A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

PREFACE.
AS HERALDRY itself is of a noble extract and original, so the
knowledge thereof is worthy of any gentleman : and, if duly
considered, will be found no less useful than curious ; as tending to
illustrate the histories not only of particular families, but of the nation in
general.
The original design of heraldry is not merely show and pageantry, as
some are apt to imagine, but to distinguish persons and families ; to re-
present the heroic achievements of our ancestors, and to perpetuate their
to trace the origin of noble and ancient families, and the vari-
memory ;
ous steps by which they arrived at greatness to ; distinguish the many
different branches descended from the same families, and to show the
several relations which one family stands in to another.
As the practice of heraldry in Scotland is very ancient, so the higher
we trace it, we find arms the more regular and distinct : And of so great
importance to the nation was the regularity and distinction of arms
reckoned by our kings and parliaments, that sundry laws,
relative thereto,
have been enacted and published, discharging all persons to assume
arms to themselves without due authority; prohibiting those to carry
arms who had right to none, or those who had right, to usurp the
arms of other men.
Before the modern practice of subscribing names to writs of moment,
which was not used in Scotland till about the year 1540, all such writs
and evidents were only signed with seals, which contributed much to the
regularity of arms : And therefore it was enacted by sundry statutes,
That every freeholder should have his proper seals of arms, and should
either compear himself at the head court of the shire, or send his attorney
and they who wanted such seals were to be amerciate
with his said Seal ;
or fined : So that commonly gentlemen sent to the clerk of the court
their seals in lead, who kept the same in his office, to produce or compare
on occasions and it was reckoned no less a crime than ; forgery to coun-
terfeit another man's seal. Vide Regiam Majestatem.
As those seals grew less useful and necessary, so armorial bearings became
less regular: And therefore, anno 1592, cap. 125. the Parliament
gave power and commission to the Lyon King at Arms, and his brethren
heralds, to visit the whole arms of noblemen, barons, and gentlemen
within Scotland, and to distinguish them with congruous differences, and
to matriculate them in their books ; as also, to inhibit alj such to bear