiming to be imperial in its own domain,
with its King on the same plane with the Emperor, within the realm of
Scotland, should likewise acknowledge as sole Kaiser the Imperator who
was successor to Charlemagne, was entirely just and proper. It was,
moreover, in entire accordance with the then current belief in the old
alliance, on which the Scottish fabling chroniclers, in the two centuries.
preceding Gavin Dunbar, built so much, between Achaius of Scotland,
•
* "Whatever may be debated against other kingdoms, which were once subject to the
Empire . . Scotland and its kings were never subject to the Roman Empire, nor con-
quered by them: for they, to defend themselves against the Scots, were forced to build a wall
called Vallum Adriani," &c. (Sir Geo. Mackenzie, On Precedency, ch. i.).
K
74
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
or Eocha, grandfather of Kenneth MacAlpine, and the Carolus Magnus
of the Empire.*
+
D
It is further owing to the "Majestas" still clinging, even in that later
age, to the "Empire," that there is no separate acknowledgment of the
Italian dominions, and hardly any of the various, German principalities.†.
The spear of Brandenburg, as well as the name of Prussia, is as yet.
underneath the horizon. So in the case of Saxony, then foremost
among the German states, there is no special recognition of what was
simply a constituent of the Empire. Most notable of all, the great
commonwealth of Venice, then reputed the astutest marvel of states-
manship, is passed over without any acknowledgment of the winged
lion of St. Mark, and so also the outlying and then but loosely attached
territories of the Empire in the Netherlands, in Switzerland, and in
Burgundy, receive no special recognition. These last named states
are all comprehended under the Empire as among its constituents, and
are hence regarded as parts of the "Reich" or "Roman Empire," still
supposed to be overshadowing the world. The formal acknowledg-
ment of Switzerland and Holland as independent of the Empire (which
took place under Treaty of Westphalia, 1648) was yet far distant. Nor
is this statement affected by the presence, in this array, as if they
were independent factors, of such kingdoms as Sicily and Cyprus;
inasmuch as Cyprus was a crusading conquest, and the kingdom of
Sicily was held by peculiar tenure direct from the Papal See. The
Norman dynasty that first created the kingdom of the Two Sicilies,
claimed to hold it without any allegiance to the Emperor of the
West.
*
J. H. Burton (i., p. 326) identifies Achaius with Eocha.-For a poetic allusion to the
story of Charlemagne's alliance with Achaius see "Marmion". It is sentimental, and not
historic, to believe that the tressure flory was added to the Arms of Scotland by Charlemagne.
The notion was doubtless to indicate, by this garniture of the encircling fleurs-de-lis, that the
Lilies of France would always protect the Lion of Scotland. This they certainly did, during
the long war against Edward III., when the impetuous valour of England was averted from
Scotland, and the storm fell upon the fields of France at Cressy and Poitiers.
†The King of Bohemia, a country which was reckoned an integral part of the
Empire, is acknowledged probably as the chief of the secular Electors, and the dukedom
of Guelderland owes its insertion, in all likelihood, to the memory of Mary of Gueldres,
Queen of James II.
‡ Venice is sometimes regarded as belonging to the Greek or Eastern Empire (Gibbon,
vii., p. 291).
NOTANDA IN ROLL OF SCOTTISH NOBILITY.
75
3. ATTITUDE TO ENGLAND AND TO FRANCE.
The feeling toward England is one of cold respect, toward France
of warm goodwill. Hence the fleurs-de-lis occupy the first place
immediately after the Imperial eagle, and England, instead of standing,
in the order we might expect, next to France, is placed behind Spain,
or rather, as formerly remarked, not Spain, but a section of Spain (Leon
and Castile).* England, no doubt, as already observed, is accounted
an integral dominion: neither Wales nor Ireland is acknowledged as a
separate European nationality. There are, however, three marked cir-
cumstances deserving of notice attaching to the treatment of England :
(1) The pretension of the Tudors, inherited from the later Planta-
genets, to quarter the arms of France, is ignored.
(2) The "Lions" of England are made to rank after the insignia
of a portion of the Spanish monarchy.
(3) The then living English princess, although Queen-Dowager
of Scotland (Margaret Tudor), is not acknowledged in the array.
(See p. 34.)
4. NOTANDA IN ROLL OF SCOTTISH NOBILITY.
The only native dukedom in the then Scottish peerage, at the
period of Gavin Dunbar, was that of Albany, of the blood royal.
Archibald, Earl of Douglas in time of James II., was Duke of
Touraine only in the French peerage, although he happens to be so
styled by courtesy presumably, in the roll of the Scottish Parliament,
1438. Originally the title of duke was given only within the Royal
Family, of which there was an instance in England as early as 1337.
(As to the dukedom of Montrose, see p. 45.)
There is as yet no marquisate,† although the Earl of March, or,
by his Latin designation, the Earl of the Marches, is highest in rank
* If the Spanish monarchy, as we now know it, had preceded England, the wonder
had been less; but the Spain of the heraldic ceiling is simply Leon and Castile, minus Aragon
and Navarre, both of which receive separate recognition. On the disputed question at
Papal conclaves, whether England could claim co-ordination as to votes with the four
principal nations, one of which was Spain, see Gibbon's important note, No. 75, ch. lxx.
(vol. viii., p. 276).—In Diplomacy, France and Spain take rank before England.
+ "The title and office of marquis (i.e., commander of the march or frontier) was
introduced into Italy by the French [i.e., Frankish] emperors" (Gibbon, ch. lvi., n. 13). The
76
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
among the earls, and may be said to stand close up to the place where
the "marquis," as a title, ought to appear-i.e., after the dukedom,
and at the head of the earldoms.
One of the most notable features of this array is that there is no
temporal peer acknowledged in a rank under that of earl. Neither
viscounts* nor barons find a place, and hence the somewhat notable
absence of the great Aberdeenshire family of Forbes,† notwithstanding
that the title of the premier baron, Lord Forbes, dating from 1442, ex-
tends back beyond the period when the heraldic ceiling was constructed.
The earldoms that have arisen of later time belonging to this
locality, in the great houses of Grant and Ogilvie, as well as in the
Kintore branch of the Keiths, and the Haddo branch of the Gordon
family, are all, though to us comparatively ancient, necessarily under-
neath the horizon of Gavin Dunbar.
But although we thus find ourselves at a period remote from
these creations of the later time, the roll of the Scottish nobles is
here far more full than it had been in the early time, when there
were seven provinces of Pictland (Skene, Chronicle of Picts and
Scots, p. lxxxiv. of Preface), and consequently only seven mormaors,
or earls of the ancient Celtic type. The coronation of Alexander II.,
in 1214, is said to be the latest occasion on which the earls of Scotland
are specified as seven in number.‡ Yet of the twelve earls whose
marquisate of Montferrat is as old as the early Crusades (A.D. 1200), and the marquisate of
Spoleto is as early as 930. In England, the marquisate is first found in 1386, reign of
Richard II., in the person of Robert de Vere, Marquis of Dublin. Still it is rare, in the
English peerage, till the time of Edward VI., after which it becomes common. In Scotland,
Huntly and Hamilton were created marquises only in 1599. The German title corresponding
(margrave, i.e., mark-graf) has obtained, in our day, the loftiest elevation. It is the Markgraf
-or, as we should call him, Marquis of Brandenburg that has grown into the Kaiser of
Deutschland, The territorial chiefs, to whom it fell from local conditions to be the defenders
of the borders of the Teutonic empire, naturally became powerful, just as, under the old
Roman Empire, we find it was always the commanders of the legionaries of the Rhine and
Danube who became, by stress of circumstances and through their more favourable oppor-
tunities or environment, more potential than any prefects of the interior provinces.
* Vice-comes in early deeds is only a title for sheriff, not what we now call viscount.
+ Ariosto (Orl. Fur., x. 87) names a "Forbesse" among Scottish chiefs.
‡ See E. W. Robertson, Scotland, i., p. 32, on the seven provinces; also J. H. Burton,
ii., p. 121. (Lord Crawford-in his Earldom of Mar-considers thirteen as the number of the
Scottish earldoms at the close of the 13th century, and states that there is evidence as to all of
NOTANDA IN ROLL OF SCOTTISH NOBILITY.
77
shields are here emblazoned, there is none (except, perhaps, the
last-Bothwell) that is not locally appropriate, as being more or
less closely connected territorially with the province of which
Aberdeen is the capital. Hence there is no reference to such
distant or territorially remote earldoms as the following, belonging
to the then peerage:
Created circa
Menteith (immemorial).
-
Caithness,
Rothes,
Morton,
Buchan,
Lennox,
-
Created circa
1455.
Glencairn,
Arran,
1488.
1503.
1457.
Montrose (Graham), 1503.
1458.
Eglinton,
1508.
1469.
Cassillis,
1509.
1474.
The earldom of Buchan is strangely absent, but the Stewart family,
then enjoying it, were not territorially connected with Aberdeenshire.
The absence of Stewart, Earl of Athole, in contiguous territory, created
earl as early as 1457, is difficult to explain alongside of the presence of
the Earl of Bothwell,* created as late as 1488, and territorially remote.
The only other remark which we deem it necessary to make regard-
ing the roll of Scottish magnates, is that the order of the first six earldoms,
from March to Sutherland, dating chiefly, it may be said, prior to the
accession of the Stewart dynasty, seems not to be regulated by any
chronological principle; but, after Sutherland, the six subsequent
earldoms (beginning with Crawford, as far as and including Bothwell)
follow, with one slight deflection,† the exact order of their creation
these being transmissible through female succession.) The old earldoms were all territorial
and had reference to counties, and their functions were judicial before they became feudal.
Earldoms taking title from villages or from towns or from families (Earl Canning, Earl
Russell) are modern innovations. (Some good remarks in Hewlett's Scottish Peerage, p. 17,
London, 1882, on the seven original earldoms.)
* The Earl of Bothwell may owe his place to the marked ecclesiastical pre-eminence
which his family had obtained, as is manifest in the triple entry of Hepburns in the
hierarchical series (quadruple, if Geo. Hepburn, Bishop of the Sudereys, had survived till
1520). The only other family name that has more than one entry in the ecclesiastical series,
is the royal name of Stewart, of which there are two representatives.
+ Argyle, created earl in 1457, is placed before Errol, created earl in 1452. The exact
reason seems difficult to discover. Perhaps it was to associate the two great military officers
of State; for the Constable is thus placed beside the Marischal.
78
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
according as it took place under the Stewart dynasty. [Sir Bernard
Burke (Peerage and Baronetage) states that, in Scotland, precedency
in right of priority of creation was not thought of till the 16th
century, and was then an idea introduced from England. The rank
in the old time followed the actual personal or family ascendency.
As late as 1592 and 1604, the Earl of Angus protested for precedency to
his title, as ranking before not only earls, but dukes (Burke, ibidem).]
Great is the variety of fortune that has befallen these various
houses in the after time. Four of these earldoms were raised to duke-
doms, of which two may be said to have passed away, and two survive,
but not of equal rank. Sutherland and Huntly, curiously linked in that
distant age (see pp. 44-5), resemble each other in so far that both
became merged in a dukedom, the former in a dukedom comparatively
recent, and of the United Kingdom, 1833, the latter in the older
Scottish dukedom of Gordon, which is as old as 1684,* but which
came to a close in 1836. Argyle is a third earldom which has
reached the ducal position in Scotland, but ranks only as baron in
the peerage of the United Kingdom. A fourth earldom, that became
ducal, is that of Angus, merged in the dukedom of Douglas, a title
which supervened in later time among the honours of the house of
Angus, but both titles have now vanished in that stem, and the title
of Earl of Angus seems now to survive only among the ancient his-
torical distinctions appertaining to the dukedom of Hamilton.
5. ECCLESIASTICAL FEATUres.
Turning to the ecclesiastical features, we find that the Scottish
Church has at length attained its full hierarchical complement, and
that all the bishoprics included in the series have become part and
parcel of the kingdom of Scotland in things sacred and things civil.
The nine bishoprics (see p. 67) named in the Bull of Pope Innocent III.
(1198-1216), which recognises the independence of the Scottish Church,
have now (1520) increased to thirteen. Lismore has been disjoined from
Dunkeld, and three others have been added formerly under other jurisdic-
tions-viz., Galloway, Orkney, and the Sudereys. In previous reigns this
completeness could not have been actually attained; for in a generation
*The title "Earl of Huntly" now belongs to the Marquisate of Huntly, and is not
among the subordinate titles of the existing Dukedom of Gordon, which is a new creation.
(1876).
ECCLESIASTICAL FEATURES.
79
not very distant, the See of Galloway was under York, Orkney be-
longed to the jurisdiction of Drontheim, and that of the Sudereys or
Sodor had been, in the Norwegian period, subject to the same
Norwegian jurisdiction. The whole area of Scotland is therefore now
accounted for, and the country is at length ecclesiastically complete in
its hierarchical organisation; and the precedence which had succes-
sively belonged to Iona, then to Abernethy, then to Dunkeld, has finally
become the recognised possession of St. Andrews. It is worth noting,
in passing, that, with the exception of Whithorn in Galloway, which was
long a kind of separate dependency under its own tributary lords (E. W.
R., i., p. 235), there is no episcopal See planted south of the Firths of
Forth and Clyde. They are all situated within, or on the border of, the
ancient "Alban" (Albyn), and so are situated north of, the "Scots-
water" or Firth of Forth. The diocese of St. Andrews included the
Lothians, having gradually absorbed the northern portion of the
Northumbrian kingdom until the diocese stretched ultimately to the
Cheviots.* Similarly, the diocese of Glasgow extended to the west
border at the Solway, the reason being that this See claimed jurisdiction
over the territory of the once independent British kingdom of Strath-
clyde. This kingdom with its capital, Alcluyd or Dumbartoņ, main-
tained a kind of shadowy existence till the time of Malcolm II. (1003-
1034), when it was absorbed in Scotland (J. H. Burton, i., p. 310).
1
There is a considerable amount of evidence to show that in early
time "bishopric" was co-extensive with "kingdom," and it was only
in the later time, after the diocesan subdivisions were introduced,
that bishoprics became reduced in size, and, increased in number, so
as to be co-extensive with the lesser kingships, or what we know as
earldoms. Although it is difficult to trace out all the coincidences
* A century previous [to the capture of Edinburgh, in the reign of Indulf, 954-962] the
jurisdiction of the successor of St. Cuthbert still reached as far as Abercorn upon the Forth,
but thenceforth it was bounded by the Pentland hills, until about fifty years later, when the
diocese of Durham was contracted within still narrower limits (E. W. Robertson, Scotland,
&c., i., p. 76). By the battle of Carham in 1018, Lothian was ceded by Eadulf Cudel to
Malcolm II. (Skene's Celtic Scotland, ii., p. 336). Thus the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of St.
Andrews extended beyond the "Scots-water" in exact proportion as the temporal authority
of the king of Scotland grew and extended (E. W. R., i,, p. 334).
+ In England, according to Ed. A. Freeman, the early bishoprics emerge, each answer-
ing to one of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Compare J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, i.,
4
80
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
proving such a collocation, it is worth noting that two at any rate of
the diocesan bishops in this array are placed parallel to and alongside of
the temporal earl attached to the same territory,* much as Pope and
Emperor were assumed to stand to each other on the European area.
These two are the bishopric of Caithness, in the same line as the
earldom of Sutherland, and the bishopric of Lismore, which is placed
in line with the earldom of Argyle. The order is therefore :
In Ecclesiastical Series.
9. Caithness, Bishop of.
12. Lismore, Bishop of.
In Temporal Series.
9. Sutherland, Earl of.
12. Argyle, . Earl of.
But although there is here claimed an equality of rank as between
bishop and earl in the same territory, both being entitled to be styled
"lord," it is worthy of remark that, on the evidence of this Ceiling,
the son of the Church who had entered the sacred profession might
rise to a higher rank than he could have attained had he pursued a
secular profession or obtained even the chieftainship of his sept or clan.
That the Church even then offered the fairest field for intellectual
ambition and opened the amplest career to resplendent talents is a fact
that comes out not unhappily in this heraldic representation. It will be
noted, e.g., that while the Earls of Douglas and Angus are credited with
a high position in the secular array, their kinsman of the name of Douglas
who has chosen the clerical profession is placed higher in rank than
either of these chiefs of his own clan. Gawain Douglas, as bishop,
stands fourth in his series, viz., the ecclesiastical, while his chieftain
+
p. 269. So Father Innes (p. xlii. of Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, Spalding
Club), who says, in his Latin Letter to Wilkins, the Editor of the Concilia, that there was a
time when there were only two bishops, one for Pictland at Abernethy, the other for the
[Dalriadic] Scotland in Iona-"unum saltem pro unoquoque regno episcopum proprium
Pictorum apud Abernethy
•
Scotorum in insula Iona".
•
* The remains of St. Margaret were removed to the high altar of Dunfermline in the
presence of King Alexander III. and seven Bishops and seven Earls of Scotland—” Septem
Episcoporum et septem Comitum Scotia" (Registr. Dunferml., 235 ; J. H. Burton, History of
Scotland, ii., p. 21).
+"My Lord of Aberdeen " is in ancient records simply the "Bishop" of Aberdeen.
So the eminence of Leo X. in this array is due to his official and not to his personal
hereditary dignity. It is not as a scion of the Medici, who are here territorially unacknow-
ledged, that he is here memorised: he takes his place in this array solely as the Patriarch
of the West and Head of Western Christendom,
ECCLESIASTICAL FEATURES.
81
and relative, the Earl of Angus, stands in the secular series only sixth
in the array. A similar inference may be drawn from the high rank of
the three ecclesiastics of the house of Bothwell at that time, coming
respectively 6th, 8th, 15th in the roll of churchmen, in contrast with.
the rank accorded in the temporal series to the earl of that name, who
comes last (15th) among the nobles here commemorated. So, in the
case of Gavin Dunbar himself, who takes the same armorial bearings
as the Earl of Moray, the rank which he occupies in the ecclesiastical
array is equal to that of the temporal earl whose arms he bears, both
standing fifth in their respective series.
But the most noteworthy feature, ecclesiastically, is the evidence.
which this heraldic ceiling bears as to the "spiritual-independence
principle," whereby, apart from the Court of Rome, Scotland at that
time acknowledges no external superior in matters ecclesiastical.
The evidence here furnished for this important phenomenon is
complete and indisputable. The mists and uncertainties contracted
around the political independence of Scotland by the treaty of Falaise,
which was extorted from William the Lion, were the cause of the per-
plexities attaching for a time to its ecclesiastical independence (E.
W. Robertson, Scotland, i., p. 373). In 1188 those perplexities were
removed, and the dispute was virtually set at rest by the declaration of
Pope Clement III., that the Church of Scotland was in immediate
dependence upon the See of Rome (E. W. R., i. 379). Then came
the confirmation by the great Bull of Honorius III. (otherwise remark-
able for its splendid caligraphy), referred to above on p. 68. There
it is ordained that the Scottish Church "be subject, as a special
daughter, to the Apostolic See, without any intermediary" ("Sedi
Apostolicæ, sicut filia specialis, nullo medio sit subjecta").
In this array, therefore, the two Scottish Archbishops come next
to the Pope without any intermediary; and thus the ancient claims,
which were advanced both by York and by Canterbury, to rule the
Scottish Church, are here boldly and systematically repelled.* This
* "Canterbury claimed jurisdiction over all the British Isles in virtue of the Bull of
Gregory the Great to Augustine, and York asserted ecclesiastical supremacy over Scotland on
account of the signature of Wilfrith at the Council of Rome and the short episcopate of
Trumwin over the Picts" (E. W. Robertson, Scotland, &c., i., p. 178, where the whole
question is detailed). Compare also E. A. Freeman, N. Conquest, vol. iv., pp. 350-1. The
claim of York had a more valid ground in the undoubted jurisdiction which it enjoyed in the
L
82
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
marked assertion of "spiritual independence" takes place also, it may
be noted, at a date contemporary with Wolsey the Magnificent, when
that august prelate was presiding over the See of York with all its
rich historic honours. Those historic honours may be said to be, in
England, still unmatched in respect of antiquity and splendour, inas-
much as York was a city enjoying a kind of primacy during the
Romano-British period, and inasmuch as it was more than once, in
old time, what London never was at any time, nor yet Canterbury, an
Imperial city, a residence of the Emperor of the West before the
Roman Empire fell. This is indeed a circumstance of high signifi-
cance. To those who can read below the surface, the whole of this
blazon forms a striking and visible evidence of the vigour with which
the Scottish national spirit, at this as at other periods, asserted itself
in disdain of the least semblance of subjection to any external non-
Roman jurisdiction, whether ecclesiastical or political.
time of the Northumbrian kingdom as far as the "Scots-water" or Firth of Forth; any
further claim was contingent on the political independence question which Bannockburn
effectually settled.—In historical polemics, a fair argument against the pretension of York
might have been obtained from the relation of St. Aidan to its most important suffragan, the
See of Durham. It was from Iona that St. Aidan proceeded to Holy Isle or Lindisfarne,
becoming thereby the predecessor of St. Cuthbert, and so the spiritual title of the Northern
Bishopric of England, in the province of York, may be said to have depended on that of Iona.
-As for the claim of Canterbury over Britain generally, that was still more shadowy, as St.
Albans and Glastonbury have each, in that event, a rival voice as to priority not to be ignored;
and, moreover, we hear of Bishops of London and York as attending a synod of Arles as
early as A.D. 314, long before Augustine appears at Canterbury.
END OF PART I. (HISTORICAL SECTION).
PART II.
HERALDIC SECTION.
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE subject of this section has been anticipated to some extent by the
interesting description and blazon contributed by the late Principal
Campbell to The Herald and Genealogist, vol. v., p. 9, 26th July, 1867.
The shields, which are of the form that came into use after the
period of the heater shape, are not quite uniform in size or in proportion,
the average size being about 18 by 14 inches. They take rank from
east to west, and as the upper ends are towards the east, the spec-
tator, in order to see them in proper position, is supposed to face towards
the west. It then appears that the nobles are on the dexter side and
the kings on the sinister, but it is possible that they were so arranged
in order that the higher dignities might have place upon the north side.
The charges on the shields are carved in relief.
The Imperial shield is ensigned with a crown of the form peculiar
to the Emperor, consisting of a circle of gold adorned with jewels,
heightened with alternate trefoils and balls, four of each, and having a
high semicircular red cap, closed at the sides, voided at the top, and
showing in the opening an arch from front to back under a ball and
cross patée. The crown of the King of Scotland is the only royal one
that is arched. It has two arches, with a ball and cross patée at the
intersection. The circle is jewelled and heightened with four crosses
patée and as many fleurs-de-lis alternately. The other royal crowns
are of gold, and consist of circles studded with ornaments carved
and painted in red and blue, to resemble jewels, and having above the
rims strawberry or oak leaves, eight in number, except that of Poland,
which has ten, and those of Spain, Denmark, Hungary, and Sicily, each
of which has twelve. In those of Cyprus and Navarre these orna-
ments resemble fleurs-de-lis, and in those of Spain and Denmark some
of them resemble trefoils. The crowns of Spain, England, Denmark,
86
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
1
and Sicily have no caps; those of Aragon and Cyprus have blue caps,
and the others have red ones. The shields of the Dukes of Bourbon
and Gueldres are ensigned with gold jewelled circles, heightened with
eight plain points, that of Bourbon having a red cap, and that of
Gueldres none.
Above the shields of the nobles, with the exception of those of the
Duke of Albany and the Earls of March, Moray, and Douglas, are
coronets consisting of white circles with coloured ornaments to repre-
sent jewels. That of Albany is of gold and of the same form as those
of the Dukes of Bourbon and Gueldres, but with twelve points, and
those of March, Moray, and Douglas are gold jewelled circles, nearly
resembling the coronets placed by Sir David Lindsay, in his Heraldic
MS., over the shields of earls.
The arms of the Pope are ensigned with the tiara, the three
encircling crowns of which are formed of numerous crosses patée,
fleurs-de-lis, and trefoils; the cap is red, and it is surmounted with a
mound and cross patée. Two keys in saltire, the dexter or, the sinister
argent, are behind the shield. The arms of the two Archbishops have
each behind the shield a crozier in pale or, the cross botonnée appear-
ing above the shield, and those of the Prior of Saint Andrews have,
in the like position, a pastoral staff or, of which the crook, turned to
the dexter side, is seen above the shield. The shields of the Bishops
are ensigned with mitres, which vary a little in height and shape, some
having a more antique form than others; the circles and arches are
enriched with jewels and crockets; the spaces between the overarching
bands are blue, sometimes with red centres or borders, and the pendants
or labels are blue (with the exception of one which is red) and fringed
at the ends with gold.
The linings of the crowns, coronets, and mitres are shown above
the shields, and are coloured either red or blue, so as to contrast, in
almost every case, with the prevailing tincture in the shield.
The scrolls containing the titles or designations are so placed as to
be read by the spectator when facing towards the east, or when
advancing up the nave from the west door.

1
[]
Imperatore Dareltats.
II
[2]
Francozum Regis.
WorM
ANDW. GIBB & CO.LITHRE
3. QUEEN ST ABO
CHAPTER I.
KINGS.
I. THE EMPEROR.
Or an eagle with two heads displayed sable armed gules.
[No. I.
The eagle's heads are, conformably to the earlier practice, neither diadematée, that is,
encircled with annulets or nimbi, nor crowned. The annulets were the special
distinction of the Imperial eagle, marking a higher dignity than that indicated by
crowns. The sword, sceptre, and orb came afterwards to be borne in the eagle's
claws. On the breast of the eagle were borne the personal arms of the Emperor,
which for a long time were those of Austria.
THE German emperors assumed the eagle as their device in virtue
of their claim to be the successors of the Roman emperors, whose
ensign it was, both in Pagan and in Christian times. The meaning
of the two heads, with which the Imperial eagle has been represented
since about the fourteenth century, has been variously interpreted,
the most likely explanation being that the double head represented
the united empires of the East and of the West.
In the earliest representations the Imperial eagle has only one head.
"The eagle of the Emperor, charged in relief upon the early shield in the
north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey," "has a single head, and is not
crowned" (Boutell, Heraldry, Historical and Popular, third edition, 1864,
p. 452). Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and Emperor, second son of King
John, who died in 1272, bore an eagle with one head (Ibid., p. 234).
In a Roll of Arms supposed to be of, or soon after, the time of
Henry III., probably not later than 1280, published with Mr. W. S.
Walford's notes in the Archaeologia, vol. xxxix., p. 373, the eagle of the
Emperor is described as having two heads, and Mr. Walford there
mentions the occurrence of the double-headed eagle in a MS. of about
1250. It appears in a heraldic window in York Minster, "the pro-
bable date of which is about 1307" (Appendix, p. 158).
88
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Boutell (Plate LXXVI., No. 678) gives a representation of a double-
headed eagle taken from a drawing of the period of Edward I., and in
the arms of Anne of Austria, wife of Richard II., as they appeared in a
window of St. Olave's Church, Old Jewry (c. 1377), given by Wille-
ment (Regal Heraldry, Plate VI. 4), the quartering of the empire
shows a double-headed eagle. On the monument of Edmond, Duke
of York, at King's Langley, Herts (1402), the eagle has "two heads,
but not crowned" (Boutell, p. 390).
Planché (Pursuivant of Arms) is of opinion that the dimidia-
tion of two shields with eagles upon them produced the effect of a
double-headed eagle, either accidentally or purposely; and it has been
otherwise suggested that the double-headed eagle had its origin at
the time when two emperors reigned jointly, and their seals and
coins bore two eagles, the one surmounting the other, but with
their heads turned in opposite directions (Nisbet, System of Heraldry,
1804, i. 337).
Sir David Lindsay gives a representation of the arms of the
Emperor of Rome, in which the eagle has two heads, not diadematée
or crowned (Facsimile of Heraldic Manuscript, 1542, Ed. 1878, 12).
No. 2.]
II. THE KING OF FRANCE.
Azure, three fleurs-de-lis or.
The fleur-de-lis appears first as a badge or cognizance borne singly,
not on a shield, on the seal of Louis VII. (1137-1170) (Planché).
In heraldic form it was borne semée on the shield (France ancient)
until the reign of Charles VI. (1380), when the number was
reduced to three (France modern). Boutell (p. 159) says that the
change had been made by the French kings as early as 1364.
The original meaning of the emblem has not been conclusively
explained, the vexed question whether it was named from the iris-
flower or from a spear-head, to both of which it bears some resem-
blance, never having been decided. Montagu (Guide to the Study
of Heraldry, p. 6) says: "The arguments of M. de Menestrier" (Le
Véritable Art du Blason) "in favour of the iris are so strong as almost
to set this question at rest".
The name seems to be a variety or corruption of "fleur-de-Louis".

