The Scots Never Forget

Author’s Note

Author’s NoteThe first time I visited the Highlands of Scotland was in 1927 and I went to the Kirk on Sunday. It was a bleak bare building and the Minister wore no surplice but instead a black cassock.

He preached a Sermon that lasted for over an hour in which he declared violently against the iniquities of the Highland Clearances, which had begun on the Glengarry estates and had spread all over the North of Scotland.

He spoke so vehemently and with such intense feeling about what had occurred that I thought that such terrible cruelties had just taken place. Only when I discovered that the Clearances had started in 1785 and ended in 1854 did I realise that the Scots never forget or forgive.

Heraldry arose in feudal Western Europe in the fourteenth century because heraldry made it possible to identify Nobles in the field of battle and the Arms became associated with heroic deeds.

The College of Arms in England dates from 1555. In Scotland the Lord Lyon is a great Officer of State, the superior Officer of Honour and Conseiller du Roi in all matters armorial, genealogical and ceremonial.

The Lord Lyon has within his power everything that appertains to the Chiefship of name and Arms. The duty of this Court, which is always in session, is to establish rights to Arms and Pedigrees in Scotland.