Royal Wedding 1558

  As Notre Dame reopens, we remember the marriage in 1558 in that glorious place of Mary Queen of Scots and the Dauphin, later François II. Image from the Forman Armorial at the National Library of Scotland.

Reopening of Notre Dame

The reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris today on this the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, reminds us of the great use of the Blessed Virgin in Scottish heraldry, notably the arms of the former royal burghs of Lauder, Melrose, Selkirk, Banff, Cullen and Rutherglen.

 Lauder (1938) has: Or the Blessed Virgin standing holding the holy Child all Proper.

While Melrose (1931) had: Azure issuant from a representation of the wall of the Abbey of Melrose in base Proper door Gules between two pinnacles a gothic canopy Or, therein seated the Virgin Mary and Holy Child also Proper; in Dexter chief a mell and in sinister chief a rose Argent.

and Selkirk (1927): Or on a mount before a grove of oak trees the Blessed Virgin seated on a bench with the Holy Child in her arms, all Proper, against her feet an escutcheon of the Royal Arms of Scotland.

and Banff (1893) : Gules the Virgin Mary with her babe in arms Or.

and now Cullen 1956, with the peculiar compartment sometimes granted to royal burghs following Elgin in 1672: Per fess Sable and Argent: in chief, on a sedilla Or, cushioned Gules, diapered Or, the Blessed Virgin enthroned Proper, habited Gules, mantled Azure, crowned Or, and holding in her dexter hand a sceptre surmounted of a fleur-de-lys Or, and in her sinister arm the Holy Child enhaloed, also Proper; in base a talbot passant of the First.

and finally Rutherglen, matriculated 1889, which used an image of the Madonna and Child as its crest - many mediaeval seals being double-sided, one side being religious, the other describing the shipbuilding of the lower Clyde: 

Argent, in a sea Proper, an ancient galley Sable, flagged Gules, therein two men Proper, one rowing, the other furling the sail.

 

100 years ago today

 From the Public Register 100 years ago today, the arms of James Cook. Or a cock Proper on a chief Azure a martin volant between two cross crosslets of the First.

Thistle Service

 The Lord Lyon and Officers of Arms attended the Annual St Andrewstide Service of the Order of the Thistle in the Thistle Chapel at St Giles' Cathedral this morning.