286

MR. TAIT'S NOTE OF PERSONS

deponent conceives competent to be granted in very few cases, . . . and he will furnish the Commissioners with a statement of what he considers to be the rule applicable to this case." That statement forms No. 7 of the Appendix to the latest Report on the Lyon Court, and is here introduced as being consistent, at least in most respects, with the opinions of our leading heraldic authorities.

"NOTE of Persons who are considered by GEORGE TAIT, Esquire, Lyon-Depute, to be entitled to Supporters, furnished to the Commissioners of Inquiry by their desire, intimated to him at his examination this day, 27th June 1821.

"1. Peers.--By immemorial usage, Peers have right to supporters, and supporters are commonly inserted in modern patents of peerage. This includes Peeresses in their own right.

"2. Ancient usage. Those private gentlemen, and the lawful heirs-male of their bodies, who can prove immemorial usage of carrying supporters, or a usage very ancient, and long prior to the Act 1672, are entitled to have their supporters recognised, it being presumed that they received them from lawful authority, on account of feats of valour in battle or in tournaments, or as marks of the royal favour. (See Murray of Touchadam's case, 24th June 1778.)

"3. Barons.-Lawful heirs-male of the bodies of the smaller Barons, who had the full right of free barony (not mere freeholders) prior to 1587, when representa

ENTITLED TO SUPPORTERS.

287

tion of the minor Barons was fully established, upon the ground that those persons were Barons, and sat in Parliament as such, and were of the same order as the titled Barons. Their right is recognised by the writers on heraldry and antiquities. Persons having right on this ground, will almost always have established it by ancient usage, and the want of usage is a strong presumption against the right.

"4. Chiefs.-Lawful heirs-male of Chiefs of tribes or clans which had attained power, and extensive territories and numerous members at a distant period, or at least of tribes consisting of numerous families of some degree of rank and consideration. Such persons will generally have right to supporters, either as Barons (great or small) or by ancient usage. When any new claim is set up on such a ground, it may be viewed with suspicion, and it will be extremely difficult to establish it, chiefly from the present state of society, by which the traces of clanship, or the patriarchal state, are in most parts of the country almost obliterated; and indeed it is very difficult to conceive a case in which a new claim of that kind could be admitted. Mr. Tait has had some such claims, and has rejected them.

“5. Royal Commissions.-Knights of the Garter and Bath, and any others to whom the King may think proper to concede the honour of supporters.

"These are the only descriptions of persons who appear to Mr. Tait to be entitled to supporters.

"An idea has gone abroad, that Scots Baronets are entitled to supporters; but there is no authority for this

288

BARONETS NOT ENTITLED.

in their patents, or any good authority for it elsewhere. And for many years subsequent to 1672, a very small portion indeed of their arms which are matriculated in the Lyon Register, are matriculated with supporters ; so small as necessarily to lead to this inference, that those whose arms are entered with supporters had right to them on other grounds, e.g., ancient usage, chieftainship, or being heirs of Barons. The arms of few Scots Baronets are matriculated during the last fifty sixty years; but the practice of assigning supporters gradually gained ground during that time, or rather the practice of assigning supporters to them, merely as such, seems to have arisen during that period; and it appears to Mr. Tait to be an erroneous practice, which he would not be warranted in following.

"British Baronets have also, by recent practice, had supporters assigned to them, but Mr. Tait considers the practice to be unwarranted; and accordingly, in a recent case, a gentleman, upon being created a Baronet, applied for supporters to the King, having having applied to Mr. Tait, and been informed by him that he did not conceive the Lord Lyon entitled to give supporters to British Baronets.

"No females (except Peeresses in their own right) are entitled to supporters, as the representation of families is only in the male line. But the widows of Peers, by courtesy, carry their arms and supporters; and the sons of Peers, using the lower titles of the peerage by courtesy, also carry the supporters by courtesy.

Mr. Tait does not know of any authority for the

YOUNGER SONS OF PEERS.

289

Lord Lyon having a discretionary power of granting supporters, and understands that only the King has such

a power.

"Humbly submitted by

(Signed)

"G. TAIT."

The right of Peers to use supporters seems to be universally admitted, but it is somewhat doubtful whether the sons of noblemen, "using the lower titles of the Peerage by courtesy," are legally entitled to carry these heraldic appendages. The following passage from Nisbet seems to decide against the privilege, at least in the case of younger sons, although he evidently considers the practice rather anomalous, and even expresses an individual opinion which is contrary to the general rule:"The right of using supporters," he says, "is hereditary with us in the lineal heirs and representatives of families; but not to the younger sons of collaterals, unless they become representatives of the family neither in the greater or lesser nobility, which in the first seems strange, since the younger sons of Dukes and Marquises have the title of Lord prefixed to their names, and take precedency of hereditary Lords of Parliament. But though the titles they have be only temporary, and do not descend to their posterity, yet I am of opinion they may use supporters by the same right that Knights-bannerets did, whose dignity was also temporary, and that with their marks of cadency upon them, if agreeable, and if not, with other additional figures for the same reason that reason that they now of late

T

place the coronets of the respective dignities of their fathers on their helmets" (a very questionable proceeding), "to show the eminency of their birth." It would appear that supporters are very generally assumed, not only by the heirs-apparent, but also by all the younger sons of Peers, to whom the prefix of "Lord" is allowed by courtesy. Among Nisbet's numerous plates of achievements, however, while we find the shield of the Master of Cathcart supported by two parrots, each charged, like the escutcheon, with a label, as a mark of difference,2 no supporters appear in any of his engravings of the arms of younger sons of noblemen, which include the bearings of Lords Alexander and William Hay, and Lord Charles Ker. The question seems to have been brought under the notice of Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King of Arms, by a Scottish nobleman towards the beginning of the present century. In the year 1807, the twelfth Earl of Eglinton communicated with the Garter King respecting the right of his son and daughter-in-law, Lord and Lady Montgomerie, to bear the family supporters; and the precise nature of the application will fully appear from the subjoined reply of his heraldic majesty :

"COLLEGE OF ARMS, LONDON, 15th April 1807.

"MY LORD,-I had yesterday the honour of receiving your Lordship's letter of the 11th inst., in which you desire my opinion whether Lord Montgomerie may

1 System of Heraldry, vol. ii. part iv. p. 33.

2 Ibid. vol. i. plate 14.

3 Ibid. vol. i. plates 11, 15, 16.