A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

254
OF CELESTIAL FIGURES,
from the shire of Murray, to Caithness and Sutherland, to Galloway, Teviotdale
and East-Lothian ; as Sir James Dalrymple observes in his preface to his Scots
Collections.
These of the name of SUTHERLAND, gules, three stars or, are said to be originally
from a part of a colony of Germans, called the Catti, who came to Scotland in the
reign of Corbredus II. about the year of Christ 76, and possessed that north part of
Scotland called from them Caithness ; and these of that colony who lived south-
ward, called the country Sutherland, from which came the name of the family;
the heads of which were THANES, afterwards Earls of SUTHERLAND ; as Alexander
Ross, in his Description of that Country. Favin, in his Theatre of Honour, speaking
of these Allemagne people, the Catti, says, they carried for arms, d'argent un chat
or crest of
de sable, i. e. argent, a black cat. The cat has always been the badge
those families with us that are said to be descended of the Catti ; as the Sutherlands,
the Macphersons, and others of the Clan-chattans. Sir George Mackenzie,
has this conjecture for Sutherland carrying a cat salient for crest ; because, says
he, the country of Sutherland is called Cattu, from the great number of wild cats
which were of old in that country. As for the ancient use of the cat for the crest
of the family of Sutherland, Sir James Balfour, in his Manuscript, says, he has seen
the seal of arms of one of the old Earls of Sutherland, which had a shield charged
with three stars, and adorned with a cat salient for crest, appended to a charter of
that Earl's to the Monks of Dunfermline, in the reign of King David I. As for
the antiquity of this noble family, all our national historians, and others, upon
very good vouchers, tell us, that ALANUS Thane of SUTHERLAND was killed by
Macbeth the : Usurper And his son Walter, was made Earl of Sutherland by
Malcolm Canmore, in the year 1061 : His son, the second Earl, built the Castle of
Dunrobin, /. e. the Hill of Robert. His great-grandson, William, fifth Earl of
Sutherland, entered into a contract of agreement with Archibald, Bishop of Caith-
ness : I have seen the principal writ betwixt the Earl of Sutherland and the said
bishop, dated the loth of the calends of October 1275, wherein it is narrated, that
there had bee.n a long controversy between Gilbert, William, and Walter, Bishops
of Caithness, and William, and his son William, Earls of Sutherland.
William's son and successor was Kenneth, sixth Earl of Sutherland, who was
father of William and Nicol, the first of the House of Duffus ; which William
was the seventh Earl : From him was lineally descended John Earl of Sutherland,
who died without issue in the year 1508, and was succeeded by
his sister Elizabeth.
She was served heir to her brother, Earl John, 1514, and had for her husband
Adam Gordon of Boyne, second son to George second Earl of Huntly ; of whom
were descended the Earls of Sutherland, who retained the surname of Gordon, and
marshalled the arms of Huntly and Sutherland together. Sometimes they placed
the arms of Sutherland by way of surtout, over the quartered arms of Gordon and
Seaton ; and at other times, they quartered Sutherland in the first and fourth
quarters, and in the second and third, Gordon and Seaton, quarterly. John, the
present Earl of Sutherland, has laid aside the name and arms of Gordon, and usesonly
the name and arms of Sutherland, surrounded with the double tressure of
Scotland ; the supporters are two savages, proper, wreathed about the head and
middle with laurel ; and for crest, a cat seiant, proper : motto, Sans peur, i. e.
Without fear.
The ancientest cadet of the Earl of Sutherland, now extant,
is the Lord DUFFUS.
The first of this noble family was NICOL SUTHERLAND, who got from his fa-
ther, the Earl of Sutherland, the lands of Torboll. He married Jean, heiress of
Cheyne of Duffus, and with her got those lands ; her paternal coat being gules,
three cross croslets filched or ; which were composed together with his paternal
arms in one shield. Afterwards one of his successors married an heiress of the
name of Chisholm, who carried azure, three boars' heads erased or ; for which the
family carried one of them in the centre, and composed the armorial coat of Duffus
thus ; gules, a boar's head erased between three stars, 2 and i, and as many cross
croslets i and i. or. Of late they have marshalled the arms, as first and fourth
Sutherland, second and third, Cheyne and Chisholm, which are adorned with exterior
ornaments, as those of the Earl of Sutherland. This family was dignified
with the title of Lord Duffus by King Charles II. the 8th of December 1650.