A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

196
OF THE SUB-ORDINARIES.
ing in danger, was rescued, and remounted by Don Roderico de Cissneres upon his
horse, who, in the time, cut off three triangular pieces
or gussets of the king's
coat armour, which he kept as a testimony to show the king afterwards that he
For which, the king advanced him to honour, and
was the man who saved him :
honoured his armorial bearing with three girons, Plate VIII. fig. 32. and adorned
it with a horse for a crest, to perpetuate to posterity the opportune relief he gave
to his king, and from which figures the family took the name of Giron, and these
figures are frequent in Spanish bearings; neither are they wanting in several families
in France.
The girons in length do not exceed the centre of the shield, from whatever side
they issue, and their points terminate and meet in the centre. Their ordinary
number in Britain is eight, as these in the bearing of the name of Campbell,
which fall out necessarily by the four principal partition lines. 1 shall here proceed
to describe them, as the English do, when of a lesser and greater number,
and then show how the necessary girons difter from others, which fall not out by
those partition lines.
Guillim makes the giron an ordinary of two lines, drawn from the side of the
shield, meeting in the centre or top. Again, if these two lines were extended to
the other side of the shield, they would form two girons, which Guillim blazons
argent, two girons gules, but does not tell how they stand, which is bend-ways, as
fig. 33. if to this last example a diagonal sinister line be added, then the shield will
be filled with six girons, as
fig 34. and if to this a paler line be added, then the
field is equally filled with them, falling out by the four principal partition lines, as
before, by the name of Campbell.
And I shall here add another instance of the achievement of Colonel ALEXAN-
DER CAMPBELL of Finnab, in Perthshire (which he caused engrave in the Plate of
Achievements) being a grandson to Archibald Campbell, who was son to Sir Duncan
Campbell of Glenorchy, and his wife Lady Stewart, daughter to the Earl of Athol,
carry the arms of Glenorchy, now Earl of Breadalbane, viz. quarterly, first the paternal
coat of Campbell, parti, coupe, tranche, faille, or and sable ; and, as others
Sa 7> gironne of eight, or and sable; second argent, a lymphad sable, and oars in ac-
tion; third or, a fesse cheque, azure and argent, for STEWART of Lorn, and the fourth
as the first, in surtout, by way of distinction; the arms of the African and Indian
Company of Scotland, viz. azure a St Andrew's cross, cantoned with a ship in full
sail in chief, and a Peruvian sheep in base, in the dexter flanque, a camel with a
burden of goods passant, and, in the sinister flanque, an elephant with a tower on
its back, all argent ; which are timbred with helmet and mantlings befitting his
quality, and, on a wreath of his tinctures, for crest, a demi-man in a coat of mail,
holding in his right hand a sword, and on his left arm a shield, charged with the
head and neck of an unicorn ; with the motto, on an escrol above, 0$uid non prc
patria ; supported on the dexter by an Indian in his native dress, with a bow in
his hand, and quiver with arrows hanging over his shoulder ; and, on the sinister,
out of which a ris-
by a Spaniard in his proper habit, standing on a compartment;
ing sun, with the epigraph, ^nu panditur orbis. The reason which made him as-
same those additional signs, is as follows : the account of which I doubt not but
\vill give satisfaction to the reader:
The colonel having served as captain in that regiment, levied by his grace Archi-
bald, late Duke of Argyle, in the year 1689, ( a^ * *" s own name) during King-
William's first wars in Flanders, until, among several others that regiment was disbanded
at the peace of Ryswick, in the year 1697, the African and Indian Company
of Scotland, having the affairs of their new settlement at Darien in extreme
disorder, by the desertion and mismanagement of the first colony, did, about the
i-t t>f December 1699, by their letters and commission, and assurance of all manner
of encouragement, entreat him, being then at London, to ro straight to Darien,
with the utmost expedition, in station of a counsellor ; which he accepted of, and,
through many difficulties, occasioned chiefly by that unnatural proclamation forbidding
fire and water to any of that settlement through all the English plantations,
which was then raging in full force, he got to Darien on the 2d of February 1700.
The second colony being arrived about two months before him, and things at a
very low pass, and unprecedented mortality amcng the men, and a spirit of uu-