A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

OF VEGETABLES: 3%
I am of the opinion that those of the name of Lothian are not of the same stock
of people with those of the name of Loudon, who have for arms, as in our old
hooks of blazons, urgent, three inescutcheons sable. See Plate of Achievements.
Whether the name of the first be from the county of Lothian, I shall not deter-
mine, latined iMbinna, by Buchanan, from one Lothus, one of the Kings of the
Picts ; but he adduces no vouchers. In old charters it is written Lawdonia, and
sometimes Laodeii'ui. In France, there is the town of Loudun, and, in the shire
of Ayr, there is an ancient place called London : From either of those two places
it is probable the surname of Loudon is taken ; for Sir James Dalrymple, in hi-.
Preface to his Scots Collections, page 65, says,
that he has seen in the hands of
the Right Honourable Hugh Earl of Loudon, a charter of William Morvil, !>
James Loudon of Loudon, in the reign of King William. This family continued
not long in the male line ; for Sir Reginald Crawfurd married the heiress of the
name of Loudon, and with her got that barony in the reign of King Alexander
of Crawfurd of Loudon ended
II. and, in the reign of King Robert I. the family
in an heiress, Susanna Crawfurd, who was married to Sir Duncan^Campbell ; and
from them are descended the Earls of Loudon, of whom before.
In England, many families carry trees as relative to their names, as the names
of PYRETON and PINE, who carry pear trees and pine trees, speaking to their names.
The broom plant (plant a genista:} was the badge and ancient device of the Planta-
genet family, for which the Kings of England were so denominated from Jeof-
frey Plantagenet Earl of Anjou, father of King Henry II. by his wife Maud, the
Empress, daughter and heiresss of King Henry I. who did not carry the carbuncle
as the armorial figure of his father Anjou, but the figures of England, with the
who adorned
broom-plant for his device ; as did also his son Richard I. of England,
his helmet with that plant, instead of a crest, as upon his seal of arms ; for which
see Sandford's History.
OF FRUITS.
A FEW of them I shall here mention, with their terms of blazon, which will serve
for the rest. When fruits are represented with stalks and leaves, they are in blazon
said to be stalked and leaved ; the French say, tlges and /twite's; and when
the stalk is pulled oft" at a lith with a piece hanging at it, we say slipped. As for
other terms, they rise from their position, disposition, and situation, as to be erect,
pendent, bend-ways, and in pale, &c.
The country or GRANADA, in Spain, argent, a pomegranate gules, stalked and leaved
vert; thus, by Favin, Ifor a la grenade de gueules tigee 13 feuillee de
sinople, and
by Sylvester Petra Sancta, Malum punicumpurpureum, cum frondlbus fc? ramis prasinis
in argentea areola. Since the Kings of Spain recovered the county of Granada
from the Moors, they have marshalled the arms of that country with their own.
RALSTON of that Ilk, argent, on a bend azure, three acorns in the seed or; crest,
a falcon, proper : motto, Fide et Marte. N. R.
These of this name are said to be descended of one Ralph, who obtained some
lands from the High Steward of Scotland, and called them, after his own name,
Ralphston, which became the surname of the family.
A'/Vo/rtwj de Ralston is witness to the donation which Sir Anthony Lombard made
to the Monks of Paisley in the year 1272; and, in- the year 1346, Jacobus Ralston,
Dominus fjusdem, is witness in an instrument upon electing an abbot of the Monastery
of Paisley, whose successor was John Ralston of that Ilk ; and Thomas Ralston
of that Ilk obtained a charter* of these lands from John Lord Ross, anm
1505, of whom is lineally descended the present Gavin Ralston of that Ilk, who
carries as above.
AIK.ENHEAD of that Ilk, an ancient family, argent^ three acorns slipped vert; crest,
a demi-savage holding in his right hand three laurel slips fructuated, proper: motto,
Rupto robore nail, matriculated in our New Register by Mr James Aikenhead, Representer
of the family of Aikenhead of that Ilk, Advocate, and one of the
Commissaries of Edinburgh, grandson of David Aikenhead, eminent for his loyalty
and virtue, who, for many years, was Provost of Edinburgh, whose father sold the