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III. THE KING OF SPAIN.
[No. 3.
Quarterly: first and fourth Argent, a lion rampant gules, Leon; second and third
Gules, a castle triple towered or, windows and ports sable, Castile.
The windows and ports ought to be azure. The lion is borne crowned or by modern usage.
At the time of the construction of the ceiling, and for at least
two centuries before that date, the order of marshalling was, first and
fourth. Castile, second and third Leon. They so appear on the tomb
of Eleanor of Castile, first Queen of Edward I., in Westminster Abbey,
and Willement says: "They are remarkable as the earliest example,
in England, of two coats quartered in the same shield" (p. 13).
The kingdoms were united in 1217, in the person of Ferdinand
III., who was King of Leon in right of his father, and of Castile in
right of his mother. He gave precedence to the maternal kingdom on
account of its greater antiquity. "Because it was the ancientest
kingdom" (Nisbet, Essay on Armories, p. 151).
On the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella,
the arms of Aragon and Sicily impaled were added to those of Castile
and Leon in the royal shield of Spain, and marshalled second and
third, with Castile and Leon quarterly first and fourth.
Sir David Lindsay gives as the arms of the King of Spain:
Quarterly first and fourth grand quarters quarterly, first and fourth
Castile, second and third Leon; second grand quarter, Aragon impaling
Sicily; third, Sicily impaling Aragon. This arrangement of the second
and third grand quarters seems to have been made for the sake of
symmetry or equipoise (13).
The femme side of the achievement of Catherine of Aragon, given
by Willement as taken from a contemporary manuscript in the College
of Arms, bears the same arms as those given for Spain by Sir David
Lindsay (except that the impalement is not reversed in the third
quarter, and that the shield is enté en point of Granada, viz., Argent, a
pomegranate gules slipped and seeded proper) (Pl. XV., fig. 2).
An example of the arms quartered, Leon first and fourth, Castile
second and third, occurred in the north-west window of the chapter
house of York Minster, designed, it is thought, about the end of the
reign of Edward I., and "destroyed during the Civil War of the seven-
teenth century" (Herald and Genealogist, vol. v., p. 387).
In the Roll of the thirteenth century (supra, p. 87) the tincture of
the lion of Leon is given "purpur".
M
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90
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 4.]
IV. THE KING OF ENGLAND.
Gules, three lions passant gardant in pale or.
The ensigns armorial attributed to, or invented for, the kings of
England from the Conqueror to Henry II., were two leopards or lions.
in the attitude proper to leopards, namely, passant gardant. To
these the last mentioned King, on his marriage with Eleanor, eldest
daughter and co-heir of the Duke of Aquitaine and Guienne, is said
to have added a third leopard, being the arms of his wife (c. 1154).
The earliest known representation of the three lions passant gar-
dant in pale is on the second seal of Richard I. (c. 1192); but it is not
unimportant in its bearing on the vexed question whether the royal
animals were lions or leopards to remark that an earlier seal of the
same king exhibits a lion rampant, and as only half of the convex
shield is seen, it seems probable that the complete bearing was two
lions combatant. From considerations of space the lions seem to have
been crowded into the attitude of leopards lionné, i.e., passant (as on
the seal of King John), and afterwards into that of leopards simply.
The normal position of a lion in early heraldry was rampant, of a
leopard passant gardant, and the attitude rather than any other con-
sideration regulated what it was called. Hence, not only in France,
but in England, the English royal animals were often called leopards.
till far on in the fifteenth century.
They continued to be so borne until 1340, when Edward III.,
having assumed the title of King of France, quartered the ancient
arms of that kingdom with those of England, placing France first and
fourth. This precedence was given to France, either because it was
the more important kingdom, or because the English coat, being
derived from the dukedoms, not kingdoms, of Normandy and Aqui-
taine, took properly the second place. This usage was continued by
succeeding English kings until about 1403, when Henry IV. reduced
the number of fleurs-de-lis in the French quarterings to three, follow-
ing the change that had been made some years before in France by
Charles V. The reduced number is found first in the great seal of
Henry V. (Willement, p. 32). Thereafter the bearings of England re-
mained the same until the union of the crowns in 1603, when the arms
of Scotland and those of Ireland were added. The fleurs-de-lis were not
finally discarded until the union of Great Britain with Ireland in 1801.

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V. THE KING OF DENMARK.
[No. 5.
Gules, a lion rampant crowned or, holding in his forepaws a Danish battle-axe
argent, handled of the second.
The handle ought to be argent.
These are the arms of Norway. The arms of Denmark are: Or,
semée of hearts gules, three lions passant gardant in pale azure
crowned of the field. These have been borne with numerous quarter-
ings variously marshalled at different times. Sir David Lindsay gives
as the arms of the King of Denmark and as the impalement of
Margaret of Denmark, Queen of James III.: Quarterly, first Denmark,
second Sweden, third Norway, fourth Vandalia; over all, dividing the
quarterings, a cross argent fimbriated gules; on an inescutcheon,
quarterly, first and fourth Schleswig, second and third Holstein;
on an inescutcheon over all, Oldenburg (13, 31).
In the arms of Anne of Denmark, Queen of James VI., as given by
Willement, Norway is borne in the second quarter (Pl. XXII.).
The Garter plate of Frederick II. at Windsor (1581) bears:
Quarterly, first Denmark, second Norway, third Sweden, fourth
Jutland, these four divided by a cross argent fimbriated gules, in base
Vandalia; on an inescutcheon, quarterly, first Schleswig, second
Holstein, third Stormark, fourth Dietmarschen; on an inescutcheon
over all, Oldenburg impaling Delmenhurst (Boutell, pp. 310, 326).
The arms of Margaret, Queen of James III., are shown, impaled
with Scotland, in a painting at Holyrood, which contains the portraits
of the King and Queen and others. The field is divided into four
quarters by a cross argent fimbriated gules, and the marshalling is:
Quarterly, first Sweden, second Denmark, third Norway, fourth Van-
dalia; on an inescutcheon, quarterly, first and fourth Holstein, second
and third Schleswig; on an inescutcheon over all, Oldenburg (Boutell,
P. 327).
Norway has not been borne in the arms of Denmark since the
separation of those countries in 1814.
Three lions passant gardant, not crowned, in a field semée of
hearts are the bearings on a counterseal of Knut VI. (1182-1202).
The crowns on the lions are first found about 1250 (Memoires de la
Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, 1885, pp. 70-71).
92
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 6.]
VI. THE KING OF HUNGARY.
Argent, four bars gules.
This ought to be: Gules, four bars argent.
Sir David Lindsay gives the arms: Barry of eight or and
gules (15).
The four silver bars have been fabled to have had their origin from
the four principal rivers that "thwart" the country (Nisbet, i. 62).
Willement, in his illustration of the achievement of Margaret of
Anjou, the Queen of Henry VI., taken from the hall-window at Ock-
wells House, near Maidenhead, Berkshire, shows Hungary: Barry of
six argent and gules (Plate IX., No. 2).

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VII. THE KING OF PORTUGAL.
[No. 7.
Argent, five escutcheons in cross azure, each charged with as many plates in
saltire, all within an orle embattled counter-embattled of the second.
Instead of the orle there ought to be a bordure of Castile,
Willement blazons Portugal: "Argent on five escutcheons in
cross Azure, as many plates in saltire, all within a bordure Gules
charged with eight castles Or," and says: "The plates were (according
to tradition) adopted by Alphonso the First, in honour of the five wounds
of our Saviour, and to have been used as his device at the battle of
Ourique in 1139, where he defeated five Moorish kings; he is said to
have in consequence repeated the charge on the five escutcheons of
the conquered monarchs. The bordure was added by Alphonso the
Fifth after his marriage with the daughter of Alphonso the Wise, King
of Castile; the arms of which province were: Gules, a castle Or" (pp.
93, 94).
Sir David Lindsay reverses the tinctures, making the arms:
Azure, five escutcheons in cross argent, each charged with as many
torteaux of the field (in English blazon, hurts) in saltire, all within a
bordure or charged with eight towers gules (17).
94
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 8.]
VIII. THE KING OF ARAGON.
Quarterly first and fourth Paly of six argent and gules; second and third
Gules, an eagle displayed argent.
The arms of Aragon are: Or, four pallets gules, being those of the
Counts of Barcelona.
Nisbet says (Essay on Armories, p. 153): "The Count of Barsolon,
when he conquered the kingdom of Arragon, pulled down its arms,
Argent, a cross gules, cantoned with four Moors' heads proper; and
erected his own, Or, four pallets gules".
Sir David Lindsay gives them: Or, four pallets gules (14).
The arms quartered second and third seem to be those of Poland
improperly inserted here and omitted from the shield of the King of
Poland (No. 12); or perhaps the combination may have been
suggested by that in the coat of Sicily-Aragon, in the second and
third of which, however (Suabia), the tinctures are different (No. 11).
The legend attaching to the origin of the bearings is that, in
873, Geoffrey de Velon, Count of Barcelona, "returning all bloody
from battle," the King of Spain dipped his fingers in the Count's
blood, and drew red lines with them on his shield.
A variety of the tradition is found in Ford's Spain (1845, p. 492),
the blazon given there, however, being rather confused. "The heraldic
arms of Barcelona are Or, four bars gules, with St. George's cross
argent. These were the bearings of the old counts; and are said to
have been assumed by Wilfrid el velloso (he had hair on the soles of
his feet); after a battle with the Normans, he drew his bloody fingers.
over his shield-a truly soldier-like blazon-cruor horrida tinxerat arma.”
There is a similar tradition as to the origin of the arms of Keith
(No. 30).
According to Menestrier the arms of Barcelona are relative to the
name "barras longas" (Origine des ornemens des Armoiries, p. 342).

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IX. THE KING OF CYPRUS.
Gules, a cross between four wheels of four spokes argent.
[No. 9.
The arms of Cyprus were those of the Counts of Lusignan :
Barry of ten argent and azure, a lion rampant gules. This appears
in the fourth quarter of the arms of the King of Sicily (No. 11).
The sovereignty of Cyprus was given by Richard I., who had
taken the island from the Saracens, to Guy de Lusignan, titular
King of Jerusalem, and it remained with that family until 1487.
The Dukes of Savoy, as titular Kings of Cyprus, bore in their first
grand quarter: Quarterly, first Jerusalem, second Lusignan, third
Armenia (Or, a lion rampant gules), fourth Luxembourg (Argent, a
lion with a double tail in saltire gules); of which Nisbet (Essay on
Armories, p. 219) says: "These four quarters are the Imperial ensigns
of the kingdom of Cyprus".
The arms of Savoy are: Gules, a cross argent.
The arms of the Emperor of Constantinople on the ceiling of
Saint Alban's Cathedral (Gules, a cross moline or cantoned with four
bezants, each charged with a plain cross of the field-Appendix,
p. 154), may be noted as resembling in form those attributed to the
King of Cyprus on the Saint Machar ceiling. It seems possible,
allowing for fading or discoloration and incorrect renewal of the tinc-
tures, that the arms here attributed to Cyprus were originally those
of Constantinople.
In the Roll of the thirteenth century (supra, p. 87) the arms of the
Emperor of Constantinople are given of the same form as they are on
the St. Alban's ceiling, but with the field crusilly and the cross "pas-
sant"; and those of the King of Cyprus: "Vert besantee vn crois
passant d'or".
96
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
1
No. 10.]
X. THE KING OF NAVARRE.
Gules, an escarbuncle of eight rays within an orle pommetty or.
A more correct blazon is: Gules, a cross and saltire of chains
affixed to an annulet in the fess point and to an orle (sometimes a
double orle) or.
Otherwise: Gules, a cross saltire and double orle of chains all
linked together or. "It has been generally represented with the
double orle since the sixteenth century" (Planché). Planché gives
an example from Jerome de Bara-an escarbuncle of "eight sceptres
pometty fleury," without the orle.
The ancient arms were: Azure, a cross pommetty argent.
Willement (Pl. II., fig. 3) shows this cross as the arms of Queen
Berengaria, and says (p. 10) that her brother (Sancho, King of Navarre)
changed this device for the trellis of chains to commemorate the
nature of his victory over the Moors in the field of Tolosa," where he
is said to have broken through the iron chain that surrounded the
Moorish camp.
Menestrier derives the chain, called in Navarre "una varra" or
"na varra," from the name of the kingdom (Origine des ornemens.
Extrait du Journal des Sçavans).
Planché says of the trellis of chains: "It superseded the silver
cross upon blue, about A.D. 1200".
Sir David Lindsay gives as the arms of "Navern" what may be
blazoned: Or, an escarbuncle of eight rays flory and as many pointed
gules, thus reversing the tinctures (18).

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XI. THE KING OF SICILY.
[No. II.
Quarterly: first Argent, a cross crosslet between four crosses or, Jerusalem;
second Gules, a cross and saltire within an orle all linked together or,
Navarre; third Argent, a lion rampant gules, Luxembourg; fourth Argent,
three bars azure surmounted of a lion rampant gules, Lusignan.
The lion of Luxembourg ought to have a double tail in saltire. Lusignan ought to be: Barry
of ten argent and azure, a lion rampant gules.
The first, third, and fourth were borne by the kings of Sicily for
the kingdom of Cyprus. Navarre (south of the Pyrenees) was part of
the inheritance of the Emperor from Ferdinand of Aragon, which may
account for its presence here. The arms of Sicily were: Quarterly
per saltire first and fourth Or, four pallets gules, Aragon; second
and third Argent, an eagle displayed sable membered and armed
gules, Suabia.
:
Sir David Lindsay shows the eagles crowned (14).
The ancient arms of Sicily were those of "the family of Suabia,"
"till Charles of Anjou, a brother of France, conquered that kingdom
with that of Naples," "and set up his own, Azure, semée of fleurs-
de-lis or, with a label of five points gules". "Naples continues them
still; but the Arragons having cut off the French in Sicily, pulled
down the arms of Anjou, and again erected their own as before
blazoned, which after they quartered per saltier with these of Arragon"
(? Suabia) (Nisbet, Essay, p. 153).
The arms of Jerusalem are remarkable as showing "a departure
from the rule prohibiting metal being placed upon metal" (Planché).
Nisbet blazons Jerusalem: "Argent, a cross potent counterpotent
betwixt four crosslets or " (Essay, p. 218).
Boutell blazons it: "Argent, a cross potent between four plain
crosses or" (p. 307).
N
98
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 12.]
XII. THE KING OF POLand.
Gules, a horse passant argent furnished or.
The arms of the kingdom of Poland were: Quarterly first and
fourth Gules, an eagle displayed argent crowned or, Poland; second
and third Gules, a knight armed cap-à-pie, mounted upon a horse
argent caparisoned azure, holding in the right hand a sword proper,
and in the left a shield of the third charged with a patriarchal cross
or, Lithuania.
These are arms of dominion. The kings of Poland, being elective,
used to bear their own arms on an inescutcheon over those of the
dominion (Nisbet, Essay on Armories, p. 152).
Sir David Lindsay gives the arms of the King of "Pole":
Quarterly, first and fourth Poland, second and third Lithuania, the
eagles not crowned, the field of Lithuania azure instead of gules, and
without a shield on the knight's left arm (17).

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XIII. THE KING OF BOHEMIA.
[No. 13.
Paly of eight argent and gules.
1
The arms of Bohemia are: Gules, a lion rampant queue fourchée
in saltire argent, crowned or.
Sir David Lindsay gives these as the bearings of the King of
"Bewme" (16).
The arms of Anne, first Queen of Richard II., and "daughter of
Charles, King of the Romans and of Bohemia, who was afterwards.
Emperor, were painted in the north window of the choir of St.
Olave's Church, Old Jewry". They were: Quarterly, first and fourth
the Empire, second and third Bohemia, and were marshalled tiercée
in pale with those of Saint Edward and of her husband (Willement,
P. 24, Pl. VI. 4).
The ancient arms of Bohemia were: Gules, an eagle displayed
chequy or and sable. The double-tailed lion was given to Ladislaus II.,
King of Bohemia, by the Emperor Frederick (Nisbet, i. 290).
100
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 14.]
XIV. THE DUKE OF BOURBON.
France modern, surmounted of a bendlet gules.
"Robert of France, Count of Clermont, younger son of Louis
IX.," "carried France bruised with a baton peri gules. He married
Beatrix, daughter and heiress to John, Lord Bourbon, whose eldest
son carried the foresaid bearing, from whom issued the noble family.
of Bourbon" (Nisbet, ii. 8).
In Les Souverains du Monde, these arms are shown in a plate of
the bearings of the branches of the royal house of France as those of
Conty; the arms of the Prince de Bourbon have a bordure gules in
addition to the baton peri (i.e., couped short).
"The house of Bourbon beareth France with a batune gules,
though the proper and true coat of Bourbon is or, a lion gules within
an orle of escallops azure" (Peacham's Compleat Gentleman).
•

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XV. THE DUKE OF GUeldres.
[No. 15.
Azure, a lion rampant or, Gueldres, impaling Or, a lion rampant sable, Flanders,
the lions respecting each other.
The lions are langued gules, and are the only ones on the ceiling that are langued of a
different tincture from their bodies.
Boutell (pp. 163, 164) says that M. Bouton (Nouveau Traité de
Blason, p. 322) blazons the lion of Gueldres crowned, and that "in an
illuminated MS. of the fifteenth century, in the College of Arms
(Collectanea Curiosa, 1. xiv.), both the lions are crowned, and the lion
of Gueldres is also queue fourchée".
The lions respect each other, "after the usage of Continental
Heraldry". Sir David Lindsay shows the lion of Gueldres crowned
in the impalement of Mary of Gueldres, Queen of James II. (29),
and Laing (vol. i., p. 12, No. 48, Pl. II., fig. 2) gives an engraving
of her beautiful seal, showing Scotland, with the tressure complete,
impaling the impaled coat of Gueldres, in which the lion of Gueldres
is crowned.
102
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 16.]
XVI. THE CITY OF OLd Aberdeen.
Azure, a bough-pot or charged with three salmon fishes in fret proper, and
holding as many lilies of the garden, the dexter in bud, the middle full
blown, the sinister half blown, stalked and leaved proper, flowered argent.
The pot of lilies is the emblem of the Blessed Virgin, the Patron
Saint of the City, and the salmon fishes, disposed in the form suggested
by the meshes of a net, are significant of the resources of the adjacent
river.

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SCOTTISH NOBLES.
I. THE KING OF SCOTLAND.
[No. 17.
Or, a lion rampant within a double tressure flory counterflory gules.
WHATEVER truth there may be in the story that the Scottish lion
had his origin as far back as the reign of King Fergus I., it is esta-
blished that a lion was the earliest known ensign of the kings of
Scotland. That device is believed to have been borne by William
the Lion, and to have given rise to his designation. Its first authentic
appearance is on the seal of Alexander II. (1214-1249), in which the
tressure seems to be absent. The seal of Alexander III. (1249-1285),
which bears the figure of the King on horseback, shows the lion ram-
pant within the tressure on the shield borne upon the King's left arm.
Whatever, therefore, be the origin of the tressure, it was borne
at an earlier date than the French alliance, which it has been supposed
to typify, as thst alliance had no historical existence before the four-
teenth century. It is not easy to account for the motive of an Act of
the Scottish Parliament of 1471, ordaining that in time to come the
tressure should be omitted from the royal arms. This contemplated
change was never carried into effect.
Nisbet (i. 180) says: "The double tressure is not allowed to be
carried by any subject without a special warrant from the sovereign,
and that in these two cases: first, to those who were descended of
daughters of the royal family"; "and secondly, to those who have
merited well of their king and country, as a special additament of
honour".
The lion rampant, and also the tressure, derived, more or less
remotely, from the royal bearings, are found in the armorials of many
Scottish families.
104
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
The position now held, or which ought to be held, by the Scottish
lion in marshalling the royal arms in Scotland is fully treated of by Mr.
Seton in The Law and Practice of Heraldry in Scotland, chap. x. The
present Great Seal of Scotland has, "first and fourth Scotland; second
England; third Ireland; with the unicorn as supporter on the dexter
side" (Stodart, Scottish Arms, ii. 5), due precedence being thus given
to the national insignia of Scotland.
No. 18.]
II. SAINT MARGARET OF SCOTLAND.
Azure, a cross floretty between five martlets or.
The cross is given often patonce and sometimes flory.
These are the arms which were assigned to Saint Edward the
Confessor long after his death.
Richard II., "having chosen King Edward the Confessor for his
patron saint, impaled that holy King's arms" "in the first place, with
his own in the second" (Nisbet, Essay on Armories, p. 128). Nisbet
calls them "arms of religion". The right to bear or quarter them was
granted by Richard "to some of his near kinsmen" (Boutell, p. 126).
They occur in the "original series of shields that were sculptured
by Edward I., or perhaps by Henry III., in the spandrels of the wall
arcades of the choir aisles" of Westminster Abbey (Boutell, p. 377).
He calls them "noble shields". "There is a fine example of this
shield executed in relief and diapered in the south choir aisle of
Westminster Abbey; also another fine example at the entrance to
Westminster Hall" (Boutell, p. 126).
"Edward IV. sometimes quartered the arms of the Confessor
with France and England quarterly" (Boutell, p. 297).
Sir David Lindsay gives them impaled with Scotland as the arms
of "Sanct Margaret". He makes the cross patée (21).
In reference to this coat Planché says: "When the Anglo-Norman
heralds invented a coat-of-arms for Saint Edward the Confessor, they
were probably guided in their choice by a coin of that monarch, on the
reverse of which appears a plain cross with four birds, one in each
angle or canton, and which I take to be meant for doves". He adds
that Froissart, when describing the banner of Saint Edward, as borne
by Richard II., describes them as "colombs".

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III. THE DUKE OF ALBANY.
[No. 19.
Quarterly: first Scotland; second Gules, a lion rampant within a bordure argent
charged with eight roses of the field, March; third Gules, three human
legs conjoined in the centre at the upper part of the thighs flexed in
triangle, armed proper, garnished and spurred or, Man; fourth Argent,
a saltire and chief gules, Annandale.
In Annandale the chief does not extend to the sides of the shield; the field ought to be or.
Alexander Stewart, second son of James II., and father of John,
the holder of the dukedom at the date of the ceiling, having been
created Duke of Albany, Earl of March, Lord of Annandale and of
the Isle of Man, quartered with the Royal coat the arms of March,
Man, and Annandale (Nisbet, i. 264).
Boutell gives an engraving of the arms of the Isle of Man, "drawn
from a roll of Edward I., preserved in the Heralds' College," in which
the legs are encased in banded mail and without spurs (p. 56, Pl.
XIV. 176A).
The saltire and chief of Annandale became the arms of Bruce
by marriage with the heiress, instead of the paternal arms of Bruce,
which were: Argent, a lion rampant azure. On the seal of Robert
Bruce, Earl of Carrick (1285), the chief is charged with a lion
passant gardant, a seeming combination of his maternal and paternal
bearings, although, in an example of an earlier date (1280), the lion
does not appear (Laing, i. 29, 30, Nos. 139, 140).
This quartered coat of Albany is cut in stone on one of the piers
on the north side of the Bridge of Dee.
Sir David Lindsay gives for Stewart, Duke of Albany, the same
quarterings, the legs of Man apparently argent, and the field of
Annandale or (37).
Laing describes the seal of Alexander, Duke of Albany, as it is
represented here (i. 130, No. 790).
106
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 20.]
IV. THE EARL OF MARCH.
Gules, a lion rampant argent within a bordure of the last charged with eight
roses of the field.
The lion rampant appears first on the seal of Patrick, fifth Earl of
Dunbar, who married, in 1184, Ada, daughter of William, King of
Scots, and died 1232. The seal of Patrick, the seventh Earl (1261),
is a lion rampant surrounded by thirteen roses. The seal of Patrick,
the eighth Earl, the first who was called Earl of March, and one of
the competitors for the Crown, has a lion rampant within a bordure
charged with eight roses (1291) (Stodart, ii. 7, 8).
Laing (vol. i., pp. 54, 55) gives four of the seals of Patrick, whom
he calls erroneously tenth Earl of March, with three engravings. The
first, not dated, shows no bordure, although he blazons it as having one.
The three others, dated 1292, have the bordure charged with eight roses.
In vol. ii. he gives, on the frontispiece, representations of the seal and
counterseal of Patrick Dunbar, ninth Earl. His seal and counterseal
appended to a charter at Durham granted by him on the 24th May,
1367, have each eleven roses in the bordure. George Dunbar, tenth
Earl, has sixteen roses in his bordure; while his son, the eleventh
Earl, reverted to eight roses.
In the Armorial de Gelre (c. 1369), "Count de Maerche" bears
eight roses in the bordure.*
Sir David Lindsay gives the bordure charged with ten roses (39).
In 1434-5, George Dunbar, the eleventh Earl, was attainted, and
at the date of the construction of the ceiling the title was held by
John, Duke of Albany, who bore March in his second quarter, as we
have seen (No. 19).
* The references to the Armorial de Gelre were furnished by Archibald H. Dunbar,
Esquire, younger of Northfield, from his facsimile of the original MS., which he compared
and verified at Brussels in July, 1888.

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V. THE EARL OF MORAY.
Argent, three cushions gules within the royal tressure.
[No. 21.
The tressure is not shown double. The cushions are lozenge-shaped, with corners
resembling tassels.
Three cushions or pillows were the paternal arms of Ranulph or
Randolph, which became the feudal arms of the Earldom of Moray.
On the seal of Thomas Randolph (1280) (Laing, i. 114, No. 688)
there are three pillows without a tressure.
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Annandale and Man,
nephew of Robert Bruce, "was the first of his family who was allowed
to place the double tressure round his paternal figures" (Nisbet, ii. 69).
In 1292 the seal of Thomas Ranulph, afterwards first Earl of
Moray, was: "On a shield three pillows," and Froissart states.
that he bore: "Argent a trois oreilles de guelles" (Stodart, ii. 18).
The Regent changed the pillows to cushions by adding tassels
in or about 1330.
In the Armorial de Gelre "Count de Morref" bears: Argent,
three cushions tasseled within a double tressure flory counter-flory-
with sixteen fleurs-de-lis-gules.
At the period of the ceiling, the earldom of Moray was held by
James Stewart, natural son of James IV., and at his death in 1544
it lapsed to the Crown. Laing describes his seal: Quarterly: first
and fourth three cushions within a double tressure flowered and
counterflowered, for Moray; second and third Scotland, surmounted
with a bend sinister (i. 135, No. 807).
Sir David Lindsay gives the coat of Randolph, Earl of Moray,
with the field or, and that of Dunbar, Earl of Moray, with the field
argent, and in the quartered coats of Stewart and Douglas, Earls of
Moray, he makes the field argent (39, 43, 45). Nisbet blazons the
field argent (i. 180). By modern usage it is borne or.
VI. THE Earl of Douglas.
[No. 22.
Argent, a human heart gules, on a chief azure three stars of the field.
These are the paternal arms of the house of Douglas, and appear
here as the feudal arms of the earldom. The dignity had come to
an end by the attainder of James, ninth and last Earl of Douglas,
108
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
c. 1455.
There was no holder of the title at the date of the con-
struction of the ceiling.
Sir David Lindsay gives for Douglas, Earl of Douglas: Quarterly :
first Douglas; second Azure, a lion rampant argent, Galloway;
third Azure, three stars argent, Murray; fourth Or, a saltire and chief
gules, Annandale (39).
William, first Earl of Douglas, after his marriage with Margaret,
Countess of Mar, quartered Douglas and Mar (Nisbet, Armories, p. 91).
His eldest son James, who was killed at Otterburn, leaving no lawful
issue, was succeeded in the earldom of Douglas by Archibald, Lord of
Galloway, natural son of the good Sir James, who married the daughter
or widow of Murray of Bothwell. This may account for the second
and third of the above quarterings. Archibald, fourth Earl of Douglas,
had a charter of Annandale from the Regent Albany in 1409, from
which the fourth quartering was probably derived. The seals of other
earls of Douglas described by Laing show these and other quarterings.
The original arms of Douglas were: Azure, three stars argent.
Laing (ii. 47, No. 280) gives the seal of William, Lord Douglas,
(1296): On a chief three mullets. This is the earliest known ar-
morial seal of the Douglases.
The earliest known appearance of the heart, which was added to
commemorate the action of the good Sir James Douglas in setting
out to carry the Bruce's heart to the Holy Land (an intention
frustrated by his death in Spain), is on the seal of William, first
Earl of Douglas, c. 1356 (Laing, i. 44, No. 236).
In the Armorial de Gelre "Count a Douglas" bears: Quarterly,
first and fourth Douglas; second and third Azure, a bend between
six cross crosslets fitchée or, for Mar.
Two examples of the heart crowned gules occur in Sir David
Lindsay's MS., those of Douglas, Lord of "Niddisdaill," and Douglas
of Drumlanrig (65, 98). In the other examples of Douglas given
by him the heart is not crowned.
Mr. Seton says that the heart first appears ensigned with a
crown on the seal of William, eleventh Earl of Angus, in 1617, and
refers to Laing's Catalogue, No. 255 (The Law and Practice of Heraldry
in Scotland, p. 224, n. 4). The use of the crown did not become
general till about the middle of the seventeenth century.

