A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

i8o
OF THE SUB-ORDINARIES.
This armorial figure has been of old used in the royal ensigns of the Kings of
Scotland, to perpetuate the ancient and memorable league betwixt them and the
Kings of France.
It has been communicated by our Kings, (as I observe) first to their children,
for instance of the first, David Earl
and afterwards to their eminent : subjects As
of Huntingdon, brother to King William, carried in his arms a double tressure ;
and the English herald, Mr Miles, tells us, that Maud, the sister of King William,
who was married to Henry I. of England, had, for her arms, the Lion of Scotland
within the double tressure.
By our ancient and modern practice,
carried by any subject, without a special warrant from the sovereign,
the double tressure is not allowed to be
and that in
these two cases : First, to those who were descended of daughters of the Royal
Family ; and so to them it is a tessera of a noble maternal descent, as the orle
before mentioned is to the Spaniards. And secondly, to these who have merited
well of their king and country, as a special additament of honour.
Sir ALEXANDER SEATON of that Ilk, son of Sir Christopher Seaton, and Christian
Bruce, sister to King Robert the Bruce, was the first of the noble progenitors of
the Earls of Winton who encompassed his paternal figures, the three crescents,
with the double tressure flowered and counter-flowered gules, in a field or, upon the
account of maternal descent and merit. And upon the same account, THOMAS
RANDOLPH Earl of MURRAY, as another sister's son to Robert I. carried
King^
the double tressure round his paternal figures,
viz. three cushions gules, in a field
argent, as by their seals of arms, appended to charters which I have seen.
The MURRAYS, especially those of Tullibardine and Athol, upon the account of
their royal maternal descent, had the double tressure round their proper figures.
I have seen the seal of William Murray of Touchadam, constable and governor of
the castle of Stirling, progenitor of Murray of Polmaise, appended to a charter in
the year 1463, upon which seal was a triangular
shield charged with three stars
within a double tressure flowered, and counter-flowered with flower-de-luces.
iWoN Earl of STRATHMORE as descended of a daughter of King Robert II. KEN-
NEDY Earl of CAKILIS, and GRAHAM of Fintry, as descended of daughters of King
Robert III. have the double tressure counter-flowered with flower-de-luces round
their armorial figures. It is true, several other considerable families with us,
though descended of the blood royal, by the mother-side, have never been in use
to carry this celebrated tressure ; as the families of Hamilton, Douglas, &-c. Others
again, merely upon the account of their special services to their king and country,
have been honoured with this figure in their arms as Erskine Earl of ; Kelly, Ramsay
Earl of Holderness, Scott of Thirlestane, and others, of whom in other places of
this Treatise.
Some again have the double tressure in their arms, and adorned with other
figures than flower-de-luces ; as Gordon Earl of Aboyne, azure, a cheveron between
three boars' heads couped, all within a double tressure flowered with flower-