A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

OF THE BEND-5INISTER. 107
Sue' >f a batton-sinister, passing from corner to corner,
paternal. quarter, and nut over the other qu is that of Robrrt Sn-warf, a.
natunil MMI of King JIUHC^ V. begot upon Eupham, daughter ot" Alexander Lord
Elphinston ; who ot' being prior Holyroodhouse, he exchanged that abbacy witli
Actiiin Bothwcll, bislio]) ot Orkney, tor hi.s right of thut bishoprick, in the >eur 1570,
and was created t'.url of Orkney, by King James Vl. by patent the 2ist of October:
He carried the arms of Scotland, bruised with a batton-sinister sable, quartered,
in the first and fourth places, with the feudal arms of Orkney ; in the second and
third places, being azure, a ship with her sails furled up or. His son Patrick, whom
he had by his wife Jean, daughter to Gilbert Earl of Cassilis, succeeded him in his
honours : but the batton-sinister seems (it by favour allowed) was turned to the
right, as a ribbon sable, bruising the lion, so illuminated in the Manuscript of
James Workman, herald-painter, with these exterior ornaments for ; crest, a
king inthronized, holding in his right hand a sword, and in his left, a falcon; with
the motto, Sic fult esf j crit ; supported on the dexter by an unicorn and on
;
the sinister, by a grirlin. This Earl Patrick was forfeited for treason,
for which he
lost his head in the year 1614.
By our modern practice, the batton does not touch the extremities of the shield,
nor the extremities of the quarter where the paternal arms are placed, for the batton
is couped, that is, cut short, as in all British paintings and engravings ; the
French make it much shorter than we, and call it baton-sinister
peri,
As to the ancient use of the batton-sinister, it has not been in practice of arms, as
a mark of illegitimation above three hundred years for of ; old, the natural sons,
whether of subjects or sovereigns, did not carry the arms of their fathers, as now,
with differences but ; carried other arms, which they got from, their sovereign, or
those of their mothers or wives being noble.
The natural children of the Kings of Scotland, and our nobility, had no names
or arms of old from their fathers, and those they had were either from the placesof
their birth, or from their mothers or wives, as also their names or designations.
Robert, natural son of King William, having married the heiress of Lundy of
that Ilk, he and his issue took upon them the name of LUNDY or LUNDIN, and the
arms of that family, viz. paly of six, argent and gules, over all on a bend azure,
three cushions of the first, which the family continued till of late, carrying now,
by warrant from the crown, as before, the arms of Scotland within a bordure gobonated,
argent and azure, as the natural sons of our kings have been in use to do
only since the reign of King James I. of Scotland ; For the bordure gobonated
was not then a mark of illegitimation as now.
The same practice was in England ; WILLIAM LONG-ESPEE, natural son of Henry
II. begot on the fair Rosamond, had for arms a long sword, relative to his name ;
but after he had married Ella, daughter and heir of William D'Eureux, Earl of
Richard I. he then took the arms
Salisbury, and being confirmed earl thereof by
of his wife, viz. azure, six lions rampant, argent, 3, 2, and j. and no part of his
father King Henry's arms-: as Edward Walker, and Sir John Feme have observed.
And Sandford, in his
Genealogical History, also tell* us, that the unlawful children
of JOHN of GAUNT, Duke of LANCASTER, begot on Katharine, daughter of Srr
Pay en Rouet, Guienne King of Arms, did not carry the arms^of their father the king,
though nobilitate with a batton-sinister, as now used ; but their arms were parted
per pale argent and azure, over all a bend gules, charged with three lions passant
act of Parli-
gardant or : but after the legitimation of these three natural sons, by
ament, they then assumed the sovereign ensign of England, being France and
England quarterly, within a bordure gobonated argent and azure. Of which
afterwards.
Sir JOHN CLARENCE, natural son of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, second son of
Henry IV. who was killed at the battle of Bauge in France, by the Scots 1421,
did not presume, as Sandford observes, to carry his father's arms, which were
France and England', quarterly, with a label of three points ermine, each charged
with a canton gules, for Clare ; but carried only parted per cheveron gules and
azure, two lions rampant affront e or.
So that till about the fourteenth century, I have not found natural children carry-
ing the arms of their fathers with a batton-sinister, as a mark of illegitimation ;