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VII. THE EARL OF Angus.
Gules, a cinquefoil pierced argent.
[No. 23.
The Umphravilles, Earls of Angus, bore a cinquefoil within an
orle of cross-crosslets; sometimes in a field semée of cross-crosslets.
"The old Earls of Angus carried argent, a lion rampant gules"
(Nisbet, i. 294). In another place he gives it: "Gules, a lion rampant
argent" (ii. 82). Laing (i. 22, No. 86) describes the seal of Malcolm,
Earl of Angus (1225), "the last of the male line of the great and
ancient Earls of Angus," as "a lion passant gardant”. "He died
before 1242, leaving an only daughter, Maud, who married Gilbert
de Umphraville, who became Earl of Angus in her right." The
seal of Gilbert de Umphraville bore a cinquefoil within ten cross-
crosslets in orle (Ibid., No. 87). In the Armorial de Gelre "die
Grave van Angus bears: Gules, a cinquefoil within an orle of
cross-crosslets or.
Sir David Lindsay gives as the arms of " Makbreid, Erle of Anguss
of Auld”: Gules, a cinquefoil pierced or (46); and of Douglas, Earl of
Angus: Quarterly: first Gules, a lion rampant argent, Angus; second
Abernethy; third, Liddesdale; fourth, Stewart of Bonkill; on an
escutcheon over all, Douglas (39).
Stodart (ii. 33) says the seal of Gilbert, son of Gilbert de Umphra-
ville and Maud, daughter of Malcolm, is a cinquefoil within an orle of
ten cross-crosslets (1290), and that the coat given by Sir David Lind-
say as that of the ancient earls "appears to be a mistake".
Nisbet says that the armorial bearing of Gilbert, Earl of Angus,
was Azure, a cinquefoil within an orle of eight cross-crosslets or
(i. 391).
Several seals of the Douglases, Earls of Angus, described by Laing,
have in the first quarter a lion rampant, probably for Angus ancient.
VIII. THE EARL OF Mar.
[No. 24.
Azure, a bend between six cross-crosslets fitchée or.
This is the original coat of the old Earls of Mar. It was associ-
ated with them, and does not seem to have been borne as belonging
IIO
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
to any surname apart from the earldom.
The male line of the
old earls came to an end at the death of Thomas, Earl of Mar,
in 1377.
Laing (ii. 116, Nos. 690, 691) gives, with an illustration, the seal of
Sir Donald de Marre, afterwards Earl, son of Gratney, Earl of Mar,
and Christian, sister of King Robert Bruce, with the arms as given
above, the bend charged with a mullet, possibly as a filial difference.
He describes (No. 692) the seal of the same Donald after he became
Earl as without the mullet, and (in vol. i., pp. 96, 97, Nos. 565, 566,
568) the seals of Thomas, thirteenth Earl, last of the old male line.
He also gives, with an illustration, the seal of Margaret, Countess of
Angus and Mar, wife of Earl Thomas (1378). It shows a female
figure holding in the right hand a shield of Mar, and, in the left, one
of Stewart of Bonkill (i. 131, No. 792). William, first Earl of Douglas,
Earl of Mar in right of his wife, Margaret, sister of Thomas, bore:
Quarterly, first and fourth Douglas, second and third Mar (1378).
A broken seal of Isabel Douglas, Countess of Mar, their daughter
(1404), shows a female figure holding in one hand a shield of Douglas,
and in the other what, no doubt, was a corresponding shield of Mar
(Laing, i. 44, 45, Nos. 238, 241).
Sir David Lindsay gives Stewart, Earl of Mar: Quarterly, Scot-
land and Mar; on an escutcheon over all, Or, a fess chequy argent
and azure between three antique crowns gules, which seems to have
been a coat composed of Stewart and Garioch, for the Lordship of
Garioch (p. 38). This was apparently borne by John Stewart, third
son of James II., on whom the earldom was bestowed in 1460. He
also gives Stewart, Earl of Mar: Quarterly: first and fourth Scotland
debruised with a bendlet engrailed sable; second and third Mar (38a).
This may have been the coat of Alexander Stewart, son of the Wolf
of Badenoch, second husband of Isabel Douglas, with the bendlet as
his mark of illegitimacy. He also gives Erskine, "umquhile" Earl
of Mar: Quarterly, first and fourth Mar, second and third Argent,
a pale sable, Erskine (48).
In the thirteenth century Roll (supra, p. 87) the arms of "Le
Countee de Marre" are given "d'azure billete d'or vn bend d'or ".
In the Armorial de Gelre the arms of Mar are given as those of
"Count de Mar ".

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IX. THE EARL OF SUTHERLAND.
Gules, three stars or.
[No. 25.
These are the ancient arms of Sutherland, Earl of Sutherland,
and are the paternal arms of the name of Sutherland as well as
the feudal arms of the earldom. The seal of William, Earl of
Sutherland (1357), bears three mullets, or stars (Laing, ii. 158, No. 946).
After the marriage of Adam Gordon, second son of George,
second Earl of Huntly, with Elizabeth, sister and heir of John,
ninth and last Earl of Sutherland of the male line (c. 1515), the
arms of Gordon appear marshalled with those of Sutherland.
The seal of John Gordon, tenth Earl of Sutherland (1546),
bears "three boars' heads and necks couped, for Gordon; on a
surtout three mullets, for Sutherland". That of John Gordon, twelfth
Earl (1605), has: "Quarterly: first and fourth three boars' heads
and necks couped, for Gordon; second and third three mullets, for
Sutherland" (Laing, i. 66, Nos. 366, 367). Contemporary MSS. give
the arms of the twelfth and thirteenth Earls as the quartered coat of
Huntly (first Gordon, second Badenoch, third Seton, fourth Fraser)
with Sutherland en surtout.
Afterwards the arms were also borne: Quarterly, first and fourth
the quartered coat of Huntly, second and third Sutherland (Sir Robert
Gordon's History of the Earldom of Sutherland), and sometimes first and
fourth Sutherland, second and third Huntly (Nisbet, i. 254).
In the Armorial de Gelre "Count a Suderlant" bears: Or, three
stars gules.
Sir David Lindsay gives Sutherland, Earl of Sutherland: Gules,
three stars or, and also Gordon, Earl Sutherland: Quarterly, first
and fourth Sutherland, second and third Azure, a boar's head couped
or, for Gordon (42, 48).
In the quartered coat of the Duke of Sutherland, Sutherland is
now borne within a bordure or charged with the royal tressure, "as
a mark of the royal descent of the family from King Robert I."
(Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, 1813, ii. 587).
112
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 26.]
X. THE EARL OF CRAWFORD.
""
Quarterly: first and fourth Gules, a fess chequy argent and azure, Lindsay
second and third Argent, a lion rampant gules, Abernethy.
The field of Abernethy is generally or, and the lion is debruised of a ribbon in bend sable.
The Lindsays originally bore arms which the late Lord Crawford
connected with the coat of the Norman family of Limesay, from
whom he considered that they originally sprung, namely, Gules, an
eagle displayed or. 'Towards the close of the thirteenth century,'
"Sir Alexander Lindsay abandoned the eagle of Limesay, and adopted
the fesse-chequée argent and azure, probably in consequence of his
close alliance, by kindred and interest, with the High Steward;
retaining, however, the original gules, or red ground, of the shield;
while his son, Sir David, employed the eagle as tenant or supporter
of the escutcheon" (Lives of the Lindsays, i. 54, 55).
In a Roll ascribed by Mr. W. S. Walford to about the year 1300
the arms of "Raf de Limesi" are given: "Gules three eagles displayed
or" (Archaeologia, xxxix., p. 409).
David Lindsay, the first Earl of Crawford (created 1398), quar-
tered the arms of Abernethy with those of Lindsay, on account of the
marriage of his great-grandfather, Sir David Lindsay, with one of
the co-heiresses of Alexander Lord Abernethy (Nisbet, Essay on
Armories, p. 90). This is one of the earliest instances in Scotland
of quartering arms, and Lord Crawford says that it "was a corrup-
tion of the pure essence of heraldry. The Crawford family ought
to have borne the simple coat of Lindsay" (Lives, supra).
Laing describes the seal of Simon of Lindsay (1170) as bearing
an eagle displayed (i. 88, No. 504); that of Sir Walter Lindsay as an
eagle standing with wings displayed, holding a flower in its beak, not
on a shield, no date, probably in the twelfth century; of Sir David
Lindsay, an eagle standing, wings expanded, not on a shield, early in
the thirteenth century (ii. 105, Nos. 629, 630); of Sir David Lindsay,
Lord of Crawford, an eagle displayed bearing on his breast a shield
charged with a fess chequy (1345) (i. 88, No. 509); of Sir James
Lindsay, Lord of Crawford, a fess chequy (1371) (No. 510); of
David Lindsay, eighth Earl of Crawford (who succeeded 1517, died
1542, and was Earl at the date of the construction of the ceiling),
quarterly, Lindsay and Abernethy (i. 90, No. 522).
In the Armorial de Gelre the paternal coat of Lindsay is given

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to "Sur ia[mes] de Lyndezay," and the same, debruised of a bendlet,
to "Sur David de Lyndezay".
Sir David Lindsay gives the arms of the Earl of Crawford:
Quarterly, first and fourth Lindsay, second and third Abernethy (44).
Mr. Seton gives the arms of the various branches of the House
of Lindsay, duly differenced, in a fine coloured plate containing twenty-
nine shields (Pl. IV., p. 86).
XI. THE EARL OF HUNTLY.
[No. 27.
Quarterly: first and fourth Azure, three boars' heads couped at the neck or,
Gordon; second Or, three lions' heads erased gules, Badenoch; third Or,
three crescents gules within the royal tressure, Seton.
The seal of Alexander Gordon, first Earl (1457), is described
by Laing (i. 65, No. 361) as first and fourth Seton, second and third
Gordon; "over all a surtout, which is much injured, but has perhaps
been three lions' heads erased, for Badenoch ".
George, second Earl (1470), carried: Quarterly, first Gordon, second
Badenoch, third Seton, fourth Fraser (Azure, three cinquefoils argent)
(No. 362). The paternal coat of Seton thus had the precedence in
the bearings of the first Earl, but afterwards gave place to Gordon.
The Lordship of Badenoch was given by James II. to the first Earl
after he had defeated the Earl of Crawford at the battle of Brechin,
and "had relieved the king from the power of the Douglas" (Sir R.
Gordon's Earldom of Sutherland). Hence the Badenoch quartering.
Honora, only daughter of William, Lord Keith, first wife of Alex-
ander Seton, Lord Gordon, was served heir to her grandfather, the Lord
Fraser, through her mother, Honora Fraser, and in 1442 the lands of
Aboyne, Glentanar, &c., were apportioned to the Lord Gordon's wife as
her share of the Lord Fraser's lands, thus introducing the arms of Fraser.
Laing (ii. 71, No. 422, Pl. VIII., fig. 1) gives the seal of Alexander,
Lord Gordon, afterwards third Earl (1492): Quarterly, first Gordon,
second Badenoch, third Fraser, fourth Seton, with a label of three
points, and that of the same Earl in 1521 (i. 66, No. 364): Quarterly,
first Gordon, second Badenoch, third Seton, fourth Fraser, which
form has been used by the succeeding Earls and Marquises of Huntly
and by the Dukes of Gordon.
Sir David Lindsay gives for Gordon, Earl of Huntly: Quarterly,
first Gordon, second Badenoch, third Seton, and fourth five cinquefoils
for Fraser ancient (40).
P
114
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 28.]
XII. THE EARL OF ARGYLL.
Quarterly: first and fourth Gyronny of eight sable and argent, Campbell; second
and third Argent, a lymphad sable, Lorn.
The Campbell coat is now borne Gyronny of eight or and sable, and the galley of Lorn has
the sail furled, flags flying gules, and oars in action.
Sir David Lindsay gives for Campbell, Earl of Argyll: Quarterly :
first and fourth Gyronny of eight sable and argent; second and third
Or, a galley sable having at the masthead a brazier of fire proper (40).
Nisbet describes the galley as having flames of fire issuing from
the top of the mast, and from the fore and hinder parts of the ship.
The Lorn quartering came by the marriage of Colin Campbell,
first Earl of Argyll, with Isabel, eldest of the three daughters of John
Stewart, who had been created Lord of Lorn by James II. (1445), the
Lordship having been resigned by Walter Stewart of Innermeath in the
Earl's favour in the hands of James III. in 1469. The Barony of Lorn,
which belonged anciently to the Macdougals, came to a Stewart of the
family of Darnley by marriage with the heiress of the Macdougals.
The earliest example of the Campbell coat given by Laing is the
seal of Nicholas Campbell (1292): Gyronny of eight (i. 32, No. 153).
He describes the seal of Colin Campbell, first Earl (1470): Gyronny
of eight (i. 32, No. 154). That of Archibald, second Earl (1495):
Quarterly, first and fourth Campbell, second and third Lorn (ii. 28,
No. 161); and that of Colin, third Earl (contemporary with the ceiling):
Quarterly, first and fourth Campbell, second and third Lorn (i. 32,
No. 155.)
Mr. Stodart notes that in Workman's MS., which was compiled
about 1565-6 (ii. 97), the arms of the Earl of Argyll are given as in
Sir David Lindsay's MS., but with "no fire at the masthead of the
lymphad; in the Campbell coat the alternate gyrons are argent, but
the word 'or' is added" (this is in a handwriting of later date), and
that in a MS. ascribed to Sir David Lindsay the younger (Lyon, 1591-
1621): "The Campbell coat is Gyronny of eight or and sable".
"The old barons of the countries of Arran and Lorn were obliged
to furnish a ship in time of war to the king, as their old charters.
bear: reddendo unam navim viginti remorum,' upon which account
they carry ships or lymphads" "as feudal arms" (Nisbet, Essay on
Armories, p. 9).

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XIII. THE EARL OF ERROL.
[No. 29.
Argent, three escutcheons gules.
These are the paternal arms of Hay, borne by the Earls of Errol
as heads of the house.
Little credence is now given to the legendary origin of these arms.
Nisbet (i. 182) says that the king gave them to the peasant of
Luncarty "to intimate that the father and the two sons had been
luckily the three shields of Scotland". It is more likely that the
legend was suggested by the arms than that the arms were founded
on the legend. The legend, however, has in its turn furnished the
crest and supporters of more than one branch of the family.
Laing describes the seal of Nicholas Hay (1292) (i. 74, No. 417),
and also that of William, the fourth Earl, who was killed at Flodden,
as three escutcheons (i. 75, No. 425).
Sir David Lindsay gives the three escutcheons for " Haye, Erle
of Errell" (41).
""
The Hays were most probably a branch of the Norman De la
Hayes. "When,"
'When," says Mr. Planché, we can ascertain whose
daughter was Eva, the wife of William de Haya, living in 1174, we
may be able, perhaps, to account for the adoption of these arms with-
out going back to the time of the Danish invasion of Scotland in 980."
116
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 30.]
XIV. THE EARL MARISCHAL.
Argent, a chief paly of six or and gules.
The chief here is brought down so far that the shield appears to be parted per fess.
These are the ancient bearings of the family of Keith.
Probably the earliest known example is the seal of Sir Robert
Keith, Knight-Marischal of Scotland (1316), given by Laing (i. 81,
No. 461). He gives various other examples of them in the same
form.
They appear in that form in the Armorial de Gelre as the arms
of "court a keets"; in Sir David Lindsay's MS. as those of the
Earl Marischal (41), and on the stone over the gateway of Marischal
College.
In 1672, the arms of George, seventh Earl Marischal, were
registered as: Argent, on a chief gules three pallets or, a departure
from the ancient usage, for which there does not seem to have
been any good reason. Tradition professes to account for the device
by the story that at the battle of Panbride, in 1006, King Malcolm II.
dipped his fingers in blood and drew three strokes on the top of
the shield of Robert, a chief of the Catti, progenitor of the race of
Keith, who had killed the king of the Danes.
Here also it may
be surmised that the legend was manufactured to suit the bearings.
The arms of Barcelona have a similar legendary origin (No. 8).

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XV. THE EARL OF BOTHWELL.
[No. 31.
Gules, on a chevron argent a rose between two lions combatant of the field.
The arms of Hepburn, containing as they do the same figures
and tinctures as those of the Earls of Dunbar, though differently
arranged, are conjectured by Nisbet (i. 152-3) to have been assumed
from those of Dunbar as arms of patronage. He says that the first of
this name was an Englishman whom the Earl of Dunbar took prisoner
and brought to Scotland, and, being a brave and valiant man, the
Earl gave him the lands of Hales and others in East Lothian.
The earliest example given by Laing is the seal of Patrick
Hepburn (1371) (i. 75, No. 427), which he blazons: “On a chevron, a
rose between two lions rampant respecting, within a bordure en-
grailed". He also describes the seal of Patrick Hepburn, Earl of
Bothwell (1538) (the Earl at the period of the ceiling), as Quarterly:
first and fourth a bend, for De Vaux," or Vass, of Dirleton; "second
and third Hepburn " (i. 76, 429), and gives a representation of the seal
of Patrick Hepburn, third Earl, which has Hepburn with an anchor
in base, as indicating the office of Lord High Admiral (ii. 83, 493,
Plate III., fig. 7).
In the Armorial de Gelre the arms of Hepburn are given as
above.
Sir David Lindsay gives Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell: Quarterly,
first and fourth Or, a bend azure, for Vass, second and third Hepburn
(42).
118
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 32.]
XVI. THE BURGH OF Aberdeen.
Gules, three towers argent, windows and ports sable, within an
orle of the second.
The blazon given in the patent granted by the Lyon King of Arms in 1674 is: Gules, three
towers triple-towered within a double tressure counterflowered argent.
At the date of the construction of the ceiling, and afterwards
until as late as 1675, the seal used by the Corporation of Aberdeen
was the one of which Laing gives an engraving (i., Plate XXIX.,
figs. 1, 2). The matrix of this seal, dated 1430, which had been
lost sight of for many years, was lately recovered by Mr. P. J.
Anderson and the late Mr. John Cruickshank, and restored to the
custody of the Corporation. It shows only one tower, within the
tressure. Three towers appear on the seal of causes (1440) described
by Laing (i. 208, No. 1148), and about the middle of the seventeenth
century the three towers appear on Raban's title-pages, on the map by
Gordon, Parson of Rothiemay, and elsewhere.
For the history of these bearings, reference may be made to The
Armorial Ensigns of the Royal Burgh of Aberdeen, by the late. John
Cruickshank.
Perth is the only other burgh that bears in its arms the honour-
able augmentation of the double tressure.

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CHAPTER III.
CHURCH DIGNITARIES.
I. THE POPE.
LEO X. GIOVANNI DE' MEDICI.
[No. 33.
Or, six balls in orle, that in chief of France, the others gules.
Otherwise, Or, five balls in orle gules and one in chief azure charged with three fleurs-de-lis of
the field.
ORIGINALLY the charges were six balls gules, borne usually in orle,
but sometimes three, two, and one. In 1465, Louis XI. of France.
granted to Piero de' Medici, grandfather of Leo X., an augmentation
formed by substituting for the red ball in chief a blue one charged
with the three golden lilies of France, "in recognisance of the league
and fidelity wherein he promised to stand bound to serve the king
at his own charges" (Peacham).
The origin of the bearings is not known. Possibly they were
derived, in common with the name, from the supposed profession of
the founders of the house, and represented pills; but a more heroic
origin was found for them in the story that "Averardo de' Medici,
a commander under Charlemagne," "for his valour in destroying the
gigantic plunderer Mugello, by whom the surrounding country was
laid waste, was honoured with the privilege of bearing for his arms.
six palle or balls, as characteristic of the iron balls that hung from
the mace of his fierce antagonist, the impression of which remained
on his shield" (Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, i. 7, note (a);
Ed. 1795).
It is almost needless to remark that coat armour was unknown
in the time of Charlemagne.
120
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 34.] II. THE ARCHBISHOP OF SAINT ANdrews.
:
ANDREW FORMAN.
Quarterly first and fourth Azure, a chevron or between three fishes haurient
argent; second and third Sable, a camel's head erased or collared gules
campaned of the second.
It is doubtful which of these coats is borne for Forman.
Stodart (ii. 90) says: "There are several seals of Andrew, Arch-
bishop of St. Andrews: 1501, a camel's head; 1502-14, quarterly,
first and fourth, a chevron between three fishes; second and third,
a camel's head erased, collared and campaned; 1518, the chevron
and fish impaling the coat with a camel's head. It has been said
that the fish are for Fisher, but of this there is no proof, and it
remains uncertain which is the paternal coat; W." (Workman's MS.)
places the camel's head in the first and fourth quarters". And
at page 112 in his notes on Workman's MS., "Formane of yt Ilk,
first and fourth, a camel's head erased campaned, this is not painted;
second and third, sable, a chevron between three fishes haurient.
Notes on the margin make the field in the first and fourth sable,
and the bell or; the quartering is said to be Fisher, and the field
marked azure.”
66
In Mr. Stodart's first volume, Plate 28, there is a facsimile,
taken from "Additions to Sir David Lindsay's MS.," of the "Armes
of the right worschipfull Shir Robert Foirman, Lyon King at Armes".
These are: First and fourth Sable, three camels' heads erased or,
bridled of the field, campaned of the second; second and third Azure,
a chevron between three fishes haurient argent.
The presumption, therefore, is that the camel's head or heads
are the paternal bearings of Forman.
Laing (i. 148) describes the seals of Archbishop Forman (Nos.
877 and 878), and says: "In the lower part of the seal is a shield
quarterly, first and fourth, a chevron between three fishes haurient,
for Forman; second and third, a horse's head erased, and a hawk's
bell at the neck, for Horsburgh ". This seems to be a mistake for
the camel's head, and may, perhaps, have suggested the name of
Horsburgh. The arms of Horsburgh of that Ilk were: Azure, a
horse's head couped argent.

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III. THE ARCHBISHOP OF GLASGOW.
[No. 35.
JAMES BETHUNE OR BEATON.
Quarterly: first and fourth Azure, a fess between three mascles or, Bethune;
second and third Argent, on a chevron sable an otter's head erased of
the field, Balfour.
These were the arms of Bethune of Balfour, to which family the
Archbishop belonged.
The Balfour quartering was added to the coat of Bethune on
account of the marriage of Robert de Bethune with the daughter
and heiress of Sir John Balfour of that Ilk, in the reign of Robert
II.
Laing (i. 149, Nos. 879, 880) describes a seal of James Beton,
when Archbishop of Saint Andrews, to which See he was translated
from Glasgow in 1522, as having "at the lower part" "a shield
quarterly, first and fourth, a fess between three lozenges, for Beton;
second and third, a chevron charged with an otter's head, for
Balfour".
Q
122
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 36.]
IV. THE BISHOP OF DUNKELD.
GAVIN DOUGLAS.
Argent, a human heart gules, on a chief azure three stars of the field.
Laing (ii. 172, No. 1022) describes a seal of this Bishop as
having in base a shield bearing: Quarterly, first Angus, second
Abernethy, third Brechin, fourth Stewart of Bonkil; on an escutcheon
surtout, Douglas.
His nephew, Archibald, sixth Earl of Angus, bore the same
quarterings and escutcheon (Laing, i. 47, No. 252).
A seal of the Bishop's father, Archibald, fifth Earl (Bell-the-
Cat), is thus described by Laing (i. 47, No. 251): Quarterly first
a lion rampant for Angus (?); second a lion rampant debruised with
a ribbon for Abernethy; third three chevrons for Liddesdale; fourth
fretty for Lauderdale; on a surtout, Douglas.

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123
V. THE BISHOP OF Aberdeen.
GAVIN DUNBAR.
Argent, three cushions gules within the royal tressure.
[No. 37.
The cushions have no tassels, and thus resemble the pillows which were the original
bearings of Ranulph.
These are the arms of Ranulph or Randolph, Earl of Moray.
Those of Dunbar, Earls of Dunbar and Earls of March, were: Gules,
a lion rampant argent within a bordure of the last charged with eight
roses of the field (No. 20).
In 1357, the Earldom of Moray was conferred by David II. on
Patrick, ninth Earl of March and Dunbar, who had married Black
Agnes, elder sister and coheir of John, the last Earl of the male
line of the Ranulphs; and the Dunbars, Earls of Moray, thenceforth
took for their arms the coat of Ranulph, which had become the
territorial arms of the earldom. Those arms were borne by the
Dunbars of Westfield, who were descended from James, eighth and
last Dunbar, Earl of Moray. Laing (i. 56, No. 298) gives an en-
graving of the seal of Alexander Dunbar, first of Westfield, the
father of the Bishop, "a fess between three cushions; all within
a double tressure flowered and counterflowered" (1488).
Stone carvings of the arms of Bishop Dunbar (the three cushions.
or pillows, sometimes within the tressure and sometimes without
that addition) occur frequently in and about Aberdeen. Among these.
may be mentioned those on his tomb in the south transept of the
Cathedral of Saint Machar, on both towers of the Cathedral, on the
wall of King's College Chapel, and on the piers and buttresses of
the Bridge of Dee.
In these carvings, as well as on the ceiling, the cushions re-
semble lozenges, and have no tassels. In Sir David Lindsay's MS.
they are tasseled and pendent from the corners (39).
Laing gives two seals of the Bishop, each having at the lower
part a shield bearing three cushions within the royal tressure (i. 154,
No. 899; ii. 174, No. 1033).
124
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 38.]
VI. THE BISHOP OF MORAY.
JAMES HEPBUrn.
Gules, on a chevron argent a rose between two lions combatant of the field,
in base a heart-shaped buckle of the second.
These are the arms of Hepburn of Blackcastle, the buckle of this
tincture and shape being the difference of that family. They were
descended of Riccarton, whose difference was a buckle in base or
(Nisbet, i. 163).
Laing (i. 157, No. 912) describes a seal of this Bishop, and gives
an engraving of it (Plate XIX., fig. 5), having, in the lower part,
the arms with the heart-shaped buckle in base.

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125
VII. THE BISHOP OF Ross.
[No. 39.
ROBERT COCKBURN.
Argent, three cocks gules.
The arms are those of Cockburn of that Ilk, Berwickshire, and
not those of Cockburn of Skirling, whose difference was a spear's
head.
Laing (ii. 183, No. 1068) gives a seal of this Bishop, and says
that "the lower part of the seal, usually occupied by the shield,
is broken off" (1515), and one of the same Robert Cockburn, when
Bishop of Dunkeld (ii. 172, No. 1023), having "a shield bearing three
cocks" (1525). He was third son of Sir William Cockburn of
Cessfurd and Skirling.
126
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR
No. 40.]
VIII. THE BISHOP OF Brechin.
(6
JOHN HEPBUrn.
Gules, on a chevron argent a rose between two lions combatant of the field.
These are the paternal arms of Hepburn.
Laing (i. 159, No. 919) describes a seal of this Bishop as having
'at the lower part a shield, bearing the arms of Hepburn ".

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127
IX. THE BISHOP OF CAITHNESS.
ANDREW STEWART.
[No. 41.
Quarterly: first and fourth Or, a fess chequy argent and azure, Stewart; second
and third Paly of six or and sable, Athol.
The fess is here argent and azure, and it is so represented by Sir David Lindsay in the
arms of the Earl of Athol. The blazon azure and argent, as given in the Armorial
de Gelre and also by Nisbet, is probably more correct.
The common idea that the fess checky was in its origin allusive to
the checker of the Steward's board is somewhat shaken by the fact
pointed out by Mr. Ellis in his Antiquities of Heraldry that fess
chequy between three cross crosslets is on the seals of the family of
Boteler, descended from the daughter and heir of William Fitzalan,
son of the elder brother of the first High Steward of Scotland. A field
chequy occurs in the earliest heraldry of England and France, appear-
ing in the arms of the Earls of Warren, Earls of Mellent, and various
cognate families; with whom, however, it has not been proved that the
Stewarts or Fitzalans claimed kindred.
Robert II., on his accession to the throne, ceased to use his
paternal arms of Stewart and bore the arms of Scotland, but the fess
chequy has continued to be borne, with various differences or vari-
ously composed, by all the branches of the house of Stewart except
the Royal line and some of their immediate descendants.
The fess and other ordinaries chequy occur in the bearings of
several Scotch families (Lindsay, Boyd, Semple, Menteith, &c.),
having been derived from the Stewart fess either by descent, or, as
Nisbet says, taken "in imitation of the Stewarts or as vassals to them "
".
Stodart (ii. 28) says: "The seal of Alan Stuart, c. 1190, is
the first in which the fess checquy appears". Laing gives the seal
(i. 127, No. 772) with an engraving (Plate III., fig. 2), and says
that it is perhaps the earliest instance of this well-known bearing.
In the Armorial de Gelre "Syr Alexsander Stuwart" bears: Or, a
fess chequy azure and argent, and "Sur ioon Senescal" bears the
same debruised of a bendlet gules.
The other quartering is the coat of the ancient Earls of Athol.
It has been borne by the various lines which have held that earldom,
either alone or as a feudal quartering belonging to the earldom.
128
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
In the Roll of the thirteenth century (supra, p. 87) the arms of
"Le Countee de Asceles " are given: "Paly d'or et de sable".
The arms appear as three pales on the seal of John of Strathbogie,
Earl of Athol (1292) (Laing, i. 125, No. 761), and in the Armorial de
Gelve, Or, three pallets sable, is given as the arms of "Count a
Assol".
Sir David Lindsay gives the quartered coat, as it is here, as the
arms of Stewart, Earl of Athol (42).
This prelate was a younger son of John, first of the Stewart Earls
of Athol, who was eldest son of the "Black Knight of Lorn," by Joan
of Beaufort, widow of King James I.
The usage here differs from that in the case of Bishop Gavin
Douglas (No. 36), where only the paternal arms are given, without
the feudal quarterings.
No. 42.]
X. THE BISHOP OF GALLOWAY.
DAVID ARnot.
Azure, a star or, on a chief argent three roses gules.
The arms of Arnot of that Ilk were: Argent, a chevron between
three stars gules.
Other families of the name had the same bearings, with differences.
The only figure in this coat in common with these is the star,
and the tinctures are different.
The Bishop was a son of John Arnot of that Ilk.

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XI. THE BISHOP OF DUNBLANE.
[No. 43.
JAMES CHISHOLM.
Gules, a boar's head couped at the neck argent.
Laing (ii. 180, No. 1057) gives a seal of this Bishop with an
engraving (Plate IX., fig. 7). He says that it has in base "a shield
bearing a boar's head and neck erased". The engraving shows
a boar's head without the neck.
Sir David Lindsay gives the arms of "Lord Chissam of auld":
Gules, a boar's head and neck couped argent (65).
The Bishop was a son of Chisholm of Cromlix, who was a son
of Chisholm of that Ilk, county Roxburgh.
R
130
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 44.]
XII. THE BISHOP OF Argyll.
DAVID HAMilton.
Gules, three cinquefoils pierced argent.
The paternal arms of the house of Hamilton are: Gules, three
cinquefoils ermine, and they are so borne by many important branches
of the family. The cinquefoils were borne argent in the arms of
the Hamiltons of Preston, Innerwick, Bangour, Silvertonhill, San-
quhar, &c.
The family of Hamilton are said by Nisbet (i. 382) to "derive
their descent from the old Earls of Leicester in England and Mellant
in Normandy, who carried gules, a cinquefoil ermine, the paternal coat
of Mellant". "On the seal of Robert de Bellomont, called Fitz Pernel,
Earl of Leicester, A.D. 1191-1206, is seen the rude impression of a
cinquefoil ermine" (Planché).
The alleged descent of the Hamiltons from the Leicester family
has not been proved. The oldest known ancestor is Walter Fitz-
gilbert, who swore fealty to Edward in 1296, and kept Bothwell
Castle for the English.
This Bishop was a natural son of James, first Lord Hamilton.

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131
XIII. THE BISHOP OF ORKNEY.
[No. 45.
EDWARD STEWART.
Or, a fess chequy azure and argent within the royal tressure.
This is the form of the arms of Stewart borne by the family of
Bute, who represent the hereditary Sheriffs of Bute, the first of whom
was John Stewart, natural son of Robert II. They seem to have
borne formerly the paternal arms of Stewart (Nisbet, i. 52).
Stodart (ii. 78) gives "Steuarte of Butte," from Forman's Roll
(1562), the simple coat of Stewart, and (ii. 116) "Ye Sr of Buit,"
from Workman's MS. (1565-6), the same coat of Stewart.
The seal of David Stewart, Earl of Strathearn (1374) (Laing, i.
126, No. 768), has a fess chequy for Stewart, between two chevrons
for Stratherne, all within the tressure.
132
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 46.]
XIV. THE BISHOP OF THE ISLES.
Possibly vacant.
Azure, a dove displayed argent beaked and membered gules.
The design here is perhaps more emblematic than heraldic.
Principal Campbell suggests that Bishop Dunbar may have
adopted the dove, "the well-known emblem of Saint Columba and
also of Iona," as the symbol of the See. Orem blazons this: Gules, an
eagle displayed or.

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est rt pristmas Campbell)
ratoribns GRphr unb aberd print
arruralt pidum Andria Gibb
Ame but: Univerſitatiıl.
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XV. THE PRIOR OF SAINT ANDRews.
[No. 47.
JOHN HEPBURN.
Gules, on a chevron argent a rose between two lions combatant of the field.
As in the case of John Hepburn, Bishop of Brechin, the paternal
arms of Hepburn, without a difference, are used here. Laing (i. 199,
No. 1109) describes a seal of the Prior and says: "At the lower
part is a shield bearing the arms of Hepburn".
134
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
No. 48.] XVI. UNIVERSITY AND KING'S COLLEGE, OLD Aberdeen.
Azure, an open book proper within an orle argent.
The University of Aberdeen possesses a seal "believed to have
been given by the founder, Bishop Elphinston, to King's College"
(Principal Campbell's notes in The Herald and Genealogist before re-
ferred to), which shows the arms borne by the University and King's
College until the union with Marischal College and University in
1860.
The blazon of these is: Azure, a bough pot or charged with three
salmon fishes in fret proper and holding as many lilies of the garden,
the dexter in bud the middle full blown the sinister half blown,
stalked and leaved proper flowered argent; in chief amid rays of the
sun issuant downwards a dexter hand holding an open book all
proper.
The orle appears to have been introduced as a fancy of the
painter, suggested perhaps by the orle, which ought to be a double
tressure, in the corresponding shield of the arms of the Burgh of
Aberdeen (No. 32).
By means of a bequest made by the late Mr. John Cruickshank,
ensigns armorial have now been matriculated as the arms of the
University of Aberdeen by warrant of the Lyon King of Arms, dated
26th September, 1888, the blazon of which is as follows: "Quarterly,
first, Azure, a Bough pot Or charged with three Salmon fishes in fret
proper and containing as many Lilies of the garden the dexter in bud
the centre full blown and the sinister half blown also proper flowered
Argent, issuant downwards from the middle chief amid Rays of the Sun
a Dexter Hand holding an open Book likewise proper; second, Argent,
a Chief paly of six Or and Gules; third, Argent, a Cheveron Sable
between three Boars' Heads erased Gules armed of the field and
langued Azure; fourth, Gules, a Tower triple towered Argent masoned
Sable windows and port of the last ".
END OF PART II. (HERALDIC SECTION).
APPENDICES.
ANT. E do lobe these ancient ruins:
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history.
And questionless here, in this open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather, some men lie interred,
Lobed the Church so well, and gave so largely to't,
They thought it should have canopied their bones
Till doomsday: but all things have their end.
Churches and cities, which habe diseases like to men,
Must have like death that we have.
L
-WEBSTER, Duchess of Malfi (v., Sc. 3).

Photogravure, T & R. Annan & Sons.
5., པོ ....༄ཞི6.༧༨) ༤༼༡༩༦
APPENDIX I.
NOTES ON THE LIFE OF BISHOP GAVIN DUNBAR.
*** The following outline of the life and doings of Bishop Gavin
Dunbar is based upon that given in the History of the See and its Bishops,
forming the Preface to the Edition of the "Registrum Episcopatus Aber-
donensis" (vol. i., p. lii.), published by the former Spalding Club. A few
additions to that text may be recognised as being in italics, and the cita-
tions now added enable us to trace a good many additional "vestigia" of his
path.
*
On the decease of Bishop Alexander Gordon, who died on the 30th of
June, 1518, "Gavin Dunbar succeeded, a prelate whose power in the
state and zeal for his Church would have secured him the highest
panegyrics, of the Church historians, if he had followed less closely
Bishop Elphinston. He was the [fourth] son of Sir Alexander `
Dunbar of Westfield,† by his wife Elizabeth [or Isabella], daughter of
Alexander Sutherland of Duffus. We are not informed of his first
living in the Church; but he is found dean of his native diocese of
Moray in 1487.¹ And he held that office, apparently alone, till after
the 22nd of August, 1498.2 On the 24th of May, 1503, he was Dean
of Moray, and also Clerk of Register and of Council," and he bears
the same titles on March 13th of the same year.¹‡
4 Between the
1 In October, 1487. Regist. Morav., p. 257.
•
2 Burgh Rec. of Abdn., p. 67 [where high office is designed for him on an embassy
"to the Archeduk of Austrie, &c.”].
3 Reg. Glasg., p. 505.
¹ Act. Parl., vol ii., p. 272. [Also on 4th July, 1502.
Unpublished Exchequer Rolls."]
Being the 24th Bishop of Aberdeen, Reg. Aberd., p. lviii.
+ Son of James, 8th Earl of Moray (Stodart, see infra, p. 142).
Under his quill and hand at this time had passed the matrimonial contract of King
James IV. with Margaret Tudor.
S
· 138
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
•
latter date and 24th November, 1506, he had left the Chapter of
Moray, and had been installed as Archdeacon of St. Andrews, while
he still held the office of Clerk of Register.5 Among the Lords of
Council at Edinburgh on the 5th of December, 1506, is "Maister
Gawan Dunbar, Archiḍañ of St. Androis, and Clerk Registre," and
he witnessed royal charters by the same style, on the 8th of May,
1509,' and on the 8th day of January, 1515.8
In the year 1519, Gawin de Dunbar, now Bishop of Aberdeen,*
ratified the statutes of William Elphinston touching the government
of the choir.9 On the 7th December of that year, he collated
Thomas Hay, secretary to the Duke of Albany, to the prebend of
Rothwan, on the presentation of the Archbishop of St. Andrews,
patron hac vice et in turno suo.10 He was again at Aberdeen in
April, May, and June, 1521,11 and on the 7th of May, 1523, he gave
collation to a chaplain in the Cathedral, on the presentation of the
Lord Forbes.12 + He was present in the Parliament held at Edin-
burgh on the 14th of November, 1524; and in that of 22nd February,
in which he was one of the Lords of the Articles.13 ‡ For his
5 Ibid., p. 274. [Archdeacon of St. Andrews, 5th August, 1506.
• Regist. de Dunf., p. 375.
7 Act. Parl., vol. ii., p. 275-7.
8 Reg. Glasg., p. 525.
9 Regist. Aberd., vol. ii., p. 101.
10 P. 383 of Regist.
11 P. 386-7. Burgh Rec., p. 562.
12 P. 387 of Regist.
18 Act. Parl., vol. ii., pp. 284-288, 289.
Bishop from 5th Nov., 1518, to 9th March, 1531-2 (Stodart).
+ 1522.
"Crown Rentals."]
"A propyne" to Gavin Dunbar, p. xxi. of Preface, Burgh Records of Aber-
deen (Sp. C1.).
Entries relating to Gavin Dunbar (I.) in Burgh Records of Aberdeen: 16th March,
1524 (Burgh Rec., p. 107); 14th August, 1525, pp. 110-1 (on heresy of Luther); also, ist
April, 1527; 3rd June, 1527; 8th Nov., 1527, upkeep of Brig of Dee (Burgh Rec., p. 116-9).
He is still Clerk of Register in 1525 (Burgh Rec., p. 111); and on 12th Dec., 1530, he is
present at Perth as one of the Lords of Council, in which he also appears as Clerk of
Register (Burgh Rec., p. 139).
(II.) The following notes are from Records of Parliament, p. 295, &c.:
x. die Julii, 1525.
(Present) Eps. Aberdonensis (Gavin Dunbar, one of the Lords of the Articles).
xvii. die Julii, 1525.
NOTES ON THE LIFE OF BISHOP GAVIN DUNBar.
139
adherence to the Regent Albany, he was imprisoned, along with the
Chancellor Beaton, by the Queen Mother, in August of that year,
and not liberated till October.* In November, the Secret Council
appointed by the Parliament consisted of the Chancellor, the Bishop
of Aberdeen, Arran, and Argyll, with the Queen Mother for chief.
In January the bishops were, with Angus and the confederated lords,
at St. Andrews, in defiance of the Court. In February they were
again members of a council of Government, of which the Queen was
the head. In that unhappy time, parties were not drawn together
Condemnation of "the dampnable opinzeouns of heresy" (Luther's name men-
tioned).
In Parliament, 12th June, 1526, also present, and a Lord of the Articles.
12th Nov., 1526,
10th May, 1527 (not present).
2nd Sept., 1528, present, and a Lord of the Articles.
No entry as to Parliament in 1529 or 1530.
In 1531, present, and for last time.
In 1532, the Electus [Bishop William Stewart], his successor, appears.
(III.) The following are the notices of Gavin Dunbar in the Fasti of the University :
1. Before his Episcopate.
At Edinburgh, in February [day blank], 1505, charter under Great Seal confirming a
charter of Foundation by Sir Al. Boswell, witnessed, among others, by "dilecto clerico
Magistro Gavino Dunbar, Archidiacono Sancti Andree, rotulorum et registri ac concilii
clerico".
In Edinburgh, 11th October, 1506, he is witness to a confirmation, under Great Seal,
of a charter by "Wm. Cumyng of Inverelouchy". [This Wm. Cumyng is the Lyon King of
Arms, contemporary with the erection of the ceiling.]
He witnesses similarly a charter of confirmation, Edinburgh, 28th May, 1512.
II. During his Episcopate.
The first mention of him in the Fasti, after he became Bishop, occurs on 4th May,
1526, in a Preceptum Sasine concessum per Gavinum Episcopum Aberdonensem".
He is referred to by his episcopal office, without being named, in the Bull of Clement
VII., at Rome, 18th January, 1526-7.
His name occurs in the Royal confirmation of Privileges to "University, college, and
city of Auld Aberdene," granted at Aberdeen by James V., 7th February, 1527. In this deed
Gavin Dunbar is entered as not only "Bishop of Aberdeen," but Clerk "nostrorum rotu-
lorum registri et concilii".
The most important of the Records relating to him in the Fasti is the long and
voluminous Deed of 18th December, 1529, confirming the "Nova Fundatio" of the College.
The last entry in which his name appears as acting as Bishop is in a charter granting
a certain piece of waste land to the College. Dated 15th November, 1531.
* See Diurnal of Occurrents (Bann. Cl.), pp. 9, 16. [See above, p. 34.]
140
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
by any common principle of action. The leaders of the State, the
passionate, fickle Queen, the profligate Albany, all their followers,
and their opponents, acted from no motives higher than the narrowest
views of selfish interest. It is unprofitable to follow our Bishop
through the daily fluctuations of the factions of that vicious age. In
1527, was compiled and written at 'Antwerp, under his direction and
at his expense, the magnificent" Epistolare de tempore et de Sanctis,"
for the use of his Cathedral, which is still preserved in the University
that owed so much to his care.14 In 1529, he purchased the lands
of Quarelwood and Lidgat, 'near Elgin, and endowed from them two
chaplainries in the Cathedral Church of Moray, for the souls of his
father and mother. The provisions of the foundation are more than
usually minute as to the duties and conduct of the chaplains-" quod
dicti duo capellani sint bonae conversationis, absque concubinis aut
focariis, in cantu Gregoriano experti, et discantu mediocriter instructi
et docti," with other provisions for their constant residence, and for
enforcing the rules regarding their honest conversation.15 On the
14th December; 1529, Dishop Gawin granted to the burgh of Aber-
deen the lands of Ardlair for the erection of a stone bridge across
the Dee.16 On the 24th April, 1531, the Bishop appears for the last
time in Parliament.17 On the 9th of February, 1531, he opposed
the grant by the clergy of a large yearly contribution for the support
of the new College of Justice,18 and he was appointed by the dis-
sentients to prosecute an appeal to Rome against the tax; "but
this," says Spotiswood, "ceased on an accord made". Finally,
on the 23rd February, 1531, Bishop Gawin-promulgating the truth
that "the prelates of the Church were not the masters of the patri-
mony of the cross, but its guardians and administrators"-founded
and endowed his hospital for twelve poor folk and a governor; to be
14 Regist. Aberd., vol. ii., p. 236.
15 Regist. Morav., pp. 416-7.
16 P. 393. See the previous process. See also proceedings relating to the Bridge of
Dee and the Chapel of Our Lady there, in Burgh Records, pp. 117-9, 126-9. [In the Deed
66
on pp. 393-4 of the Registrum, a Coadjutor-Bishop and successor," Georgius, Prior of
Pluscarden, signs with Gavin Dunbar, but probably predeceased him.]
17 Act. Parl., vol. ii., p. 332.
18 Diurn, of Occurrents, p. 15-an authority, however, not to be relied on for dates.
NOTES ON THE LIFE OF BISHOP GAVIN DUNBAR.
141
•
19
•
built on the outside of the Cathedral cemetery. He died [at St.
Andrews, Ker's Donaides, p. 15] on the 10th of March of that year.2 20
Father Hay, adding somewhat to Spotiswood, gives us a few
further particulars of his life and character: "Gawan Dunbar, Arch-
dean of St. Andrews, and Master of the Rolls, a man of many ex-
cellent parts, was, after Gordon, elected bishop; he set himself to
perfect all those works which Bishop Elphinston had begun and were
not yet finished, especially the building of the bridge upon Dee (a
fair bridge of stone, with seven arches); he built the south quarter
of the College, and the houses that were appointed for the preben-
daries and professors of sciences in the College. He did perfite
the two lesser steeples, CEILED THE CHURCH, and built the south
aisle about 1522. The executors of Bishop Elphinston he called
to an account, and made them render the moneys left by him in
legacy; adding thereto his own liberality, wherewith he accomplished
all these works. He founded likewise ane hospital for twelve poor
men, and a preceptor to attend them; and all the time he lived
bishop, which was thirteen years, whatsoever profit or commodity he
made by the Church he bestowed wholly upon the poor and public
works, without applying a farthing to his own use or the inriching
of his kinsmen. . . . He bestowed many rich and precious ornaments
upon the Cathedral which remained there long after. He built a
fair house for the small prebendaries called the chaplains. Other
many commendable works were performed by this prelate, besides his
just dealing towards the common wealth. He enjoyed the bishoprick
for the space of thirteen years, and got not the fruits thereof in vain.".
•
19 P. 401.
20 Regist. Aberd., vol. ii., p. 211. The Calendar of Ferne gives his anniversary on the
9th of March, and T. Innes's MS. notes give his death on the 26th of March. Another
anniversary was celebrated for him on St. Columba's day (9th June), perhaps the patron
saint of his family, by the vicars of the choir, in gratitude for the manse [rather, mansioncs,
in original], built for them by his executors after his death (Regist. Aberd., vol. ii., p. 214).
[This conjecture of Cosmo Innes, as to the patron saint of the Dunbar family, is confirmed
by the circumstance that a Bishop of Moray of the same family bore the name of Columba
de Dunbar. He died in his palace at Spynie in 1435, and is buried in the Dunbar aisle in
the Cathedral at Elgin. See Stodart's "Scottish Arms," vol. ii., p. 10. The mention of
Executors in the Registrum (ii. p. 214), recalls the fact that a stone inscribed with the words
pcr Executores," in Saxon letter, still exists in the environs of the Aberdeen Cathedral.]
142
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Such is the outline of the incidents in the Bishop's life as gleaned
by Cosmo Innes in the Preface to the Registrum.* Our space will
not suffice to include the contemporary Life by Hector Boece, forming,
as it does, the last of the Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen, composed
by the First Principal of King's College. The Dedication of Boece's
book is given to Gavin Dunbar, and the two together-Life and Dedi-
cation-form a fine tribute in Ciceronian Latin to the virtues of the
Bishop.t
To the above we append the following succinct notice of Gavin
Dunbar's life appearing in Stodart's Scottish Arms (vol. ii., p. 14):
"Gavin Dunbar, Bishop of Aberdeen, fourth son of Sir Alexander
of Westfield, Archdeacon of St. Andrews, and Clerk Register, was
provided to the See of Aberdeen by Pope Leo X., on the 5th November,
+
* Two letters of Gavin Dunbar, of date March 15, 1525, both signed-one to Henry
VIII. and one to Card. Wolsey-are found in vol. iii. of Thorpe's Calendar of State Papers
(Scottish Series). Plura, regarding these letters on p. 146 infra.
+ In Joannis Dunbari Epigrammata (London, 1616) occurs (p. 17, centuria via, Epigr.
xlii.) an epigram ascribing to Gavin (with whom the author claims kinship, and whom he calls
proavi sui frater) the foundation of the Academia Aberdonensis ! Epigram No. xli. is
entitled, "Ejusdem, Gavini, Pons Donae" (? Devac), in somewhat poor Latin, and with a
pun upon the name Pontifex: "Ostendit verum se fore pontificem ". These epigrams are
thus referred to by M'Kenzie :
John Dunbar, the famous epigrammist, who flourished in the reigns of King James
VI. and Charles I., made the two following Epigrams upon this prelate :-
I.
"Jam quod Aberdoniæ doctis Academia Musis
Floreat, et celsum tollat in astra caput,
Ut labor ille sui, nunc sit laus ista Gavini;
Hic posuit tantæ prima elementa scholæ.
II.
"Circa Aberdoniam tumidis Dona labitur undis;
Turgidus, et nullis trajiciendus equis:
Huic pontem hic Præsul fecit cum condere, numquid
Ostendit verum se fore Pontificem ? "
M'Kenzie's Lives of Scots Writers, ii., p. 612.
Son of James, eighth Earl of Moray, who was grandson of John Dunbar, fifth Earl
of Moray, who was grandson of Sir Thomas Ranulph, first Earl of Moray, the nephew of
Robert Bruce. Sir Alexander died 10th March, 1497-8. His effigy on his tomb in the Dunbar
Aisle in the Cathedral at Elgin has "three cushions" on its breast. The Bishop could thus
claim a right to use the cushions, as being the son of the great great great grandson of Sir
Thomas Ranulph, first Earl of Moray. Cf. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. xxii., p. 187.
A

OPIREBIRDONE
SEAL OF BISHOP GAVIN DUNBAR, appended to an Instrument confirming
Bishop William Elphinstone's new foundation of the College of
St. Mary, Old Aberdeen, 1529.
ANDW GLOBE CO. LITHAT
3.QUEEN STABON
NOTES ON THE LIFE OF BISHOP GAVIN DUNBAR.
143
1518. It was Bishop Dunbar who had the Cathedral at Aberdeen
ceiled with wood, and the ceiling decorated with coats of arms.
"On an illumination in one of the Cathedral books, his arms are
emblazoned between two bears; * but the Bishop does not seem either
to have used or to have had right to supporters.
"He died on the 9th March 1531-2.
"His arms-three pillows within the Royal tressure-are on his
seals; and, with the addition of a mitre and his initials, are on the
Old Bridge of Dee, and on the canopy of his tomb over his effigy in
'Bishop Gavin Dunbar's Aisle' in the Cathedral at Aberdeen.
"The Bishop is often confused with his nephew, Gavin Dunbar,
who was 'provided' to the Archbishoprick of Glasgow on the 8th of
July 1524, and died on the 30th of April 1547."
The following is taken from Menteith's Theater of Mortality (Edinb.
1704), part ii., p. 223 :
✓
"The names of the children of Sir Alexander Dunbar, of Westfield,
first Sheriff of Morray, as they are in the Dunbars' burial-place,
commonly called the Dunbars' Isle, in the Northside of the Cathedral
Church of Morray in Elgine:
1. Sir James Dunbar of Cumnock.
2. Sir John Dunbar of Mochrum.
3. Alex. Dunbar of Kilboyack.
་
4. Gavine Dunbar, Bishop of Aberdeen.
5. Jannet Dunbar, Lady Innerugie.
6. David Dunbar of Durrhs (Durris).
7. Mr. Patrick Dunbar, Chancellor of Aberdeen.
8. Leonard Dunbar, student in Paris.
9.
Dunbar, who died young."
* The Bishop's arms with the two bears will be found in the frontispiece of the Registrum
Ep. Aberd., as taken from the "Epistolare" of Gavin Dunbar. Another example of his coat
of arms, within a G initial letter, is reproduced in Registrum Ep. Aberd. (vol. ii., p. 154).
In the same volume (ii. of the Registrum, in Plate II., at close) is found the round seal of
Gavin Dunbar (sigillum rotundum), also with the three cushions. It is worthy of being
compared with his oval "sigillum autenticum," of which a representation faces this page.
A third seal of Gavin Dunbar, Archdeacon of St. Andrews, is noted by Laing (vol. ii., p. 56),
under the evidently erroneous date 1556.
144
THE HERALDIC CEILING QF ST. MACHAR.
BISHOP DUNBAR'S PREDILECTION FOR HERALDIC ORNAMENT.
The idiosyncrasies of individuals are frequently the enrichment of
the world, and what may have been, in some instances, little better
than a foible of vainglory, may turn out to be, as so often in charitable
endowments, a source of happiness and benefit to mankind. Such has
been the case with the tasteful predilections of Gavin Dunbar, and few
among our old Scottish worthies can be named who have done more
to delight the eye and mind of posterity by his fondness for heraldic
decorations.
The extent to which he indulged himself in the exhibition of his
own heraldic blazoning may appear from the following enumeration.
The list is one that reckons up the various coats of arms, attributable
to and representative of the Bishop, which, after the lapse of nearly
four centuries, are still visible in Aberdeen or its vicinity.
Coats of Arms of Bishop Gavin Dunbar at and around Aberdeen.
Description.
Place.
Carved wood-painted. On the ceiling of the Cathedral, -
Freestone.
On the two towers of the Cathedral,
· I
2
(on S. W. corner of North Tower; and on S. E. corner
of South Tower.)
Freestone.
Freestone.
Freestone.
Freestone.
Coloured drawings.*
Impressions of seals.
Stone.
On Bishop Gavin Dunbar's tomb, with motto
on scroll, "sub [spe]," and initials, G. D.,
above,
On house S.E. of Cathedral (chaplainry),
In King's College Quadrangle (modern),
Old Market Cross of Old Aberdeen,
I
I
I
I
2
3
- 8
+
- 20
In MS., Epistolare, in King's College Library,
Appended to Charters,
(1 as Archdeacon and 2 as Bishop.)
On the Bridge of Dee,
* In Univ. Library Catalogue, D² 3.40.
Total,
For this minute information in regard to Bishop Gavin Dunbar's coats of arms we
are indebted to A. H. Dunbar, Esq., younger of Northfield, who is descended in the male line
from Alexander Dunbar, the immediate elder brother of the Bishop.
NOTES ON THE LIFE OF BISHOP GAVIN DUNBAR.
145
The coat of arms of Gavin Dunbar which is found on the old
Market Cross of Old Aberdeen,* is now in the Archæological Museum
in King's College. Doubtless his arms also appeared † over the door of
his Hospital for twelve poor men, at the west of the Cathedral; and
his shield is said to have been upon the Bishop's Palace, which stood
due east of the Cathedral. These two last mentioned shields have
either perished, or, perhaps, may be among those still existing, utilised
in more recent buildings. ‡
+
+
In a recent article on Hector Boece, in the periodical called The
Scottish Church (No. 12, vol. ii.), reference is made to an alleged
discord between the first Principal and his Chancellor on the subject
of the extent to which Dunbar's heraldic shield should be introduced
into the College Buildings then progressing. The allegation is that
Boece objected to Gavin introducing so largely his own shield into
Elphinston's College, and that Dunbar, becoming displeased, caused
the work to be huddled up without the artistic finish which he intended.
The only authority for the story known to us is the notice in Orem §
(Old Aberdeen, p. 304, Edition, 1830), who, however, living 200 years later,
can hardly be accepted as sufficient voucher for a story devoid of any
contemporary evidence and strangely discordant with the panegyric of
Dunbar in Boece's Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen.
It is worth noting that the Lyon King of Arms contemporary
with Bishop Gavin Dunbar belonged to the Bishop's diocese, viz.,
Sir William Cumyng of Inverallochy (in Buchan), Lyon King A.D.
* See Orem's "Old Aberdeen," p. 188, where, besides Dunbar's arms, mention is made
of the arms of the King of Scotland and of Bishops Stewart and Gordon, as figured on the
Market Cross. On the arms of his nephew, Gavin the Archbishop, see Her. and Gen., vii.,
p. 40.
+ See Kennedy's Annals, ii., p. 316.
In the records-unfortunately only records—of the internal ornaments and vestments
given to the Cathedral by this munificent Bishop, we are not surprised to find evidence of
armorial decoration appearing even in the perishable furnishings of the Church of St. Machar.
In the List of Gifts by Bishop Dunbar found in Registrum, ii. 192-3, mention is made five
times, in describing the texture and uses of the various objects, that they were
dicti Domini Episcopi". On p. 196 of the same volume occurs an entry in the vernacular
to a similar effect: "Ane banquhoir of tanne veluet, contenand sax ell Flemis, vith Bischeip
Gauinis armis in V places".
cum armis
§ Orem is the "scribe" who wrote the deed of Walter Ogilvy of Redhythe, 1678 (Fasti
Aberd., p. 182.)
T
146
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
1518.* Although nothing beyond a mere incidental trace (see p. 139 n.)
has yet been found associating the two or indicating any mutual
acquaintance, there is little doubt that the Lyon King of the day was
among the entourage surrounding the Bishop, and may have counten-
anced or sanctioned the heraldic display in the Cathedral roof.
Tradition has it that "the work of the ceiling was performed by
James Winter, from Angus, a lasting monument of his genius as a
mechanic and artist".t
BISHOP DUNBAR'S LOVE OF ARCHITECture.
Hardly less notable than his passion for Heraldry was his fondness
for Architecture, in regard to which, if we may follow the facetious Thomas
Fuller, in a like case, we may style him the ' edifying Bishop'. If we
except Bishop Elphinston, it may be doubted if any single benefactor
of Bon-Accord has left so many, and so characteristic, ornaments, even
after the sore ravages of time, enriching the architecture of the two
cities. To these we can at present only allude, taking as our text the
interesting enumeration given in a Graduation Address published
exactly a century after Dunbar's death.
In the Panegyricus Inauguralis, by Andrew Strachan, Regent or
Professor, 1629 (Raban, Aberdeen, 1631), mention is made (pp. 14-15)
of three of Gavin Dunbar's architectural works. Those specified are:
1. Fanum Fratrum Franciscanorum Næabredonense (i.e., The
Grey Friars' Church, the sole Pre-Reformation Church now existing
in Aberdeen).
+
2. Płochodochium ‡ amplum et accommodum in Veteri Aberdonia
(in quo) xii. egeni aluntur (Bede-House for twelve poor men).
3. S. Macarii basilicam, Baσılıkŵs, ædificiorum novorum arte
maxima elaboratorum accessione, veterum etiam instauratione, exornavit.
* Seton's Scottish Heraldry, p. 478.
+ Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen.
399-406.
For Deeds as to this Foundation or Bede-House, see Registr. Ep. Aberd., i. pp.
*** The two letters of Gavin Dunbar referred to in note on p. 142 occur in Brewer's
Calendar, vol. iv., as Nos. 1191-2. That to Henry VIII. is signed "be youre oratoure and
chaplane, Byshop of Ab'den ". It is spotted with damp and damaged. The other to Wolsey,
of same date, is in good condition and is signed "Mandatarius Ab'donen ". This last is
printed in full in the Quarto Edition of the State Papers, vol. iv., p. 342. No seals, these
having been lost.
APPENDIX II.
ARMS OF OUR SAVIOUR, ANCIENTLY IN ST. MACHAR'S CATHEDRAL.
It is singular that the heraldic impulse aspired beyond even the
dignities of earthly grandeur, and sought to glorify the Kingdom of
Christ with the ascription of arms. Nowhere does this impulse
appear to have manifested itself more notably than in the shire and
city of Aberdeen.
In Spalding's History occurs the following (i., p. 313, Sp. Cl. Ed.),
among the incidents of the "Troubles," anno 1640:
"Thairefter thay [Committee of Covenant] cam all ryding up the
get, cam to Maucher kirk, ordanit our blissit Lord Jesus Christ his
armes to be hewin out of the foirfroont of the pulpit thairof. . . .
He (maister of Forbes) causit ane mesoun strik out Christis armes
in hewin wark, on ilk end of bischop Gawin Dumbaris tomb.*
""
What the arrangement of the arms in these two, or rather three,
instances had been, we may, perhaps, conceive alternatively: Either,
first, as an analogon to the singular blazon of Prester (or Presbyter)
John, as shown in Sir David Lindsay's Heraldic MS.,† or secondly, as
the not unfrequent adumbration or shadowing forth of armorials to
* At the finials terminating the curve of the arch are still noticeable two small shields,
each with a cherub behind displaying the shield. The disks of these shields, which are,
from whatever cause, blurred and obscure, are certainly the relics of this mutilation, for in
the one to the west, on the right of the spectator, there is perceptible the heart with traces of
the other appendages belonging to a well-known emblematic form of the Sacred Arms.
†This shield of Prester John is thus blazoned in a careful note furnished in his own
hand by the late worthy John Cruickshank :—“Or, on a Cross of the Passion azure, rising
out of a mount vert and between two scourges paleways of the second cords outwards
gules, the dead body of Our Saviour proper, nimbed of the field and wreathed about the
loins with a cloth argent shadowed azure; on His head the Crown of Thorns, the Blood
flowing therefrom, and from the Wound in the dexter side, and from the hands and feet
which are pierced with the Nails, all proper; on the upper limb of the Cross the Scroll
argent, lettered INRI sable ".
148
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
our Lord, found in such a group of emblems representing the Five
Wounds upon the Cross, as this: "A man's Heart, between two
Hands expanded and wounded, and as many Feet, trunked at the
ancle, and wounded in the like manner; all placed saltire-ways
and proper" (Boss of Stone in groined roof of Divinity Schools,
Oxford, as described in Wood's Oxford, ii., p. 786).
A similar boss of stone, with precisely the same emblems, occurs
in an oratory in Towie Castle, Auchterless, Aberdeenshire. An in-
scription round this boss is believed to read, "Fit vitæ dono Dominus
domo oracionis". In the old castle of Gight, which belonged to Lord
Byron's ancestors, a boss of stone is reported to occur with a similar
group of emblems.
A painting of the emblems is found on a wall in
one of the rooms in Sir George Skene's house in the Guestrow,
Aberdeen, now the Victoria Lodging House.*
In the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Historical
MSS.,† p. 201, it is stated that there is in Blairs College: "A vellum
Roll, written in the 14th century, containing a Poem on the Instru-
ments of the Passion of our Blessed Lord, or, as they are sometimes
called, the ARMS of Christ". The concluding lines are thus given:
These armes of Christ, bothe God and man,
Seint Peter the pope descrivyed hem (= them);
What man these armis overseeth (= despiseth),
For here (i.c., their) sinnes sori and schrive beth.
(i.c., there will be sorrow and penitence).
The following is a quaint morceau, showing how medieval fancy
interwove itself among the solemnities of religion: "Ther is a
gentylman, a churle sone, a preste to be made, and that is a spirituall
gentylman to god and not of blode. But if a gentylmannys sone be
made preste, he is a gentilman both spirituall and temporall. Criste
was a gentylman of his moder be halve, and bare cote armure of
annseturis" [ancestors]." The Boke of St. Albans," date of MS.
1486 (p. 73 of Bodleian Heraldic Miscellanies).
* In the Archæological Journal, xvii. 68, is a notice of a pilgrim's badge in the form of a
leaden ampulla or small bottle, on one side of which "appears an escutcheon of the symbols
of our Lord's Passion ensigned with a crown, over which is the monogram, IHS ".-Among
the shields on the groined roof of the Chapter House in the Cathedral at Elgin, is one which
answers to the same description.
+ Mr. James Moir, Rector of the Aberdeen Grammar School, has furnished this reference.

7.
Huge Cabin
us Ounhaz
PORTION OF FRIEZE ROUND CEILING OF CATHEDRAL.
ANDW GIBB & CO. LITHRI
3 QUEEN ST ANDY
APPENDIX III.
INSCRIPTIONS ROUND THE Frieze of Ceiling.
*** The following is the List of Bishops of Aberdeen and Kings of
Scotland in the Inscription round the Frieze of Nave. This Inscription
is in Saxon letter, mostly black, but, in the case of the christian names and
some catch words, with red initials.
NORTH SIDE.
9
9
9
Primus huj⁹ ecclie pontifex Nectanus ij Eduardus iij Matheus
kyinmond iiii Iohanes pror de calco v Ada cticus regis Willi
vi Gilbertus striuelin vii Radulphus lambley viii Petrus ramsay
ix Richardus pottocht * x Hugo benhame xi Henricus cheine
xii? Alexander de kyinmund. xiii Willms de la deyne xiiii Johanes
de raite xv Alexander kỹinmond xvi⁹ Adā tỷinghame xvii Gil-
bertus greynlaw xviii Henric lychton xix Ingeram lyndesay
xx⁹ Thomas spnes [sic] xxi Robertus bleicater xxii Willms elphyn-
ston Vniuersitatis et collegii cōditor xxiii Alexander Gordon xxiiii
Gavinus Dunbar † xxv Willms Stuart xxvi Willms gordon
XX
S
SOUTH SIDE.
୨
2
9
Murchtlakeen et aberdonen ecclias cathedrales respectiue con-
didere Pro quibus in hac sacra ede fundati obligātur orare p³ Ma-
colm kenedi qui mrchtlakeen ecctiam p instituit anno mil° quarto
Cui successit Ducanus Cui Macolm cāmoir āno mºlvito Cui Edgarus
Cui Alexander Cui Dauid Stus ano m°c°xxiiij qui mrchtlakeen
ecctiam ad aberdoniam tñstulit Cui Macolmus Vgo Cui Willms Cui
୨
* Potton (in Keith's Catalogue), Poiton (Cosmo Innes, in Preface to Registrum
Ep. Ab.).
+ In the Catalogus Episcoporum at end of Boece's " Episcoporum Vitæ," Gavin
Dunbar is xxvth. (A Matthæus is there inserted as vith, between Bishops Adam and Gilbert).
150
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Alexander ii Cui Alexander 39 Cui Robertus Bruce anno m°cc° Nōge°
viº Cui Dauid bruce Cui Robert ij Cui Robert 39 Cui Jacob
j⁹ Cui Jacob ij⁹ Cui Jacobus 39 Cui Jacobus iiij Cui Jacobus v
cui Maria Regiña
In 1867 the following was added:
+ Hoc lacunar a Gavino epo ad m°d°xx Exstruct a d
m'd°ccclxvii refect est + *
*
Appended is a translation of the Inscription.
"The first Bishop (Pontiff) of this Church was Nectan, the 2nd Edward, the 3rd Mathew
Kyninmond, 4th John, Prior of Kelso, 5th Adam, Clerk of King William, 6th Gilbert
Stirling, 7th Ralph Lambley, 8th Peter Ramsay, 9th Richard Potocht, 10th Hugh Benholm,
11th Henry Cheine, 12th Alexander de Kyninmond, 13th William de la Deyne, 14th John de
Raite, 15th Alexander Kyninmond, 16th Adam Tyninghame, 17th Gilbert Greynlaw, 18th
Henry Lichtoun, 19th Ingeram Lyndesay, 20th Thomas Spens, 21st Robert Blacater, 22nd
William Elphinstoun, Founder of the University and the College, 23rd Alexander Gordon,
24th Gavin Dunbar, 25th William Stuart, 26th William Gordon.
"The cathedral churches of Mortlach and Aberdeen were respectively founded by these,
for whom those appointed under endowment in this sacred building are bound to pray.
First, Malcolm, son of Kenneth, who was the first to establish the church of Mortlach in the
year 1004, to whom succeeded Duncan, to whom Malcolm Canmore in the year 1056, to whom
Edgar, to whom Alexander, to whom David the Saint in the year 1124, who transferred the
church of Mortlach to Aberdeen, to whom (succeeded) Malcolm the Maiden, to whom
William, to whom Alexander II., to whom Alexander III., to whom Robert Bruce in the
year 1296, to whom David Bruce, to whom Robert II., to whom Robert III., to whom
James I., to whom James II., to whom James III., to whom James IV.. to whom James V.,
to whom Queen Mary (succeeded).
"This ceiling, erected by Bishop Gavin in A.D. 1520, was restored A.D. 1867.”
*In the above list of Kings, it is notable that John Balliol is not admitted into the
array, and that the reign of Robert Bruce is assumed as beginning in 1296.
APPENDIX IV.
NOTES AS TO SIMILAR HERALDIC DISPLAYS.
Among Continental countries, it is to Spain, the land of Grandees
and Hidalgos, that we may naturally look for examples of the closest
connection between heraldry and architecture. There we find the
alliance at the maximum in frequency and also in brilliancy. It is
remarked, accordingly, of the Chapel of the Kings at Granada, that it
is a shrine "elaborately inwrought with emblems of heraldic pride
and religious humility". At Salamanca, the façade of the library is a
study to any architect: it is the triumph of the decorative and heraldic
style, with medallions and badges interworked with scrolls. So at
Toledo, in the Franciscan convent, San Juan de los Reyes, we are
called to observe "the abundance of heraldic ornament — shields,
eagles, badges, ciphers, and coronets, and fringing inscriptions
(Ford's Spain, p. 485).
Our limits, however, compel us to confine our attention to Great
Britain.
The employment of stone bosses for carving coats of arms is
found very frequently exemplified, and such a mode of decoration is
a characteristic feature of both castle and cathedral ornament in
Plantagenet and post-Plantagenet times.
In the Cathedral of Canterbury the maximum of enrichment by
means of such a style has been obtained, as the volume of Thomas
Willement dealing with the heraldic bosses of that cathedral will
sufficiently demonstrate.* It is, however, not so much among the
buildings with stone vaults, as among those with wooden ceilings, that
we may fairly look for any proper parallels in heraldic decoration, and
among such may be named:
* Heraldic Notices of Canterbury Cathedral; Lond., 1827. Foremost among Scottish
examples of heraldic decoration in stone was probably Lincluden, in Dumfries, enriched with
the arms of the early or Black Douglases in great variety of form. See Grose's Antiquities
(ii., pp. 174-5).
?
152
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
I. IN ENGLAND.
1. The Savoy Chapel, Strand, London.
This roof is rich in blazonry, beginning about the period of John
of Gaunt, and representing the Royal Family of England subsequent to
that Prince. It seems a display entirely English, insular, and domestic.
Moreover, the blazon, though elaborate and interesting, is not by carved
bosses, but simply by painting the devices on the centre of flat pannels.
2. St. George's Hall and St. George's Chapel, Windsor.
In regard to these two heraldic centres, we have pleasure in
quoting the terms of a letter from the librarian of Windsor Palace,
in which he courteously gives the following details as to the heraldic
decorations there existing:
"In answer to inquiries, I note:
"(1) The armorial bearings of the Knights of the Garter are
painted on shields raised on the pannels; the bosses are carved and
painted with badges, &c., of the Order.
"(2) The shields are arranged in chronological sequence from the
foundation of the Order.
"(3) The only foreign coats are of members of the Order.
"(4) The principal difference between the ceilings of St. George's
Hall and St. George's Chapel is that in the latter the bosses are
carved with badges of knights instead of arms. They are described
in Willement's Heraldry of St. George's Chapel. They are in stone.
All carving in Windsor Chapel and Castle has reference to the Order
of the Garter. There is, therefore, no parallelism between it and the
very curious carving at Aberdeen, to which I know nothing exactly
similar" (from Letter of Librarian, Windsor Castle, of date 16th May,
1888).
3. Divinity Schools, Oxford.
Hardly less elaborate is the series of armorial bosses (nearly a
hundred) in the groined roof of the Divinity Schools of Oxford (already
alluded to, p. 13), constructed about A.D. 1480. They are fully, but
not completely, described in Wood's Oxford, ii., pp. 783-6; but it is to
be remarked that (1) they are entirely English; (2) they present an
indefinite multiplication, repeating the same arms; and (3) as arranged
in Wood's enumeration, exhibit no discernible gradation or distribution.
NOTES AS TO SIMILAR HERALDIC DISPLAYS.
153
4. St. Alban's Cathedral, Hertfordshire.
In this church, formerly the church of the great Abbey of St. Alban,
there remains an heraldic display representing Western Christendom,
which is the only one, known to the writer, comparable, to a certain
extent, in importance to that of St. Machar's Church in Old Aberdeen.
The magnificent monument of ecclesiastical power and grandeur,
which now crowns the hill of St. Alban's, dates back to Norman times,
and even in its materials is of an antiquity going beyond the Conquest,
as far as the Roman period. The bricks of the Roman town of
Verulam are, by their shape and size and colour, still recognisable in
the oldest portions of the structure of the Cathedral.
The date of the decorated ceiling, which is 40 feet wide, is be-
lieved to be the time when the abbey was held by John of Wheat-
hampsted, 33rd abbot, about 1440.
The treatment of this wooden ceiling may be understood from the
following short outline.
The beautiful frontispiece of Neale's work on St. Alban's (1877),
exhibiting, as a specimen, the second shield, namely, that of St. Alban,
supplies an idea of the style of decoration, which is nearly as follows:
In a square pannel with red ground, there is represented in the
centre the shield of the Abbey arms, which shield is supported by an
angel* with wings, holding this shield in front, with an inscription,
indicating Scutum Sancti Albani Martyris. The angel and shield are
·
both contained within a green wreath, all painted on the under surface
of the pannel.
The same treatment, mutatis mutandis, recurs in the whole series
of shields.
The following is the list of shields as given by the Rev. C. Boutell
in his paper on "The Early Heraldry of the Abbey Church of St.
Alban," in vol. xxxiv. of Journal of Archæological Association for 1878:
I. "Scutum S'ci Edmundi regis." Azure, three open crowns or.
2. "Scutu S'ci Albani martyris." Azure, a saltire or.
* “Each shield is held by an angel, above whose head is a scroll inscribed with a brief
text or some pious ejaculation, or some declaration of faith, while below each shield a corre-
sponding scroll sets forth to whom the armorial blazon belongs" (Boutell). The device of
an angel holding up the shield' is no doubt beautiful, but it is apt to get monotonous in a series
of forty shields.
U
154
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
3. “Scutū S'ci Off' mercii regis." Gules, three open crowns or.
"Scutum S'ci Georgii." Argent, a cross, gules.
4.
5. "Scutum S'ci Edwardi regis."* Azure, between five mart-
lets, a cross fleurie or.
66
6. Scutu S'ci Lodrici (sic) regis Fra."† Azure, three fleurs-
de-lys two and one, or.
7. "Scutum Imperatoris Romano." Argent, an eagle with two
heads,. displayed sable.
8. "Scutu."‡
9. "Scutu Imperatoris Constantino." Gules, a cross moline or,
cantoning four bezants, each charged with a
plain cross of the field.
10. "Scutu regis Hispanie."
II. "Scutu regis Anglie."
ancient.
Quarterly, Castile and Leon.
Quarterly, England and France
12. "Scutu regis Portugaul." Within a bordure of Castile,
gules, charged with eight castles or,§ argent,
13.
three escutcheons azure, each charged with six
plates, two two and two.
"Scutum regis Sardie." Azure, three men's heads bearded,
affronté ppr., crowned or.
14. "Scutum regis Cyprie." Argent, three bars azure, over all a
lion rampant gules, crowned and collared or.
15. "Scutum regis de Man." Gules, three human legs couped at
the thigh, conjoined in triangle argent.
16. "Scutum fidei." Gules, the device emblematic of the Holy
Trinity.
17. "Scutum Saluationis." Shield charged with emblems of the
Passion.
18. "Scutum regis Arragon." Paly of eight or and gules.
"Scutu regis Iherusalem." Argent, a cross potent between
four plain crosses or.
19.
66
20. Scutū regis Danie." Or, three lions passant in pale azure.
21. "Scutu ducis Bretaign." Ermine.
22.
66
Scutum regis Boemie." Quarterly, one and four, an eagle
* The Confessor.
•
+ Francorum.
Blank, or not described.
§ This blazon seems somewhat tautological.
NOTES AS TO SIMILAR HERALDIC DISPLAYS.
155
23.
24.
with one head displayed sable; two and three,
argent a lion rampant, queue fourchée gules.
(Shield and supporters in a circle.)
"Scutum d'ni thome filii regis." Quarterly, England and
France ancient; a label of three points; the
whole within a bordure. (Shield and sup-
porters in a circle.)
"Scutū regis Cicilie." France ancient, with a label gules.
25. "Scutū regis Hungari." Barrulée argent and gules.
26. "Scutum regis Francie." Azure, semée de lys or.
27. “Scutū ducis Lancastrie." Quarterly, England and France
ancient; a label of three points ermine.
28. "Scutum He'r'ci pi's [Henrici principis] Wallie."
Quar-
terly, England and France ancient; a label of
three points argent.
29. "Scutum duci' Eboraci." Quarterly, England and France
ancient; a label of three points argent, charged
on each point with as many torteaux.
30. "Scutum regis Norwa." Argent, a lion rampant gules,
paws a battle-axe.
holding in his
31. "Scutum regis Nau [arr]e."
Gules, an escarbuncle or.
32. "Scutum regis Scotie." Or, a lion rampant within a double
tressure gules.
The above heraldic display at St. Alban's differs from that of
Aberdeen (1) in being Pictorial; by painting on flat pannel, and not
Glyptic, by carving in relief; (2) in being mainly Regal, and only
allegorically Ecclesiastical; (3) in the want of any clear systematic
order, exhibiting the "Powers" in any relative gradation.
On the contrary, at Aberdeen, the images are solid figures of
what might pass as real shields; such, indeed, as in moving through
the armoury of an ancient hall, one could suppose detachable by
the warrior or wearer of them from the bosses from which they
depend; not mere painted images and ocular illusions. On these
accounts the palm of artistic and historic interest must be awarded
to the heraldic display of the northern city.
156
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
•
II. IN SCOTLAND.
Our limits do not allow detailed reference to such distant anȧ-
logies as the "Lacunar Striveliense," to which we alluded in the
Introduction, or to the roofs * of Craigston Castle (Aberdeenshire) and
Muchalls Castle (Kincardineshire), "enriched, not with heraldic shields,
but with effigies of heroes, kings, virtues, evangelists," in the case
of the former, and with "medallion portraits in delicate white par-
getted plaster work" in the latter. Neither do we recognise any
proper parallel to the decoration adorning the Aberdeen Cathedral,
even in the beautiful pargetted roof of the hall of Glammis Castle,
where shields and heads occur together.
Some analogies less remote may, however, be found in the following:
1. In Church of Marykirk (Kincardineshire), the old aisle, called
the Thornton Aisle, had heraldic ceiling in colours and gold. (Charles
Farquhar Shand's Funerals of Bishop Patrick Forbes, p. xxvii.).
2. The apartment in Holyrood, called "Queen Mary's Audience
Chamber".
A specimen of decorative art, by carving in oak, of 16th century.
The shields, in this instance, are in centre of pannels, not, as in
Old Aberdeen, at the intersection, except in the case of the central
shield, which is in honour of Mary of Lorraine (Queen of James V.).
The following shows the order, of arrangement:
Shield of France, H. R., i.e., Henri II.
Shield of Scotland, J. R., i.e., James V.
Shield of Mary of Lorraine.
Shield of M. R.,
i.e., Mary Queen of Scots.
Shield of F. D., i.e., Francis, Dauphin,
Son of Henri II.
The date of its erection must be about 1558. Henri II. of France
died on July 10th, 1559, and so Francis ceased to be Dauphin (“ Plura,”
in Henry Laing's interesting notice, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol. vii., p. 381).
3. Linlithgow heraldic painted ceiling (discovered in a house in
High Street, Linlithgow).
* See Billings' Antiquities of Scotland. Not the least beautiful among these heraldic
ceilings in Scotland is said to be that of Earlshall in Fife.
NOTES AS TO SIMILAR HERALDIC DISPLAYS.
157
The shields of thirty-seven Temporal Peers of Scotland were
there exhibited, viz., fifteen Barons and twenty-two Earls.
1
Details in Notice by T. Etherington Cooke, F.S.A. Scot. (Proc.
Soc. Ant. Scot., vol vii., p. 409).
The date of the Linlithgow blazon is before the creation of
Marquisates in 1599, and before the creation of Dukedoms other than
those of the Blood Royal. Except for its antiquity, there is no par-
ticular interest in this heraldic display, as no clear trace of any plan
of arrangement or principle of classification is discernible.
4. In the old building of Marischal College, Aberdeen, there
existed an heraldic ceiling of some significance, but of which un-
fortunately there remains only scanty record. It appears to have
been in some respects an imitation of the heraldic roof of St. Machar.
Our knowledge of it, however, depends entirely on the notes in Pro-
fessor Knight's MS. volumes in the University Library; and on a
coloured drawing of the ceiling, executed in 1833, by Mr. A. Dingwall
Fordyce, now of Fergus, Ontario, who has obligingly presented the
drawing to the New Spalding Club.
The Marischal College ceiling comprised thirty shields on pannels,
in three rows. The centre row included arms of the Founder and
five Benefactors; each of the other rows had six pairs—the east
row having twelve Benefactors in pairs, the west row having the first
eight Principals and four Benefactors, also in pairs. The eight early
Principals of the College thus commemorated bore the names of
Howie, Gray, Aedie, Forbes, Dun, Moir, Leslie, Paterson.* The
latest Benefactor commemorated was John Turner, who founded a
Bursary in 1688.† This heraldic roof was erected circa 1682-9 in
the "Principal's Chamer" in the time of Robert Paterson, eighth
Principal, and when this part of the College was taken down in.1790,
the ceiling was removed to the Public School, where it remained till
the demolition of the old building, about the year 1837, when un-
fortunately it was destroyed, or at least disappeared.
* It is almost certain that this ceiling was erected not only in the time of, but by the
exertions of Robert Paterson, eighth Principal (1678-1717), to whose energy the repairs begun
in 1682 were due, and who seems to have had a liking for heraldry, if we may judge by his
arms in stone in the Marischal College Library.
+ In the Procuratory Accounts (Mar. Coll.) of 1688-89, there is an entry, "Item for
putting up Tourner's Arms in the Colledge, £3 ”.
158
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
5. The Council Chamber or Town Hall of Aberdeen in the New
Municipal Buildings contains a series of shields more or less note-
worthy. They are placed, however, on the flat surface of the pannels,
and not, as is the case in the ceiling of the Cathedral, at the inter-
sections. The whole display in this case, though fairly effective, is too
modern, and at present too incomplete, for us meantime to criticise.
HERALDIC WINDOWS.
Of kindred effect and purpose are the heraldic windows, which,
though rare in Scotland,* are not unfrequent in England, as, e.g., that
in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, London, with the arms of the leading Benchers
in former times, and in the Colleges of Cambridge, in such as the
Hall of Trinity College.t The arrangement, however, in such as
these can hardly be said to rise above mere aggregation.
It is possible that among the varied wealth of the richer and
more splendid ecclesiastical architecture of England, the writer may,
from want of sufficient information, do injustice to her treasures, but
he finds nothing in the shape of a heraldic window belonging to that
country that presents any analogy to our heraldic ceiling in scope
and breadth of conception, except the interesting window in the
Cathedral of York.
The following gives the series and relative arrangement of historic
shields appearing in this heraldic window of York Cathedral :
1. St. Peter, the patron of the Cathedral: Gules, two keys
saltierwise or.
2. The Emperor: Or, a double-headed eagle displayed sable,
armed gules.
3. England: Gules, three lions passant gardant in pale or.
4. France Azure, semy of lys or.
5. Provence or Arragon: Paly of six or and gules.
* An almost solitary Scottish example of a heraldic window, though on a small scale,
is that in St. Magdalene's Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh, of which an account is given with
full details by George Seton, Esq., Advocate, in Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. (vol. xxi., p. 266).
There are four escutcheons in this window, containing the arms of-1. Mary of Lorraine,
widow of James V. and Queen Regent; 2. Scotland; 3. Michael Macquhen, Burgess of
Edinburgh, and 4. Janet Rynd his wife, impaled with those of her husband.
+ At Oxford, we cannot omit, as possessing notable heraldic windows, the Divinity
Schools. Compare Wood's Oxford, with the Enumeration of the Shields (all of them
English), vol. ii., pp. 781-2.
NOTES AS TO SIMILAR HERALDIC DISPLAYS.
159
6. King of the Romans: Or, an eagle displayed sable armed
gules.
7. Castile and Leon: Quarterly, first and fourth gules, a
castle or; second and third argent, a lion rampant
purpure.
8. Jerusalem: Argent, a cross potent between seven cross
crosslets or.
9. Navarre: Gules, an escarbuncle or.
Here the Church, represented by the Patron Saint, has marked pre-
cedence, coming in the front and alone, while the Emperor is brought
into line with kings of France and England. Scotland, though acknow-
ledged at St. Alban's, is here ignored, strange to say, in the Cathedral
which once claimed to exercise Primacy over it and to be its Metropolitan.
The date of the armorial window in York is attributed to the year
1307 (Archæological Journal, xvii. 22), and as this was the crisis of the
Independence struggle, it seems probable that 'Scotia' as a nationality
was of set purpose unacknowledged.
From the Herald and Genealogist we subjoin a few notes, with which
we conclude-minor entries bearing on the subject that deserve enume-
ration and offer clues of enquiry to the antiquary.
1. Heraldic Windows, as described by Dodsworth, 1620, in
Swillington Church in Airedale, Leeds, are chiefly
English, but with (among others non-English) "Arma
Regis Scotiae" (Her. and Gen., iv., p. 234-6).
2. The Rev. John Woodward's article (Her. and Gen., iv.,
p. 289) on the Heraldry of Bristol Cathedral, is a
valuable and complete account of the shields of
arms appearing "in the stained-glass windows, the
masonry, the stall-work, and the monumental tab-
lets" of that Cathedral.
3. Two Shields and four Crests upon Shields occur in roof of
Brooke House, Hackney, London (Her. and Gen., iv.,
p. 392-3).
4. The work of the late J. Gough Nichols on "The Armorial
Windows erected in the reign of Henry VI. in Wood-
house Chapel, Leicestershire . . . Privately Printed,
1860" (full title given in Her. and Gen., vii., p. xxv.).
A
160
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Also the following incidental Notes on subjects touched on in this
volume:
5. On the origin of the Arms of the Confessor, suggested by
the device on, one of his Coins with a cross between
four birds (Her. and Gen., vi., p. 85 and 164).
6. On the descent of Lord Byron and the Gordons of Gight
(Her. and Gen., vi., p. 597).
7. On the relation of the Fleurs-de-lis of France to Toads
(crapaud) and on the double-headed Eagle of the
Emperor (Her. and Gen., vii., p. 339).
E pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That do renown this city.
-SHAKSP., Twelfth Night, (iii. 3).

IN THIS OPEN COURT
WHICH NOW LIES NAKED TO THE INJURIES
V
OF STORMY WEATHER. SOME MEN LIE INTERRED WHO
LOVED THE CHVRCH SO WELL, AND GAVE SO LARGELY TOT.
THEY THOUGHT IT SHOVLD HAVE CANOPIED THEIR BONES
TILL DOOMS DAY: BYT ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR END."
(OLD PLAY. )
Photogravure by T&R.Anan & Sons, Ginagow
Uor M
•
INDEX OF NAMES AND PLACES.
Abercorn, 79.
Aberdeen arms, 118.
INDEX OF NAMES AND PLACES.
Burgh of, 134, 140.
city, 3, 5, 15, 35, 48-9.
Doctors," 4.
See of, 61-2, 67, 68, 69, 80.
Town Hall arms, 158.
University, 31, 48, 66,.69, 134, 139.
Old, 5, 28-9, 102.
(Old) Market Cross, 144, 145
Abernethie, Willielmus de, 50.
Abernethy, 79, 80.
Alexander, Lord, 112.
arms, 109, 112, 122.
Aboyne, 44, 113.
Achaius of Scotland, 73, 74.
Adamus, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149, 150.
Adrian IV., 56, 68.
VI., 55.
•
Adriani, Vallum, 73.
Aedie, Principal, '157.
Agatha, w. of Prince Edward, 36.
Agnes of Boulogne, Duchess of Albany, 39.
Aidan, St., 82.
Alban," 79.
Alban, St.; 153.
Albany, Duke of (arms), 86, 105.
Dukedom, 75.
Alexander, Duke of, 28, 38, 39, 105.
John, Duke of, 35, 38-9, 57, 60, 65,
105, 106, 108, 138, 139, 140.
Albret, Henri d', 26.
Alcluyd, vide Dumbarton.
Alexander I. of Scotland, 36, 149, 150.
II. of Scotland, 33, 64, 76, 149; 150.
III. of Scotland, 66, 67, 68, 80, 150.
III., Pope, 58.
V., Pope, 56.
'Alfred the Great, 37.
Algarbia, 25.
Almaigne, Emperors of, 71.
Alphonso I., 93.
Alvernie, Comes, 38.
•
Angevin dynasty, 23.
Angus, County of,` 49.
Earldom of, 78, 80.
Earl of (arms), 81, 109.
Archibald, v. Earl of, 42, 59, 60,
122..
vi. Earl of, 35, 41-2, 60, 122.
Elizabeth, Countess of, 59.
George Douglas, 1. Earl of, 42.
Gilbert de Umphraville, vII. Earl
of, 109.
VIII. Earl of, 109.
Makbreid, Earl of, 109.
Malcolm, Earl of, 109.
Maud, Countess of, 109.
William, x. Earl of, 78.
-, XI. Earl of, 108.
Douglases, Earls of, 109.
Umphravilles, Earls of, 109.
and Mar, Margaret, Countess of, 110.
Anjou, 97.
Annandale arms, 105, 108.
Lord of, 105.
Anne, Queen, 37.
of Denmark, 91.
Queen of Richard II., 88, 99.
Antwerp, 140.
Anselm, 37.
Aquitaine and Guienne, Duke of, 90.
Aragon arms, 18, 21, 27, 29, 72, 75, 86,
89, 94, 154, 159.
Arbroath, Abbey, 49.
Abbots, 58, 66.
Ardlair, 140.
Ardrosan, Fergusius de, 50.
Ardnamurchan, 65.
Argyll, Bishop of (arms), 130.
Bishopric of, 64, 69.
Earl of (arms), 114.
Earldom, 80.
Archibald, 11. Earl of, 46, 114.
Colin Campbell, 1. Earl of, 114.
Colin, II. Earl of, 46, 114.
164
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.'
Argyll, Duncan, 1. Earl of, 77.
Isabel, Countess of, 114.'
Armenia, 95.
Arminius, 71, 72.
Arnot of that Ilk, 128.
David, Bishop, 63, 128.
John, of that Ilk, 63, 128.
Arran, 114.
Earldom of, 77.
James, Earl of, 64.
Athol, Earl of (arms), 127.
•
John, 1. Earl of, 62, 77, 128.
Stewart, Earl of, 128.
Augustine, 81, 82.
•
Augustus, 17..
•
Austria, 18, 87.
Avila, 7.
Badenoch arms, III, 113.
Lordship of, 113.
•
Balfour. Sir John of that Ilk, 121.
Balgownie, Brig o', 8.
Baliol arms, 23. '
John, 150.
Bannockburn, 3, 82.
Barbarossa, Emperor Frederick, 72.
Barbour, John, 4, 49.
Barcelona arms, 116.
Barcelona, Counts of, 94.
Bayard, 14.
Beaton, Cardinal David, 58.
Archbishop James, 57-8, 139.
John, of Balfour, 58.
Beatrix, Countess of Clermont, 100.
Becket, Thomas à, 10, 37.
Bede House, Old Aberdeen, 146.
Bellomont, Robert de, Earl of Leicester,
130.
Benhame, Hugo, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149,
150.
Berengaria, Queen, 96,
Bethune of Balfour, 121.
James, or Beaton, 121.
Robert de, 121.
Bishop's Palace, Old Aberdeen, 8, 145.
Blairs College, 148.
Bleicater, Robertus, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149, 150.
Boece, Hector, 7, 58, 142.
Bohemia, 24, 73, 74.
Bohemia, King of, 74, 99, 154.
Bologna University, 66.
Bolonie, Comes, 38.
Bonapartes, 71.
Boswell, Sir Alex., 139
Bothwell Castle, 130.
Earl of (arms), 117.
Earldom of, 77.
family, 62, 81.
+
Bothwell, James, last Earl of, 48..
Iv. Earl of, 48.
Patrick, 1. Earl of, 62, 65.
11. Earl of,.48.
III. Earl of, 48, 117.
Bourbon, Antoine de, Duke of Vendôme, 26.
Duke of (arms), 86, 100!.
John, Lord, 100:
'Bourges, 56.
Boy'd family, 127:
Robert, Lord, 60.
Brandenburg, 74.
Breakspear, vide Pope Adrian IV.
Brechin arms; 122.
Battle of, 46, 113.
Bishop of (arms), 126.
See of, 62, 67, 68:
Brechine, David, Dominus de, 50.
Bretaign, Duke of, 154.
Bristol Cathedral, 159.
Brittany, 6, 50, 72.
Brooke House, Hackney, London, 159.
Bruce arms, 23.
Barbour's, 4.
Robert the, 3, 23, 40, 41, 46, 49, 51,
68, 108, 110, 111, 142, 150.
Brunswick arms, 23. •
Buchan, Earldom of, 77..
Buchanan, George, 19, 46
Buda, 25.
Budaeus, 21.
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 61.
Burgos, 57.
Burgundy, 72, 74.
Bute, Sheriffs of, 131.
Byron, Lord, 19, 45, 148, 160.
Caithness, Earldom of, 77.
Bishop of (arms), 127.
See of, 67, 68, 69, 80.
Caledonia, 4.
Cambridge, 12, 158.
Cambroun, 50.
Camburn, Joanņes,
Camoens, 25.
50.
Campbell of Argyll (arms), 114.
Clan, 46.
family, 51.
Dowenaldus, 50.
Nicholas, 114.
Candia, 26.
Candidą Casa, vide Galloway.
Canning, Earl, 77.
Canterbury, Archbishops of, 37.
Cathedral of, 151.
See of, 81, 82.
Cape of Good Hope, 25.
Carham, 79.
Carlo of Sicily, 27.
INDEX.
165
Carrick, Robert Bruce, Earl of, 105.
Cassillis, Earl of, 77.
Castile arms, 18, 21, 29, 72, 75, 89, 93, 154,
159.
Castle-hill, 49.
Cathaniae et Orcadia, Magnus, Comes, 50.
Catness, vide Caithness.
Catti, 116.
Cepres, King, 25.
Chanonry, The, 5.
Charlemagne, 18, 20, 66, 71, 74, 119.
Charles the Bold, 18.
Duke of Bourbon and Vendôme, 28.
I. of England, 18, 42.
V. of France; 90.
VI. of France, 20, 88.
IV. of Germany, 99.
V. of Germany, 14, 15, 17-9, 21-2,
25, 55, 70.
Charlotte, Duchess of Savoy, 26.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 19.
Cheine, Henricus, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149,
150.
Chen, Reginaldus de, 50.
Chisholm of Cromlix, 129.
•
of that Ilk, 63, 129.
Edmond, of Cromlix, 63. ·
James, Bishop of Dunblane, 63, 129.
Christiern II., 24,
Clement III., 81.
VII, 16, 22, 53, 55.
X., 35.
Clyde, Firth of, 79.
Cockburn of that Ilk, 125.
of Skirling, 125.
Robert, Bishop of Ross, 62, 125.
Sir William, of Cessfurd and Skirling,
125.
Colmar, 24.
Cologne, 57.
Three Kings of, 34.
Columbus, Christopher, 14.
Constantinople, 14, 17..
Emperor of, 95.
Conty, House of, 100.
Cornaro, Venetian merchant house, 26.
Cornwall, Richard, Earl of, 87.
Corunna, 20.
Cospatric, 39.
Cottier, D., of London, 11.
Cowie, 12.
Craigston Castle, 156.
Crawford, Earl of (arms), 112.
Earldom of, 77.
Alexander, iv. Earl of, 45, 113.
David, 1. Earl of, 112.
"
III. Earl of, 46.
VIII. Earl of, 44, 112.
Sir James Lindsay, Lord of, 112.
:
Cressy, 74.
Cudel, Eadulf, 79,
Culdees, 36.
Cumbria, 4.
Cumyng, William, of Inverelouchy, 139, 145.
Cuthbert, St., 79, 82,
Cyprus, 25:6,:74, 85, 86, 97.
Cyprus, King of, 26, 95, 154.
Dacre, Thomas, Lord, 60.
Darnaway, 12.
Darnley, Henry, Lord, 42.
David I. of Scotland, 4, 36, 40, 47, 56, 66,
67, 149, 150.
II. of Scotland, 44, 123, 150.
De Moravia, 44.
Dee, 5.
Bridge of, 105, 123, 138, 140, 144.
Deer, Book of, 4.
Delmenhurst, 91.
Denmark, 24, 66, 85.
King of, 91, 154.
Deyne, William de la, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149, 150.
Dietmarschen, 91.
Don, 5, 8, 9, 142.
Douglas, Dukedom of, 78.
Douglas, Earl of (arms), 86, f07-8.
Earldom of, 44, 80...
family, 40-1, 51.
Archibald, III. Earl of, 108.
IV. Earl of, 108...
v. Earl of, 75..
Bishop Gawain, 56, 57, 58, 59-61,
80, 122, 128.
Jacobus, Dominus de, 50.
James, 11., Earl of, 108.
IX. Eart of, 41, 107.
Sir James, 41, 108.
Lady Margaret, 42.
William, 1. Earl of, 42, 108, 110.
viit. Earl of, 46.
Lord, 108.
Douglases, Black, 40, 41, 151.
Red, 41.
Drontheim, 65, 79.
Drummond, William, 32.
Dryburgh, 64.
Dublin, Robert de Vere, Marquis, 76.
Dumbarton, 79.
Dumfries, 151.
Dun, Principal, 157.
Dunbar,
•
brother of Bishop Gavin
Dunbar, 143.
Ada, Countess of, 106.
Alexander, of Kilboyack, 143, 144.
Sir Alexander, of Westfield, 123,
137, 142, 143.
Castle of, 39.
166
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
•
Dunbar, Columba de, Bishop of Moray,
.
141.
David, of Durris, 143.
Earl of (arms), 117, 123.
Bishop Gavin, ix, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 18,
25, 34, 40, 42, 49, 52, 55, 58, 61-2,
67, 73, 75, 76, 81, 123, 132, 137-
46, 147, 149, 150.
George, x. Earl of, 106.
George, XI. Earl of, 106.
Sir James, of Cumnock, 143.
Jannet, Lady Innerugie, 143.
Sir John, of Mochrum, 143.
John, the epigrammatist, 142.
Leonard, 143.
Patrick, v. Earl of, 106.
VII. Earl of, 106.
VIII. Earl of, 106.
Ix. Earl of, 106.
Chancellor of Aberdeen, 143.
William, 30.
Dunbars, Earls of March, 39.
Earls of Moray, 123.
of Westfield, 123.
Dunbar's Aisle, Elgin Cathedral, 141, 142,
143.
Dunblane, 7.
Bishop of (arms), 129.
See of, 63-4, 67, 69.
Duncan, King, 149, 150.
Dundee, 3, 49.
Dunfermline, 4, 36, 80.
Dunkeld, Bishop of (arms), 122.
See of, 10, 59, 60, 62, 64, 67, 68,
69, 78, 79.
Dunstaffnage, 36.
Durham, 79, 82, 106.
Earlshall in Fife, 156.
Edgar Atheling, 36, 37.
of England, 37.
of Scotland, 36, 149, 150.
Edinburgh, 3, 4, 79.
Castle, 47.
Edmund, St., king, 153.
the Elder, 37.
Ironside, 37.
Eduardus, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149, 150.
Edward Í. of England, 23, 88, 89, 104,
105, 130.
III. of England, xii, 23, 74, 90.
IV. of England, 104.
VI. of England, 76.
the Confessor, 36, 37, 38, 99, 104,
*
154, 160.
the Elder, 37.
Prince, s. of Edmund Ironside, 36.
Eglinton, Earl of, 77.
Eleanor of Castile, 89. .
Eleanor, Queen of Henry II., 90.
Elgin Cathedral, 141, 142, 143, 148..
Elphinston, Bishop, 5, 10, 14, 31, 56, 58,
69, 134, 137, 138, 141, 149, 150.
Emmanuel the Fortunate (Portugal), 25.
England, 74, 75, 158.
King of, 90, 154.
Eocha of Scotland, 74.
Erasmus, 31.
Errol, Earl of (arms), 115.
Earldom of, 77.
Parish of, 46.
William, iv. Earl of, 115.
vi. Earl of, 46-7.
Erskine family, 43.
Ethelred, 37
Europe, Western, 14.
Falaise, Treaty of, 81.
Fenton, Joannes de, 50.
Ferdinand of Aragon, 15, 25, 26, 89.
Archduke of Austria, 24.
III., King of Leon, 89.
Fergus I. of Scotland, 103.
Fife, Earldom of, 51.
Fitzalan, William, 127.
Fitzgilbert, Walter, 130.
Flodden, 30, 31, 42, 48, 57, 65, 115.
Florence, 52.
Foirman, Sir Robert, 120.
Forbes family, 76.
Lord, 76, 138.
Bishop Patrick, of Corse, 10.
Principal William, 157.
Fordyce, A. Dingwall, 157.
Foreman of Hutton, 56.
Archbishop Andrew, 56, 60, 120.
Forth, Firth of, 4, 79, 82.
Fortrose, Cathedral of, 5.
Foulis, Wester, 12.
France, 72, 74, 75, 158, 160.
King of (arms), 29, 88, 155.
Francis I., 15, 19-21, 26.
-
II., 156.
Franks, The, and Gauls, 17, 19, 20.
Fraser arms, III, 113.
family, 51.
Honora, 113.
Lord, 113.
Frazer, Alexander, 50.
Frederick I., Duke of Holstein, 24.
II. of Denmark, 91.
Frisel family, 51.
Fyfe, Duncanus, Comes de, 49.
Galgacus, 4.
Galli and Franci, 20.
Gallia, 20.
Galloway, Bishop of (arms), 128.
INDEX.
167
•
Galloway, Bishopric of, 63, 68, 69, 78, 79.
Lords of, 63.
Gallow-hill, 49.
Gama, Vasco da, 14, 25.
Gamrie, 12.
Garioch, Lordship of, 110.
Gelderland (Gueldres), Duke of, 28, 74.
George III., 23.
St., 154.
Germany, 21, 71, 72.
Emperor of (arms), 87-8.
Gight, Old Castle of, 148.
Glammis Castle, 156.
Glasgow, Archbishop of (arms), 121.
Cathedral, 57.
city, 3, 4.
See of, 10, 16, 57-8, 63, 67-8, 69, 79.
University, 69.
Glastonbury, 9, 82.
Glencairn, Earl of, 77.
Glenluce; 64.
Glentanar, 113.
Gordon, Dukes of, 113.
House of, 44, 51.
Dukedom of, 39, 78.
of Gight, 45, 160.
of Haddo, 76.
of Pitlurg, 45.
Adam, of Aboyne, 44.
Sir Adam, 45.
Adam, vide Earl of Sutherland.
Bishop Alexander, 137, 141, 145, 149,
150.
Catharine, or Byron, 45.
Elizabeth, Lady Seton, 45.
Parson, of Rothiemay, 118.
Bishop William, 149, 150.
Sir William, of Gight, 45.
Gospatric, vide Cospatric.
Gouffier-Boisy, Artus de, 20.
Grahame family, 51.
David de, 50.
Joannes de, 50.
Patricius de, 50.
Grampians, 3.
Granada, 14, 151.
Grant family, 76.
Gray, Principal, 157.
Gregory the Great, 81.
Grey Friars' Church, Aberdeen, 146.
Greynlaw, Gilbertus, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149, 150.
Gueldres, Duke of, 86, 101.
Guyenne, 23.
Haia, Gilbertus de, Constabularius Scotia,
50.
Hailes family, 48.
1
Adam, 11. Lord, 62.
Hailes, Patrick, 111. Lord, vide Bothwell,
Hales, Lands of, 117.
Halsey, Bishop, 60.
Hamilton of Bangour, 130.
of Innerwick, 130.
of Preston, 130.
of Sanquhar, 130.
of Silvertonhill, 130.
David, Bishop of Argyll, 64, 130.
Dukedom of, 78.
1. Marquis of, 76.
James, 1. Lord, 130.
Hapsburg, House of, 71.
Harald, Bishop of Argyll, 64.
Hawick, 60.
Hay of Errol, 46, 115.
Nicholas, 115.
Thomas, 138.
Haya, Eva de, 115:
William de, 115.
Hayes, De la, 47, 115.
Hebrides, 65.
Hedvige, Queen of Poland, 27.
Henri II. of France, 156.
IV. of France, 28.
II. of Navarre, 26-7.
Henry I. of England, 37.
II. of England, 37, 90.
IV. of England, 90.
V. of England, 90.
VI. of England, 41, 92, 159.
VII. of England, 35.
VIII. of England, xiii, 17, 22-3, 35,
60, 142, 146.
Hepburn arms, 117.
family, 77.
of Blackcastle, 124.
of Riccarton, 124,
George, Bishop of the Isles, 65, 77.
James, Bishop of Moray, 62, 124.
John, Bishop of Brechin, 62, 126.
Prior of St. Andrews, 42, 56,
57, 65-6, 133.
Patrick, Bishop of Moray, 65.
-, 117.
Heralds' College, London, 31.
Hohenzollern, House of, 71.
Holland, 74.
Holstein, 91.
Holyrood, 33, 91, 156.
Home, Lord, 39.
Homildon, 45.
Honorius III., 63, 67, 68, 81.
Horsburgh, 120
Howie, Principal, 157.
Humber, 63.
Hungary, 24-5, 29, 36.
King of, Arms of, 85, 92, 155.
Huntly, Earl (arms), 113.
168
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
1
•
Huntly, Alexander, 1. Earl of, 46, 113.
III. Earl of, 44, 45-6, 113.
George, 11. Earl of, 45, III, 113.
IV. Earl of, 40.
1. Marquis of, 76.
Marquisate of, 78, 113.
Hy, vide Iona.
Indulf, 79.
Innocent III., 62, 63, 68, 78.
IV., 13, 34.
VIII., 57.
Inverurie, Battle of, 3.
Iona, 8, 10, 36, 59, 63, 65, 79, 80, 82, 132.
Ireland, 8, 29, 72, 75%
Isabella of Aragon, 18, 89.
Isles, Bishop of the (arms), 132.
Bishopric of the, 65, 66.
Italy, 75.
Jagellon dynasty, 27.
Grand Duke of Lithuania, 27.
James, n. s. of John III., King of Lusignan,
26.
-I. of Scotland, 15, 35, 38, 39, 43, 48,
128, 150..
II. of Scotland, 15, 28, 38, 74, 75,
IOI, 105, 113. 150.
III. of Scotland, 24, 38, 43, 64, 91,
114, 150.
IV. of Scotland, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40,
42, 43, 56, 57, 73, 107, 137, 150.
V. of Scotland, viii, 15, 20, 24, 25, 28,
30-3, 34, 38, 42, 43, 47, 48, 58, 60,
139, 150, 156, 158.
VI. of Scotland, 23, 39, 42, 91, 142.
Jeanne, Duchess of Vendôme, 26.
Jerusalem (arms), 26, 95, 97, 154, 159.
Joam, or John III. of Portugal, ‘25.
Joan of Beaufort, 38, 48, 128.
of Castile, 18.
Johannes, Prior de Calco, 149, 150.
John III. of Lusignan, 26.
XXII., Pope, 49.
"John Bull," 37.
Jutland, 91.
Keith arms, 94, 116.
family, 47, 116.
(Kintore branch), 76.
·
Robertus de, Mariscallus Scotiæ, 50,
116.
William, Lord, 113.
Kelso, 6, 65.
Kempe, Bishop, 13.
Kennedy, Lord, 40.
Kenneth, 150.
King's College, Aberdeen, 5, 134, 144.
Chapel, Cambridge, 12.
•
•
King's College Chapel, Old Aberdeen, 12,
64, 123,
Langley, Herts,, 88.
Knut II., 24.
VI., 91.
Kyninmond, Alexander, XII. Bishop of
Aberdeen, 149, 150.
xv. Bishop of Aberdeen, 149,
150.
Matheus, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149,
150.
Ladislaus II. of Bohemia, 99.
Lambley, Radulphus, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149, 150..
Lancaster, Duke of,. 155.
Lanfranc, 37.
Largs, Battle of, 65, 66, 68.
Lauderdale arms, 122.
Leicester, Earls of, 130.
Lennox, Earldom of, 43, 77.
John, III. Earl of, 39.
Matthew, Earl of, 42.
Leo X., 14, 16, 22, 52-5, 80, 119, 142.
XI., 53.
Leon, 18, 57, 72, 75, 89, 154, 159.
Lescelyne, Andreas de, 51.
Leslie, Bishop John, 62.
Principal, 157.
Levenax, Malcolmus, Comes de, 50.
Liddesdale, 109, 122.
Lidgat, 140.
Limesay family, 112.
Lincluden, ix, 151.
Lincoln's Inn Chapel, 158.
Lindeşey, David de, 50.
Lindisfarne, 82.
Lindores, Abbey of, 41.
Lindsay family, 51, 112.
Sir Alexander, 112.
Sir David, 30, 39, 41, 58, 59, 112.
Simon of, 112.
Sir Walter, 112.
Lindsays, Earls of Crawford, 112.
Linlithgow, viii, 32, 156-7.
Lismore, Bishopric of, vide Argyll.
Lithuania, 27, 98.
Lodricus, St. [Lodvicus], 154.
London, Bishop of, 82.
Lorenzo the Magnificent, 52.
Lorn arms, 114.
Barony of, 114.
Lothian, 4, 66, 79.
Earls of, 39.
Louis VII. of France, 88.
IX. of France, 100.
XI. of France, 15, 52, 72, 119.
II. of Hungary, 24-5, 28.
s. of Duke of Savoy, 26.
:
INDEX.
·
169
}
"Luncartý, Leys o'," Battle of the, 47
115.
Lusignan, Counts of, 26, 95.
Guy de, 95.
Luther, 22, 139.
Luxembourg, 95, 97.
Lychton, Henricus, Bishop of Aberdeen
7, 149, 150.
Lyndsay, Ingeram, Bishop of Aberdeen
149, 150.
MacAlpine, Kenneth, 74.
Macdougal family, 114.
Macquhen, Michael, 158.
Magdalene, Queen of James V. of Scotland,
28, 34.
Magyars, 24, 73.
Maitland, Sir Patrick, of Gight, 45.
Malcolm I., 36, 149, 150.
II., 36, 79, 116.
III., Canmore, 34, 35, 39, 149, 150.
IV., 149, 150.
Man, Isle of, 38, 105.
King of, 154.
Mar, Alexander Stewart, Earl of, 110.
Christian, Countess of, 110..
District of, 5.
Donald, xii. Earl of, 110.
Earl of (arms), 109-10.
Earldom of, 43, 44.
Erskine, Earl of, 110.
Gratney, Earl of, 110.
Isabel Douglas, Countess of, 110.
John Stewart, Earl of, 43, 110.
John, xi. Earl, and Duke of, 43.
xv. Earl of, 44.
Margaret, Countess of, 108, 110.
Thomas, Earl of, 110.
March, Earl of (arms), 86, 105, 106, 123.
Earldom of, 39, 43, 51, 75, 77.
George Dunbar, xi. Earl of, 39, 106.
Robert Stewart, Earl of, 39.
Marchiae, Patricius de Dunbar, Comes, 50.
March and Dunbar, Black Agnes, Countess
of, 123.
Patrick, Ix. Earl of, 123.
Margaret of Anjou, 92.
Maid of Norway, 69.
Queen of James III., 24, 64, 91.
Tudor, Queen of James IV., vii;
32, 34, 35, 42, 56, 75, 137, 139,
140.
Marguerite of Valois, Queen of Navarre, 26-7.
Marischal College, 48, 116, 134, 157.
Marischal, Earl (arms), 116.
George, vII. Earl, 116.
William, III. Earl, 47-8.
Mary, d. of Duke of Vendôme, 28.
of Burgundy, 18.
Mary of Gueldres, Queen of James II., 28,
48, 74, IOI.
of Guise, 48.
of Lorraine, 28, 42, 48, 58, 156, 158.
Queen of Scots, 40, 42, 43, 48, 53,
150, 156.
Marykirk, Church of, 156.
Mary's Audience Chamber, Holyrood, 156.
Matilda, Queen of Henry I., 37.
Matthaeus, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149, 150.
Maximilian of Germany, 18.
Maxwell, Eustachius de, 50.
Medici, Averardo de', 119.
Catherine de, 53.
family, 16, 52.
Piero de', 119.
Mellant, Earls of, 127, 130.
Melvil,
of Carnbie, 63.
Katharine, or Arnot, 63.
Meneteith, Joannes de, Custos Comitatus
de Menteith, 50.
Menteith family, 127.
1. Earl of, 77.
Methven, 35.
Metz, 19.
Mirepoix, Languedoc, 58.
Mochonna, vide St. Machar.
Mohącz, 24.
Moir, Principal, 157.
Monhaut in Brittany, 50.
Montaigne, 21, 22, 52.
Monte Alto, Willielmus de, xiv, 5o.
Fixo, Willielmus de, 50.
Montferrat, Marquis of, 76.
Montrose, Dukedom of, 45, 75.
Earl of, 77.
Moore, Sir John, 20.
Moravia, Alanus de, 50.
.Moray, 4.
Bishop of (arms), 124.
Bishopric of, 56, 67, 68, 69.
Earl of (arms), 81, 86, 107, 123.
Earldom of, 45.
Angus, Earl of, 40.
Cathedral Church of, 140.
Diocese of, 137.
Douglas, Earl of, 107.
James Dunbar, viii. Earl of, 107,
123, 137, 142.
James Stewart, Earl of, 107.
John, v. Earl of, 123, 142.
Randolph, Earl of, 40, 51.
Regent, 40.
Thomas Randolph, Earl of, 49, 107,
142.
Morea, 26.
Morton, Earl of, 77.
Moubray, Rogerus de, 59.
Mount-Fitchet, 50.
170
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Mowat, 50.
Muchalls Castle, 156.
Mugello, 119.
Murdoch and his sons, 38.
Murray,
of Bothwell, 108.
Muscovy, Grand Duke of, 73.
Naples, 18, 97.
Navarre, 29, 72, 75, 85, 159.
King of, 26-7, 96, 97, 155.
Nectanus, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149, 150.
Ness, 4.
Netherlands, 18, 74.
Neustria, 20.
Nordereys, 65.
Norfolk arms, 30, 31.
Duke of, 30.
Normandy, 23.
"Northern Peg," 37.
Northumbria, 4, 63.
Norway, 24, 65, 66, 91.
King of (arms), 155.
Ockwells House, Berks, 92.
Ogilvy, Walter, of Redhythe, 145.
Oldenburg, 91.
Olifant, Willielmus, 50.
Orem, William, 145.
Orkney, Bishop of (arms), 131.
Bishopric of, 64, 66, 78.
Orkneys, 65.
Orleans, House of, 38.
Orsini family, 52.
Otterburn, Battle of, 40, 108.
Ourique, Battle of, 93.
Oxford University, 56.
Oxford, Armorials in, 13, 152, 158.
Panbride, Battle of, 116.
Paris University, 66.
Paterson, Principal Robert, 157.
Pau, 26.
Paul III., Pope, 32.
Pavia, 14, 21.
Pepin, 17.
Perth, 4, 118.
Carthusian Church of, 35.
Peter, St. (arms), 158.
Philip II., 18.
Archduke of Austria, 18.
Pictland, 76, 80.
Pius II., 56.
IV., 53.
V., 26.
Plantagenets, 23, 75.
Poitiers, 74.
Poland, 29, 73, 94, 98.
Politian, 52.
Port-hill, 49.
•
Portugal, 72.
King of (arms), 25, 93, 154.
Pottocht, Richardus, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149, 150.
Prester John, 34, 147,
Provence, 159.
Prussia, 74.
Pyrenees, 26.
Quarelwood, 140.
Queen'sferry, 36.
Raban, Edward, 118, 146.
Raite, Johannes de, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149, 150.
Ramsay, John, 8.
Petrus, Bishop of Aberdeen, 149,
150.
Willielmus de, 50.
Reyes, San Juan de los, 151.
Richard I., 26, 90, 95.
II., 76, 88, 99, 104.
Robert of France, Count of Clermont, 100.
II. of Scotland, 68, 127, 131, 150.
III. of Scotland, 150.
Roger, Count of Sicily, 27.
Romanoff, House of, 71.
Rome, 22.
Emperor of, 88.
Ronsard, 33.
Ross, Bishop of (arms), 125.
Diocese of, 5, 68, 69.
Duke of, vide James V. of Scotland.
Easter, 5.
Willielmus, Comes de, 50.
Rothes, Earl of, 77.
Roum, Sultan of, 73.
Russell, Earl, 77:
Rufus, Hall of, Westminster, 12.
Rynd, Janet, or Macquhen, 158.
St. Albans, See of, 9, 82.
Cathedral, 95, 153-5, 159.
St. Andrew the Apostle, 56.
St. Andrews, Archbishop of (arms), 120.
Cathedral, 12, 58.
St.
Prior of (arms), 86, 133.
See of, 10, 36, 56, 60, 62, 63, 64,
65-6, 67, 69, 79.
Catherine's-hill, Aberdeen, 49.
St. Clair family, 51.
St. Clement's Parish, London, 60.
St. Columba, 9, 36, 59, 60, 132.
St. Congan's, Turriff, 12.
St. Cuthbert, 79, 82.
St. Dunstan, 9.
St. George, Chevalier, 43.
St. George's Chapel, Windsor, 152.
Hall, Windsor, 152.
INDEX.
171
St. Giles, 60.
St. John's College Chapel, Cambridge, 12.
St. John's Town, vide Perth.
St. Juste, Church of, ix.
St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, 65.
St. Macarius, vide St. Machar,
St. Machar, 8-9.
Cathedral, passim.
St. Magdalene's Chapel, Edinburgh, 158.
St. Magnus, 64.
St. Margaret, Queen of Malcolm III., 34-8,
67, 80, 104.
(shield), 20, 34.
St. Margaret's Hope, 36.
St. Mark's, Venice, 26.
St. Martin's Church, Tours, 9, 63.
St. Mauritius, vide St. Machar.
St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, 58.
St. Ninian, 63.
St. Olave's Church, Old Jewry, 88, 99.
St. Regulus or St. Rule, 56, 63.
Salamanca, 151.
Salomone, King of Hungary, 36.
Sancho, King of Navarre, 96.
Sancto Claro, Henricus de, 50.
Sardinia, Rex, 154.
Sauchie, Battle of, 48.
Saviour, Arms of Our, 147-8.
Savoy, 26.
Chapel, London, 60, 152.
Dukes of, 26, 95.
Schleswig, 91.
Scotia, 4.
Scotland, 29, 73, 74, 75-82, 91, 158.
King of (arms), 103-4, 155, 159.
Scotswater, vide Forth, Firth of.
Scott's Marmion, 61.
Semple family, 127.
Seton arms, III, 113.
Sir Alexander, 45.
Alexander, Lord Gordon, 113.
Alexander de, 51.
Honora, 113.
Sir William, of that Ilk, 45.
Seton-Gordons, 45.
Shetland, 65, 66.
Sicily, 18, 27, 74, 85, 89, 95, 97, 155.
Sigismund I., 27-8.
II., 27.
Sixtus IV., 56.
Skene, Sir George, 148.
Sobieski, John, 25.
Sodor and Man, 65.
Soliman, 24..
Solway, 79.
Soules, Willielmus de, Battelarius Scotiæ, 50.
Spain, 17-9, 72, 75, 85, 89, 151, 154.
Spence, Bishop Thomas, 10, 149, 150.
Spital, Aberdeen, 46.
Spynie, 141.
Stewart arms, 23.
of Bonkill, 109, 110, 122.
of Bute, 131.
Alexander, s. of the Wolf of Bade-
noch, 110.
Andrew, Bishop of Caithness, ro,
62, 127.
Edward, Bishop of Orkney, 64, 131.
James, Prior of St. Andrews, 40, 43.
n. s. of James IV., 40.
John, Lord Lorn, 114.
12. s. of Robert II., 131.
Walter, of Innermeath, 114.
Bishop William, 139, 145, 149, 150.
Stirling, Armorials at, viii, 38, 156.
Stormark, 91.
Stracathro, 40.
Strachan, Andrew, Regent, 146.
Strathclyde, 4, 66, 79.
Strathern, Earldom of, 43, 51, 64.
David Stewart, Earl of, 131.
Malisius, Comes de, 50.
Straton, Alexander de, 51.
Striuelin, Gilbertus, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149, 150.
Stuart, Alan, 127.
Princess Annabella, 45.
Henry, 35.
Stuwart, Syr Alexsander, 127.
Suabia arms, 94, 97.
Sudereys, 65.
Sundereys, Bishopric of, vide Isles The.
Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, 30, 38.
Sutherland, Duke of (arms), III,
1. Duke of, 44.
Earl of (arms), III.
Earldom of, xi, 77, 78, 80.
Adam, xiv. Earl of, 44, 45.
Alexander, of Duffus, 137.
Elizabeth, Countess of, 44, III.
or Dunbar, 137.
or Gordon, 44.
John, ix. Earl of, 44, III.
John Gordon, x. Earl of, 11I.
XII. Earl of, III.
XIII. Earl of, III.
William, Earl of, 50, III.
Sweden, 24, 29, 91.
Swillington Church, Leeds, 159.
Switzerland, 74.
Sylvius Æneas, vide Pius II., 2.
Tantallan, 60.
Temple Church, London, 22.
Toledo, 18, 57, 151.
Tolosa, Battle of, 96.
Touraine, Duke of, vide Douglas, Arch.,
Earl of.
!
172
THE HERALDIC CEILING OF ST. MACHAR.
Tours, 9, 57, 63.
Towie Castle, 148.
Trinity College, Cambridge, 59, 158.
Trumwin, 81.
Tudor arms, 23, 75.
Tunis, 27.
Turgot, Bishop, 37.
Turner, John, 157.
Tuscany, 53.
Tyninghame, Adamus, Bishop of Aberdeen,
149; 150.
Umfraville family, 41.
Ingelramus de, 50.
Utrecht, 55.
Vandalia, 91.
Valentia, 63.
Vallis Annandie, 38.
Vasa, Gustavus, 24.
Vass of Dirleton, 117.
Velon, Geoffrey de, Count of Barcelona, 94.
Venice, 25, 26, 74.
Verulam, 153.
Vespers, Sicilian, 27.
Victoria Lodging-house, 148.
Victoria, Queen, 37.
Vienna, 25.
Vinci, Leonardo da, 21.
Virgil's Eneid (Douglas's translation), 61.
Wales, 72, 75:
Wallie, Henricus princeps, 155.
Walterus, Senescallus Scotia, 50.
Waltham's Cross, б0.
Wardlaw, Walter, Cardinal, 58, 69.
Warren, Earl of (arms), 127.
Wells, Cathedral of, 56.
Wemyss and March, Earl of, 39.
"Westminster Abbey, 87, 89, 104.
Westphalia, 74.
Weyms, David de, 50.
Wheathampsted, John of, 153.
Whithorn, vide Galloway.
Wilfrid, 94.
Wilfrith, 81.
William the Conqueror, 90.
1
the Lion, 23, 81, 103, 106, 149, 50.
Windsor Castle, 152.
Winter, James, 146.
Wolsey, Cardinal, 60, 82, 142, 146.
Woodhouse Chapel, Leicestershire 159.
Ycolmkill, 8; viḍe also Iona.'
York, 58, 63, 67, 79, 81, 82, 87, 89, 158-9.
Duke of (arms), 155.
Edmond, Duke of, 88.
Roger of, 68.
Zerbino, vide James V. of Scotland.
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.
New Spalding Club.
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.
1888.
RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE COUNCIL, 27th OCTOBER, 1887.
That the following gentlemen be appointed a Committee, to be
called "The Business Committee": with power to add to
their number: three to be a quorum. Mr. Ferguson, Con-
vener; Dr. Francis Edmond, Rev. Dr. Gammack, Principal
Geddes, Mr. Alexander Walker, Mr. George Walker, Dr.
Webster, Dr. J. F. White; the Conveners of the other
Committees; the Secretary and the Treasurer. [Mr. A.
W. Robertson, added 21st February, 1888.] The Business
Committee will take the management of the finance and
general business of the Club, and will receive and deal
with the Reports of the other Committees, through which
will be conveyed to it offers of works or materials for
works which are made to the Society. These it will refer
to the Editorial Committee for consideration and report.
It will, further, make all arrangements for illustrating,
printing, and distributing the works that are decided on by
the Editorial Committee as to be issued by the Club. It
will fix the amount of remuneration to be allowed to editors
and others, and will direct, through the Treasurer and the
Secretary, the expenditure and affairs of the Society
generally.
That the following gentlemen be appointed a Committee, to be
called "The Editorial Committee" with power, &c., as
above. Mr. Dalrymple, Convener; Dr. Alexander, Prin-
cipal Geddes, Dr. Grub, Mr. Moir; the Secretary. The
Editorial Committee will consider the works that will be
referred to it by the Business Committee, and decide on
which of these are to be issued by the Club. It will select
the Editors, will regulate the literary details connected with
their work, and will select the illustrations to be in-
serted. It will communicate with the Business Committee,
reporting its decisions, and acting in concert with that
4
Committee as respects the progress of the works that
are undertaken, and the dates of their issue.
That the following gentlemen be appointed a Committee, to be
called "The Family History Committee," to investigate the
contents of charter chests and other family and territorial
records within the North-Eastern Counties of Scotland, or
relating thereto: with directions to report to the Business
Committee as often as requisite: with power, &c., as above.
Colonel Allardyce, Convener; Mr. Dalrymple, Mr. A.
Davidson, Mr. C. B. Davidson, Mr. Ferguson, Rev. Dr.
Gammack, Mr. J. M. Garden, Mr. Wolrige Gordon, Mr.
Morice, Rev. Mr. Woodward; the Treasurer.
That the following gentlemen be appointed a Committee, to be
called "The Burgh Records Committee," to investigate the
municipal, judicial, and commercial records of the N. E.
Counties with directions, &c., as above. Mr. Cran, Con-
vener; Mr. Cramond, Cullen, Rev. Dr. Davidson, Inverurie,
Lord Provost Henderson, Mr. Kemlo, Mr. Littlejohn, Mr.
Matthews, Sheriff Rampini, Elgin, Mr. Ramsay, Banff,
Sheriff Dove Wilson.
That the following gentlemen be appointed a Committee, to be
called "The Church Records Committee," to investigate the
ecclesiastical and educational records of the N. E. Counties,
and the records of Scottish educational institutions at home
and abroad: with directions, &c., as above. Mr. Moir,
Convener; Rev. Mr. Cooper, Mr. Cramond, Mr. J. P.
Edmond, Rev. Dr. Gammack, Principal Geddes, Rev. Dr.
Gregor, Dr. Grub, Major Ramsay, Mr. Robert Walker.
[Bishop Douglas, Sheriff Rampini, added 10th Dec., 1887.]
That the following gentlemen be appointed a Committee, to be
called "The Archæology Committee," to investigate the
place-names, folk-lore, and general topography and archæo-
logy of the N. E. Counties: with directions, &c., as above.
Rev. Dr. Gregor, Convener; Dr. Alexander, Mr. Crombie,
Mr. Ferguson, Colonel Ross King, Rev. Mr. Michie, Mr.
Moir, Mr. Robertson, Rev. Mr. Temple.
THIRD REPORT BY THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.
(Presented at the Meeting of the Business Committee on
Tuesday, 15th May, 1888.)
THE Editorial Committee have the pleasure of presenting to the
Business Committee the following Supplementary Statement
relative to works in progress, or in contemplation, as future issues
by the Club; and to some slight alterations which it has been
found desirable to make in the matter of illustrations.
Mr. John F. White, LL.D., a member of our Council, has
succeeded in obtaining the services of Mr. George Reid, R.S.A.,
in connection with the Chartulary of St. Nicholas. Mr. Reid
has executed drawings of Drum's Aisle, and of Provost David-
son's Monumental Effigy, which, as Frontispiece and Tailpiece,
will render the volume more attractive, and will also give a
standing proof of Mr. Reid's interest in the Club and in his
native town. These sketches will be reproduced by photo-
gravure. A page of the Chartulary has been photographed,
and will be given in fac-simile. Several other illustrations
mentioned in our last Report have, at Mr. Cooper's request,
been deferred to his Second Volume.
Mr. Reid has also kindly offered to furnish for the work now
passing through the press, under the editorship of Principal
Geddes and Mr. Duguid, illustrations of the Interior of the
Cathedral, and of Bishop Dunbar's Tomb.
With regard to the History of the Family of Burnett a cer-
tain amount of progress can be reported. The actual work of
6
editing has, we fear, been considerably hindered by the long and
serious illness of the learned and respected Editor,-whose im-
proving health, however, will be hailed with satisfaction by his
friends of the New Spalding Club,—but Mr. James Anderson
has executed transcripts of all the documents from the Charter
Chest at Crathes desired by the Editor, while two of the earliest
deeds and several armorial seals have been photographed with a
view to their reproduction.
Acting on a recommendation made by the Committee on
Archæology we have gladly minuted our approval of a BIBLIO-
GRAPHY OF THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN, Banff, and KINCAR-
DINE, as the tenth work on the programme of the Club. Mr.
A. W. Robertson, who has undertaken the duties of editor, will
consult us as to details of arrangement, after his materials have
been fully collected.
In the summer of 1886, when the Club was in process of
formation, the Convener of this Committee received a letter from
the Right Rev. Bishop Macdonald, of Aberdeen, who in the
handsomest way offered, as one of the trust proprietors of docu-
ments belonging to the Scots Colleges on the Continent, as
well as the College at Blairs, to assist the proposed Society in
obtaining access to them. The Committee on Church Records,
in its Report, duly noted these Records as a most interesting
item in the work to be carried out by the Club. It will be
recollected that in our last Report it was stated that the Club
had been so fortunate as to secure the services of Monsignor
Campbell, the learned Rector of the Scots College at Rome,
in editing the Register of the College of which he is the
honoured head. Since then the Committee have learned that
7
the Diary of the Scots College at Douai,-a transcript of which
is in the possession of one of the Members of Council of the
Club, the original being now the property of Mr. Maxwell Wit-
ham of Kirkconnel,-is still unedited. With regard to the de-
sirableness of printing this Diary, we may quote the following
passage from Sir William Fraser's Report on Mr. Maxwell
Witham's MSS., contained in Volume V. of the Reports of
the Historical MSS. Commission.
((
Special interest attaches itself to the authentic original of
the Douai Register. . . . It is to be hoped that some day the
former may find some patron generous enough to lay its entire
and valuable details before the public. . . . It contains the
names of the various alumni of the Scots College, which was
successively established at Pont-à-Mousson, Douai, and Lou-
vain, commencing with the entries of students under Father
Creichton at Pont-à-Mousson in 1581, and continuing till the
close of the year 1772. A short account is given of the
character and fortune of each student. Each preceptor added
in his turn whatever news he heard of any former pupil of the
College."
The question of including the Douai Diary among the issues
of the Club first came before this Committee in a communication
from the Church Records Committee, in these words :-
"It is desirable that the Records of the Scots College at
Douai, in the possession of Mr. Maxwell Witham of Kirkconnel,
be edited for the Club, provided the consent of the owner be
obtained, and the services of a suitable editor be secured".
The Secretary was thereupon instructed to write to Mr. T.
8
G. Law, of the Signet Library, Edinburgh (who, we had learned,
was desirous that these Records should be brought out by the
Scottish History Society, of which he is Secretary), to say that
the Douai Diary was so germane to the work which we were
promised by Monsignor Campbell, that the Committee were
reluctant to give up the hope of possibly printing it at some
future time for the use of this Club. Mr. Law, however, is of
opinion that the publication of the Diary falls properly within
the scope of the Scottish History Society, and beyond that of
the New Spalding Club; and that the former Society has esta-
blished a prior claim.
To obviate the difficulty which has arisen from these con-
flicting interests, the Committee would recommend that Mr. Max-
well Witham be approached, simultaneously, by the executive
of both Societies,—and requested to state whether he would be
inclined to favour the idea of allowing the original of this
interesting Diary to be made use of,-and, should he be so
inclined, then to inform us to which, if to either,—of the two
Societies he would prefer to entrust it.
C. ELPHINSTONE-DALRYMPLE, C.
FOURTH REPORT BY THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.
(Presented at the Meeting of the Business Committee
on Tuesday, 3rd July, 1888.)
THE Editorial Committee are glad to be able to report that
the negotiation relative to the printing of the Diary of the
Scots College at Douai, referred to in their last statement, has
been brought to a highly satisfactory conclusion; the Council of
the Scottish History Society having intimated through their
Secretary their willingness "to forego their claims to the
manuscript . . . in favour of the New Spalding Club”. The
Committee are desirous to put on record their appreciation of
the courteous manner in which they have been met by the
Executive of the sister book-club, and their anxiety to secure in
the future as in the past the utmost harmony between the two
Societies.
All preliminary difficulties having thus been cleared away,
the Committee approached Mr. Maxwell Witham, requesting
his permission to print the Diary in his possession. To their
proposal Mr. Witham most cordially assented, offering to lend
the original to the Club for six or eight months, and making
only the very modest stipulation that he should receive two
copies of the volume when printed.
!
Mr. Witham stated that the manuscript had recently been
examined by the Rev. William Forbes-Leith, S.J., who, as was
b
10
known to the Committee, had also made himself familiar with
the documents connected with the Scots Colleges now preserved
at Blairs. To Mr. Forbes-Leith-the accomplished editor of
The Scots Men-at-Arms in France, and Narratives of Scottish
Catholics-the Committee accordingly felt that the editing of
the Diary could be more fitly entrusted than to any other; and
they are gratified to be able to state that Mr. Forbes-Leith has
readily acceded to their request that he should prepare it for
publication under the auspices of the New Spalding Club.
The DIARY OF THE SCOTS COLLEGE AT DOUAI, 1581-1772,
will therefore rank as the eleventh work on the Club's
programme. The Committee are confident that in it, and in the
companion Register of the Scots College at Rome, now being
edited by Monsignor Campbell, the members will possess two
works of high interest to the student of Scottish History.
It is with regret that the Committee have again to note the
non-appearance of the first volume of the Chartulary of St.
Nicholas. The text has been printed off for some time and is
in the binder's hands, but the reproduction of Mr. George
Reid's drawings, which is being executed in Paris, has involved
an unexpected delay. Mr. Reid, however, has now seen proofs
of the photogravures, and it is anticipated that the book will be
forwarded to members in a very short time. It is satisfactory
to be able to add that the issue of the Monograph on the
Cathedral of St. Machar will follow very closely on that of the
Chartulary, the whole of Principal Geddes' text having been
set up.
The Lyon, we are pleased to intimate, is now able to
II
resume work on his History of the Family of Burnett.
Referring to the transcripts from the Crathes Charter Chest, he
writes: "Some of the letters, particularly Duncan Burnett's,
will, I hope, greatly contribute to the human interest of the
book, giving curious glimpses of the private life and character
of the first Baronet and his uncles".
C. ELPHINSTONE DALRYMPLE, C.
SECOND REPORT BY THE FAMILY HISTORY
COMMITTEE.
(Presented at the Meeting of the Business Committee
on Tuesday, 3rd July, 1888.)
THE Committee have now to report that they have fully con-
sidered the remit from the Business Committee of January
26th, 1887, regarding their Report, viz.: "This Report was
considered and the following deliverance adopted on it :—' That
the Report be approved of, and that the matter be remitted
back to the Committee with instructions further to consider the
whole subject and to report to a future meeting of the Business
Committee what steps they recommend should be taken to
carry out the object in view"". This object was explained in
the Report referred to, and the Committee are of opinion that
the work now before them lies in two directions:
Ist, To assist, as far as in their power, the compilation of
histories of some of our leading Families. It is believed that
several of these are already in contemplation, and they must
be of much interest where events of the times referred to
in them are specially described. The Committee consider that
they will be able to find interesting materials for such works.
2nd, To collect material for volumes of Miscellanies.
This the Committee believe to be, perhaps, the most impor-
tant work they can undertake, and they specially wish to see
13
it successfully carried out, as such volumes carry with them
a considerable amount of interest. This interest would also
be much enhanced, if the volumes were illustrated by repre-
sentations of persons and places that are principally referred
to-an addition which, it is believed, could in many cases
be attained.
In the Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission
remarks are frequently made upon the value of particular docu-
ments, which, though not exactly valuable for family history,
yet are most suitable for publication in order to illustrate the
general condition of the country at particular periods. The
various documents of this class that are mentioned in the
Reports referring to this part of Scotland, as being worthy
of publication, would alone go far to form volumes of Miscel-
lanies. It would be very desirable to have some of these
taken in hand by competent editors, and from time to time
given to the Club. Even in their variety of material such
volumes would be of great interest and value in promoting
the objects of historical research.
The Committee further suggest that the attention of the
Club be called to the fact that many curious and valuable
collections are lying in private hands and must be rapidly dis-
appearing in the changes and chances of time. Many of these
bear upon the past condition of the country and upon the
fortunes of families and individuals. They are often the work
of men who had a taste for archæological studies, and have
been collected from sources that are now closed for ever. The
present holders of such papers are possibly not fully aware of
their value and interest, or do not at least feel called upon
14
to publish them. Volumes of such Miscellanies as are here
indicated would form a convenient medium for the publica-
tion of such fragmenta. This, it is conceived, would meet
the wishes of many of our members and save an important
amount of useful and historically interesting material from
drifting into oblivion. Meanwhile the Committee have satis-
faction in being able to report that their Convener, Colonel
Allardyce, 3 Queen's Terrace, Aberdeen, has expressed his
readiness to take charge for the Committee of all such docu-
ments as may be collected for volumes of Miscellanies.
The Committee have also much pleasure in reporting that
the Marquis of Huntly and Lord Forbes have both most kindly
placed their respective Collections of Family Papers at the
Committee's disposal for examination. They trust, therefore, to
receiving the authority of the Business Committee to undertake
the work of examining and scheduling these valuable and im-
portant Muniments, preparatory to the selection of what may
be found suitable for issue by the Club.
J. ALLARDYCE, C.
THIRD REPORT BY THE FAMILY HISTORY COMMITTEE.
(Presented at the Meeting of the Business Committee
on Tuesday, 2nd October, 1888.)
In the last Report of this Committee it was intimated that the
Marquis of Huntly and Lord Forbes had been so good as to
place their family muniments at the service of the New
Spalding Club. An examination of these collections has
since been made with a view to a further Report, which we
now have the pleasure of submitting.
Mr. Dalrymple, as a Member of this Committee, inspected
the papers at Aboyne Castle, and had, as he states, the valuable
assistance of Dr. William Alexander, Aberdeen, and the Rev.
Mr. Michie, Dinnet, while the Marquis of Huntly, who takes
much interest in the subject, gave, in the most courteous way,
every facility for the examination. The nature and value of the
Collections at Aboyne Castle are clearly indicated in the Report
of the Historical MSS. Commission, No. 2. The following
brief summary will give an idea of their interesting character:-
I.—Charters and title-deeds of the lands of the Family.
Many of these are of the fifteenth century, and several of them
belong to a period previous to the time at which the Aboyne
family branched off from the main stem of Huntly, while all
are more or less of interest for purposes of local history and
genealogy.
16
II. Many old Rentals of the Earldom of Aboyne, the
Barony of Birse, &c., &c., of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, containing much of interest concerning the Agricul-
tural History of that period.
III.-Correspondence bearing upon the political and family
history of those centuries, carried on by the Aboyne family.
IV.-A large number of miscellaneous documents, probably
some thousand in number, which will require careful examina-
tion and arrangement before they can be made available for the
purposes of the Club. Many of these, doubtless, bear on the
social condition of the country in times past.
Lord Huntly has expressed his willingness to place from
time to time any portion of his papers in the hands of the Club,
as may be most convenient for their being dealt with.
The extensive collection of family documents which Lord
Forbes has, in the same liberal and public-spirited way, placed
at the service of the Club, has been examined by the Con-
vener of this Committee, assisted by Mr. Dalrymple and by
the Secretary of the Club. It also is of very great interest,
and has been noticed by the Historical MSS. Commission in
their Report No. 2. It comprises
I.-Charters and title-deeds of lands. They are curious
and interesting, and many of them were printed for the Old
Spalding Club.
II.-Rentals of the territory owned by the Lords Forbes,
notably that of William, seventh Lord Forbes, of dates running
back to 1552.
17
III.—A MS. History of the Family of Forbes entitled,
"Memoirs of the House of Forbes" down to 1542; also a MS.
entitled, "Historical Narration of the Life and Conversation of
John Forbes, known as Brother Archangelus, of the Order of
Capuchins," one of the family who, having become a Roman
Catholic, died in a Monastery abroad. His life contains many
curious particulars.
IV. Two MS. genealogies of the Family of Forbes. One
of these comes down to the seventeenth Lord Forbes.
V.-Two copies of Lumsden's "History of the House of
Forbes"—one printed and one in MS.
VI.-A vast mass of miscellaneous and unarranged papers.
Among these there no doubt are many that contain matters
illustrative of the social condition of the country in former ages,
and are similar, in this respect, not only to the collection at
Aboyne Castle, but also to the accumulations that are usually to
be found in the charter-rooms of old and influential families.
The charters and titles (Forbes, No. I.) were fully calendared
by the late Mr. Cosmo Innes about fifty years ago, and the book
containing his schedule, entitled, "Registrum Honoris de Forbes
1271-1756," is among the materials placed at our disposal. As
at Aboyne, however, a very large number of documents require
examination and arrangement before they can be dealt with for
literary purposes.
There can be little doubt that a large amount of material
that is suitable for the objects of the Club exists in each of
these collections, and the Committee beg to call the attention of
C
18
the Business Committee to the advisability of having this
material dealt with at an early date, as it is desirable that the
Club should not seem, by any unnecessary delay, to fail in
appreciation of the promptitude with which these collections
have been placed at the service of the Club by the noble
owners.
The Committee have to acknowledge the receipt from Mr.
Cramond, Cullen, of a most carefully executed transcript of an
Inventory of Lady Seafield's papers at Cullen House; Lady
Seafield having most kindly acceded to an application made to
her in this matter by the Convener of this Committee. The
Inventory has a very full Index of names and places added to it
by Mr. Cramond, and is of much value and interest. The
Committee would suggest that the thanks of the Council of the
Club be accorded to Lady Seafield for her kindness in giving
every facility for the compiling of this Inventory; to Lord
Huntly and Lord Forbes for so readily and fully giving access
to their collections; and to Mr. Cramond for his time and care
in making the transcript of the Cullen House Inventory.
ALLARDYCE, C.
SECOND REPORT BY THE BURGH RECORDS
COMMITTEE.
(Presented at the Meeting of the Business Committee
on Tuesday, 2nd October, 1888.)
THE Burgh Records Committee, in supplement of their previous
Report, beg to state that the Sub-Committee of their number
appointed to examine and report on the MS. volumes of Ex-
tracts from the Sheriff-Court Records of Aberdeen made by
the late Mr. John G. Leslie, Sheriff-Clerk-Depute, have sub-
mitted the following Report, which has been approved of by
the Committee :
"In terms of the remit made to us by the Burgh and
Judicial Records Committee of the New Spalding Club on
11th January last, we have carefully examined the twenty-one
MS. volumes compiled by the late Mr. John Grant Leslie, now
in possession of the Clerk to the Commissioners of Supply of
Aberdeenshire.
"We are of opinion that the material contained in these
volumes, with one exception, is not in a shape suitable for
publication by the Club, and that it is not in itself capable of
being put into such shape. That exception is the volume con-
taining a Report on the Parochial Registers of Aberdeenshire
preceding the year 1880, and the information contained in it
has now been otherwise rendered available to the public by
the Register House publications, &c. We, therefore, cannot
20
recommend the Club to take any steps towards printing these
compilations. The volumes contain a considerable amount of
information which would be useful to an original investigator,
but the whole of the information contained in them is extracted
from the Records under the charge of the Sheriff-Clerk, a full
Inventory of which has been prepared, and is submitted along
with this Report.
(Signed)
DAVID LITTLEJOHN.
ALEXANDER KEMLO."
The Committee are making efforts to obtain complete
Inventories of the various Sheriff-Court and Burgh Records
in the North of Scotland, with a view of utilising the in-
formation for the purposes of the Club.
Inventories of the following Records have already been
obtained :
SHERIFF-COURT RECORDs.
1. Kincardine.
2. Aberdeen.
BURGH RECORDS.
I. Dundee.
2. Montrose.
3. Banff.
4. Moray.
5. Nairn.
6. Shetland.
3. Aberdeen.
4. Old Aberdeen.
5. Kintore.
6. Inverurie.
7. Banff.
8. Cullen.
9. Elgin.
10. Forres.
II. Nairn.
2I
The Committee are in communication with the authorities
of the other Northern Counties and Burghs with a view of
obtaining Inventories of their Sheriff-Court and Municipal
Records.
The Committee are glad to state that Mr. William Cra-
mond, Cullen, one of their number, has undertaken the work
of making a digest of the Inventories, and reporting as to the
best method of making the information contained in them
serviceable for the Club.
P. M. CRAN, C.
SECOND REPORT BY THE CHURCH RECORDS
COMMITTEE.
(Presented at the Meeting of the Business Committee
on Tuesday, 2nd October, 1888.)
THE Church Records Committee are glad to report that the
hope expressed in their last statement, that something might
be done towards publishing the MS. Records of the Scots
Colleges on the Continent, is now likely to be realised. Mon-
signor Campbell, Rector of the Scots College at Rome, has
agreed to edit for the Club the Register of the College of which
he is the learned head. Mr. Maxwell-Witham of Kirkconnel
has courteously given the Club permission to print the Diary
of the Scots College at Douai, 1581-1772, now his property,
and mentioned by the Historical MSS. Commission as of
special interest, and highly worthy of publication. The Club
have been fortunate in securing as Editor one so well qualified
as the Rev. William Forbes-Leith, S.J.
The Church Records Committee, having authority granted
by the Business Committee to incur certain expenses in obtain-
ing information as to the Records in their charge, from Parish
Clergymen, Session, Presbytery, and Synod Clerks, and others
within the three Synods of Angus and Mearns, Aberdeen, and
Moray, issued on 26th December, 1887, a circular respectfully
requesting answers to the following queries:
23
1. What is the name of the Synod, Presbytery, Session, or
Congregation to which your replies refer?
2. How many volumes of Ecclesiastical Records are in
your possession?
3. What are the dates of the commencement and termina-
tion of each of these volumes?
4. What are the dates between which entries have been
omitted, or made with irregularity?
5. The Committee will be obliged by your mentioning
anything in the Contents of the Volumes in your
possession which seems to you interesting, and
suitable for the purposes of the Committee.
6. Are there any other documents of the nature indicated
in your possession, or are you aware of the exist-
ance of any documents in your neighbourhood,
which are non-official, and may contain material
suitable for the purposes of the Committee?
Subjoined is a synopsis of the replies received up to date:
SYNOD OF ANGUS AND MEARNS. (No reply from Synod Clerk.)
Presbytery of Arbroath. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and
from parishes of Arbirlot, Arbroath, Carmyllie, Kirkden,
Lunan, St. Ninian's (Arbroath).
Presbytery of Brechin. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Brechin, Dun, Edzell, Farnell,
Lochlee, Montrose (Old Church, second charge).
24
Presbytery of Dundee.
Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and
from parishes of Chapelshade (Dundee), Clepington (Dun-
dee), Liff and Benvie, Lochee, Lundie and Fowlis, Mains
and Strathmartin, Maryfield (Dundee), Monikie, Murroes,
St. Luke's (Lochee), Wallacetown (Dundee).
Presbytery of Fordoun. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and
from parishes of Arbuthnott, Benholm, Bervie, Fettercairn,
Fetteresso, Garvock, Kinneff and Caterline, Laurencekirk,
Marykirk, St. Cyrus.
Presbytery of Forfar. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Clova, Inverarity, St. James'
(Forfar), Tannadice.
Presbytery of Meigle. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Ardler, Kilry, Meigle, Newtyle,
Ruthven.
SYNOD OF ABERDEEN. Reply from Synod Clerk.
Presbytery of Aberdeen. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Fintray, East (Aberdeen), Grey-
friars (Aberdeen), Portlethen, Rubislaw (Aberdeen), St.
Clement's (Aberdeen), St. George's-in-the-West (Aberdeen),
Skene, West (Aberdeen).
Presbytery of Alford.
Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and
from parishes of Alford, Auchindoir, Clatt, Glenbucket,
Keig, Kennethmont, Kildrummy, Leochel-Cushnie, Strath-
don, Tough, Tullynessle and Forbes.
Presbytery of Deer. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and from
25
parishes of Blackhill, Crimond, Kininmonth, Longside,
Lonmay, Maud, Peterhead (East Church), Pitsligo, Tyrie.
Presbytery of Ellon. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Ellon and Slains.
Presbytery of Fordyce. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and
from parishes of Banff, Boyndie, Cullen, Enzie, Fordyce,
Rathven.
Presbytery of Garioch. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Bourtie, Inverurie, Keithhall and
Kinkell, Kemnay, Leslie, Meldrum, Monymusk, Oyne.
Presbytery of Kincardine O'Neil. Replies from Presbytery
Clerk, and from parishes of Glenmuick, Kincardine O'Neil,
Logie-Coldstone, Lumphanan, Torphins, Tarland.
Presbytery of Turriff. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and from
parishes of Alvah, Auchterless, Gamrie, King-Edward,
Millbrex, Turriff.
SYNOD OF MORAY. Reply from Synod Clerk.
Presbytery of Aberlour. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and
from parishes of Aberlour, Boharm, Elchies, Glenlivet,
Inveravon, Knockando.
Presbytery of Abernethy. (No replies.)
Presbytery of Elgin. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and from
parishes of Birnie, Burghead, Speymouth, Urquhart.
Presbytery of Forres. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Dallas, Edenkillie, Rafford.
d
26
:
Presbytery of Inverness. (No reply from Presbytery Clerk.)
Replies from parishes of Daviot and Dunlichity, Moy and
Dalarossie.
Presbytery of Nairn. Replies from Presbytery Clerk, and from
parishes of Auldearn, Cawdor, Nairn.
Presbytery of Strathbogie. Replies from Presbytery Clerk,
and from parishes of Cairney, Gartly, Newmill, Rothiemay.
Circulars were also sent to the Episcopal Incumbents
within the same district, and replies were promptly received
from most of these; but the materials in their hands are meagre,
and only of recent date.
The Committee were disappointed at not obtaining answers
from a larger proportion of the Presbyterian Clergymen. On
comparing the returns received, with the details regarding
Session and other Records incidentally given in Turnbull's
Memoranda of the State of the Parochial Registers of Scotland,
1846, and in the Detailed List of the Old Parochial Registers
of Scotland, 1872, they were surprised to find, in many cases,
such serious discrepancies, as to force upon them the conclu-
sion that, in order to make the returns reliable throughout, it
would be necessary to have them collated both with the local
records and with those now in H.M. Register House, by
competent persons approved of by the Club.
In connection with this proposal, they beg to acknowledge
with gratitude the services rendered or offered by several
gentlemen. Mr. Cramond, Cullen, whose name is guaranteed
for thorough work, has already, in the interests of the Club,
27
gone over the records in the Banffshire parishes. Mr. John
A. Henderson, Aberdeen, has examined those of the Presbytery
of Aberdeen. Thus, the returns for these districts, though the
answers to the circulars look meagre, may be considered as
virtually complete. Tenders of assistance have also been re-
ceived from the Rev. John Brown, Bervie; Dr. A. C. Cameron,
Fettercairn; Mr. James Davidson, Kirriemuir; Rev. Alexander
Fridge, Lunan; Rev. Dr. Gammack, Aberdeen; Mr. A.
Hutcheson, Dundee; Mr. John Mair, Ellon; Sheriff Rampini,
Elgin; Mr. James Spence, Peterhead; and the Rev. James
Thomson, Arbroath.
It is believed that when the returns have been thus cor-
rected and augmented, the Committee will be able to give to
the Club a body of statistics of great interest and value, never
hitherto made public in a complete and classified form.
JAMES MOIR, C.
SECOND REPORT BY THE COUNCIL.
(Approved at the Second Annual General Meeting of the Club
on Tuesday, 30th October, 1888.)
It is the agreeable duty of the Council to report that the affairs
of the New Spalding Club continue in a prosperous condition.
Not only has the full complement of 500 members been main-
tained, but the list of candidates for admission is still a lengthy
one, and further applications are being received from time to
time.
Since the last meeting of the Club, two volumes have been
issued to members :-
I.—MEMORIALS OF THE FAMILY OF SKENE OF SKEne. Edited
by William Forbes Skene, D.C.L., H.M. Historio-
grapher for Scotland. With reproductions of sketches
by his father, the late James Skene, Esq. of Rubislaw.
II. CARTULARIUM ECCLESIÆ S. NICHOLAI ABERDONENSIS. Vol.
I. Edited by the Rev. James Cooper. With reproduc-
tions of sketches by George Reid, R.S.A.
The Council regret that the appearance of these volumes
was unduly delayed. In each case the detention was due to
the very considerable time required for the reproduction, by
photographic processes, of the illustrations. It is, however,
confidently expected that, from the experience thus gained, the
issue of future books will be more regular.
29
The printing of the Monograph on the Heraldic Ceiling
of the Cathedral Church of St. Machar, by Principal Geddes
and Mr. Duguid, is now approaching completion, and members
may expect to receive the work before the end of the present
year. The heraldic portion, having undergone the scrutiny of
Mr. Burnett, Lyon King of Arms, may be relied on as in all
respects trustworthy.
As soon as the Monograph is out of the printer's hands, the
first volume of Selections from the Records of Marischal College
and University, the MS. of which is in a completed state, will
go to press. In deference to the wish expressed by many
members of the Club, every Latin deed printed in this work
will be accompanied by either a full or an abridged translation.
The outlook for future years is of a highly satisfactory
kind, for, as members may be reminded, the following works
have been approved by the Editorial Committee, and are now
in progress in the hands of their respective editors :-
1. Collections for a History of the Shires of Angus and Mearns.
Edited by the Rev. James Gammack, LL.D.
2. The Folklore and Place Names of the North Eastern
North-Eastern
Province. Edited by the Rev. Walter Gregor, LL.D.
3. A History of the Family of Burnett. Edited by George
Burnett, LL.D., Lyon King of Arms.
4. The Register of the Scots College at Rome.
Edited by
Monsignor Campbell, D.D., Rector of the College.
5. The Diary of the Scots College at Douai. Edited by the
Rev. William Forbes-Leith, S.J.
30
6. A Bibliography of the Shires of Aberdeen, Banff, and Kin-
cardine. Edited by Mr. A. W. Robertson, Librarian of
the Public Library, Aberdeen.
7. A Calendar of the Correspondence in the Town House of
Aberdeen. Edited by Mr. A. M. Munro.
8. Hector Boece's "Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen”: re-
printed from the edition of 1522; with translation and
addenda illustrative of the Lives of the later pre-
Reformation Bishops. Edited by Mr. James Moir,
Rector of the Grammar School, Aberdeen.
9. Selections from the MS. Biographical Collections of the
Rev. Robert Wodrow, in the possession of the University
of Glasgow. Edited by the Rev. John Christie, D.D.,
Professor of Church History in the University of Aber-
deen.
10. The Chartulary of the Church of St. Nicholas. Vol. II.
Edited by the Rev. James Cooper.
11. Selections from the Records of Marischal College and
University. Vol. II. Edited by the Secretary.
Other works in contemplation, but not yet formally
approved by the Editorial Committee are-
1. A volume of Miscellanies.
2. The Annals of Banff.
3. A History of the Family of Forbes.
4. A History of the Family of Gordon.
5.
The Book of Bon-Accord," revised and enlarged.
6. The Records of the Friars of Aberdeen.
31
Apart from the literary work already executed or now in
progress, the Council can point with satisfaction to the efforts
made by their special Committees in furtherance of the objects
for which they were appointed.
The Family History Committee have acquired for the
Club, through the kind permission of the Countess of Seafield,
a transcript of the Inventory of the Writs of the Ancient
Regality of Ogilvie (1405-1705). The Marquis of Huntly and
Lord Forbes have also, in the most courteous and liberal
manner, put their extensive collections of family papers at the
disposal of the Society.
The Burgh Records Committee have made considerable
progress in drawing up an exhaustive Inventory of the Municipal
and Judicial Records of the whole North of Scotland, which,
when complete, will form a convenient work of reference.
The Church Records Committee, towards the close of
1887, issued a circular to Session, Presbytery, and Synod Clerks
in the three North-Eastern Synods, inviting information as to
the Records under their care. The replies received were some-
what disappointing, the returns in many cases being given in so
unsystematic a manner as to render necessary a subsequent
collation of them with the original documents by some com-
petent persons approved by the Club. Several members have
kindly volunteered their services, and the Council look forward
to obtaining an Inventory which, as respects the district forming
the sphere of the Club's operations, will form a valuable adjunct
to the Detailed List of Parochial Registers of Scotland, printed
in 1872 by the Registrar-General.
32
!
The Archæological Committee have also issued a circular
relative to the Folklore, Place Names, and Bibliographical in-
vestigations that are being carried out by Dr. Gregor and Mr.
Robertson. This Committee have also strongly recommended
the preparation of a volume dealing with the History of Agri-
culture in the North-East of Scotland, and the Council are in
hopes that, with the approval of the Editorial Committee, one
of their number may be induced to undertake the editing.
The Reference Library, which it was thought desirable to
establish for the use of members, has already attained consider-
able dimensions. Several members have presented works of
genealogical and historical interest, and the Antiquarian Societies.
of London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Christiania
exchange their Proceedings for the publications of the Club.
The Council wish to express their grateful sense of the courtesy
of the Public Library Committee in permitting the use of the
Committee Room for the accommodation of the books belonging
to the Club.
It is, of course, inevitable that the ranks of such a society
as the New Spalding Club should be gradually thinned by death.
The Council have, with regret, to note the loss, during the past
year, of an exceptionally large number of members, viz. :-The
Earl of Seafield; Sir Francis W. Grant, Bart., a member of the
Council; Dr. Michie F. Anderson, Newburgh; Mr. John Clerk
Brodie, W.S., Edinburgh, an original member of the old Spalding
Club; Mr. Robert Chambers, Edinburgh; Mr. William David-
son, Aberdeen; Mr. John Duncan, Aberdeen; Colonel Far-
quharson of Invercauld; Mr. R. B. Horne, Aberdeen; Dr. H.
Haldane, Ballater; Rev. William A. Keith, Burham Vicarage;
33
Rev. John Watt, Strathdon; Dr. John Wight, Aberdeen;
Dr. Charles E. Wilson, H.M.I.S., Edinburgh; and Dr.
J. W. Winchester, Edinburgh. It is gratifying to be able
to add that in the majority of these cases the representatives
of the deceased members have applied for admission to the
Club. The Council have thought it not inconsistent with
Rule 7 to admit such representatives at once, all other vacancies
being filled up in accordance with priority of application.
The Treasurer will submit a statement of the finances of the
Club, which will be printed, together with this Report, in an
Appendix to the next volume issued to members.
GEORGE GRUB, C.
REPORT BY THE HONORARY TREASURER.
STATEMENT from the Accounts, Charge and Discharge, of the intro-
missions had by Mr. P. H. CHALMERS, advocate, Aberdeen,
as Honorary Treasurer of the NEW SPALDING CLUB, with the
funds of the Club, for the period from 11th November, 1886, to
30th October, 1888.
Subscriptions for year 1887—
500 original members,
THE CHARGE.
£525 0 0
13 13 0
31 10 O
13 present members, taking the
places of others, dead or resigned,
Compositions for life membership—
3 members,
Subscriptions for year 1888-
481 members,
Subscriptions for year 1889-
4 members,
Bank Interest, .
Amount of the Charge,
505 I O
4 4 0
8 II 4
1886.
THE DISCHARGE.
I. MISCELLANEOUS ACCOUNTS PAID.
Nov. 19. Banffshire Journal,
1887.
Jan. 24. Dundee Advertiser,
Forward,
0 4 0
036
£0 7 6
£1087 19 4
35
Brought forward,
Mar. 21. Edmond & Spark (preliminary
expenses),
Imperial Hotel,
May 20.
Aberdeen Journal,
May 21.
Daily Free Press,
22.
Scotsman,
24.
W. Jolly & Sons,
July 9.
">
£0 7 6
23 12 4
I II 6
2 14 3
O 15 O
обо
">
""
II.
0 8 0
&
Grosvenor, Chater, & Co., Lon-
don (per Edmond.
Spark),
Edmond & Spark,
Daily Free Press,
W. Jolly & Sons,
Milne & Hutchison,
Elgin Courant,
Sept. 27. John Annan, Edinburgh,
Set Spalding Club Books (per
Edmond & Spark),
Oct. II. James Garvie & Sons,
Nov. 19.
>>
21.
Milne & Hutchison,
T. G. Stevenson, Edinburgh,
25. Edmond & Spark,
1888.
Jan. 18.
Feb. 3.
""
4.
D. Wyllie & Son,
A. Brown & Co.,
Rev. Walter Macleod, Edin-
burgh,
J. Malcolm Bulloch,
Grosvenor, Chater, & Co. (per
Edmond & Spark),
Mar. 9. James Anderson, Bridge of Don,
Apr. 13.
Milne & Hutchison,
J. Farquhar Thomson,
May 18. James Garvie & Sons,
Forward,
67 10 10
2 6 5
I 17 6
026
2 15 9
0 5 O
I II 9
32 O O
19 17 6
4 20
обо
4 5 7
I 16 3
090
8 10 6
2 2 0
59 I 9
15 15 0
78 4 6
26 5 O
086
£359 8 0
36
Brought forward,
May 18. Robert Brown, Inverurie,
""
""
19
23.
Sept. 6.
28.
"
Milne & Hutchison,
A. Gibb & Co.,
T. & R. Annan & Sons, Glasgow,
Edmond & Spark,
Grosvenor, Chater, & Co. (per
Edmond & Spark),
A. King & Co.,
Aberdeen Journal,
T. & R. Annan & Sons,
•
The Convener of Church Re-
cords Committee,
Oct. 5. James Anderson,
£359 8 0
0 18 o
3 10
18 1 6
20 15
41 6 71
37 18 O
81 II IO
0 8 0
IO O O
0 17 2
13 3 3
I2.
Thomson & Duncan,
8 5 0
Boussod, Valadon, & Co., Lon-
don,
28 13 0
34 14 10
0 13 9
£659 14 111
19. Edmond & Spark,
Aberdeen Journal,
II. SECRETARY AND HONORARY TREASURER.
Secretary's postages, &c., to 31st Decem-
ber, 1886,
Secretary's salary, 1886-87,
Secretary's postages, &c., 1st January to
12th October, 1887,
Hon. Treasurer's postages, exchange on
cheques, &c., to 12th October, 1887,
Secretary's salary, 1887-88,
Secretary's postages, &c., 13th October,
1887, to 27th October, 1888,
Hon. Treasurer's postages, &c., 13th Octo-
ber, 1887, to 27th October, 1888,
I 15 2
26 5 0
4 13 II
3 13 5
26 5 0
4 15 10
2 12 4/
Forward,
70 0 81
£729 15 8
37
Brought forward,
III. ASSETS AS AT 30TH OCTOBER, 1888. *
Three Deposit Receipts with Town and
County Bank, Limited, dated 26th
October, 1888, for £100 each,
Balance at Credit of Treasurer's Account,
current with Town and County
Bank, Limited, ex interest from
30th January, 1888,
£300 0 0
£729 15 8
56 5 I
Balance in hands of Treasurer,
1 18 7
358 3 8
Amount of the Discharge, equal to the Charge,
£1087 19 4
P. H. CHALMERS. Hon. Treasurer.
Aberdeen, 30th October, 1888.
The foregoing account has been framed from the annual accounts
prepared by the Hon. Treasurer, audited by us, and approved of.
JAMES AUGS. SINCLAIR, C.A., Auditor.
GEORGE COOPER, C.A., Auditor.
ABERDEEN, 7th November, 1888.
Note 1.-At the close of the Account the Membership of the Club
stands as follows:-
Life Members,
3
Members that have paid subcription for 1888,
481
Members in arrears,
16*
Total,
500
* Since the account was closed, eight of these have paid.
38
Note 2.-The Miscellaneous Disbursements above are allocated
Advertising,
•
Printing circulars, .
as follows:-
I. PRELIMINARY EXPENDITURE.
Printing 800 copies of Report of Inaugural
Meeting,
Minute-Books and Stationery,
Postages,
Use of room, Imperial Hotel,
£2 4 0
10 17 6
376
9.15 21
5 16 7
I II 6
£33 12 31
II. "MEMORIALS OF FAMIily of Skene.”
Paper (44 lbs. per ream), 328 pp., .
41 7 6
Printing, per estimate, by Milne and
Hutchison,.
Printing corrections and extras,.
65 12 0
12 12 6
Illustrations: photographing,
A. Gibb & Co.,
299
18 1 6
""
T. & R. Annan & Sons,.
20 15 O
Indexing: Mr. J. Malcolm Bulloch,
2 2 0
Transcripts: Rev. Mr. Macleod,
6 14 O
Binding 525 copies: Edmond & Spark,
21 17 6
brass stamps,
2 8 3
Packing,
2
39
Carriage,
ΙΟ
7 7
206 II 41
III. "ST. NICHOLAS CHARTULARY." VOL. I.
Paper (44 lbs.), 324 pp.,
40 17 6
Printing, per estimate, by A. King & Co.,
""
55 13 9
25 18 I
corrections and extras,
Illustrations: Boussod. Valadon, & Co.,
Thomson & Duncan,
Forward,
28 13
O
8 5 0
£159 7 4 £240 3 8
39
Brought forward,
Sub-editing: Mr. J. Farquhar Thomson,
Binding 523 copies: Edmond & Spark,
£159 7 4 £240
3 8
26 5 0
21 15 10
brass stamps,
>>
Packing,
Carriage,
O 12 6
2 3 7
9
9 07
219 4 10
IV. "CHARTULARY." VOL. II.
Paper in stock, 20 reams (44 lbs.), .
V. "CEILING OF ST. MACHAR'S CATHEDRAL,"
34 7 7
Paper, 171reams (54 lbs.),
Illustrations: T. & R. Annan & Sons, .
37 18 O
IO O O
47 18 o
VI. "RECORDS OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE."
Transcripts: Rev. Mr. Macleod,
""
Mr. James Anderson,
I 16 6
13 3 3
14 19 9
VII. "FAMILY OF BURNETT."
Transcripts: Mr. James Anderson, .
15 15 0
VIII. CLUB LIBRARY.
Book-case,
19 17 6
removing,
0 8 6
Set of Spalding Club publications,
32 O O
Hist. MSS. Commission Reports,.
Other books,.
Bleau's Map of District,
I 13 9
0 8 6
O IO 6
Forward,
54 18 9
£627 7 7
40
Brought forward,
IX. CHURCH RECORDS COMMITTEE.
Printing 400 circulars, &c.,
Postages,
Convener's outlays,
Dandy, .
Die of Arms for book covers,
Printing reports and circulars,
Stationery, &c.,
X. SUNDRIES.
£627 7 7
3 I O
2 13 7
O 17 2
6 11 9
•
IO O O
I I O
719 6
6 15
1
t
25 15 7
£659 14 111
Amount of Miscellaneous Disbursements as above,.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNIV. OF MICH.
FER 4 1908
3 9015 07333 8801
}