A Complete Guide to Heraldry. Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

high above his back in a sufficiently defiant fashion. This shows that the Scottish arms were well known on the Continent of Europe nearly a hundred years before the date of the Grunenberg MS., while Virgil de Solis (c. 1555) gives a sufficiently accurate representation of the Royal shield, though the fleur-de-lis all project outwards as in the case of Grunenberg; he gives the crest as a lion rampant holding a sword in bend over his shoulder. Another ancient representation of the Scottish arms occurs in a MS. treatise on heraldry of the sixteenth century, containing the coats of some foreign sovereigns and other personages, bound up with a Scottish armorial, probably by David Lindsay, Lyon in 1568.

      The tressure, like the bordure, in the case of an impalement stops at the line of impalement, as will be seen by a reference to the arms of Queen Anne after the union of the crowns of England and Scotland.

      It is now held, both in England and Scotland, that the tressure flory and counterflory is, as a part of the Royal Arms, protected, and cannot be granted to any person without the express licence of the Sovereign. This, however, does not interfere with the matriculation or exemplification of it in the case of existing arms in which it occurs.

      Many Scottish families bear or claim to bear the Royal tressure by reason of female descent from the Royal House, but it would seem much more probable that in most if not in all cases where it is so borne by right its origin is due rather to a gift by way of augmentation than to any supposed right of inheritance. The apparently conflicting statements of origin are not really antagonistic, inasmuch as it will be seen from many analogous English instances (e.g. Mowbray, Manners, and Seymour) that near relationship is often the only reason to account for the grant of a Royal augmentation. As an ordinary augmentation of honour it has been frequently granted.

      The towns of Aberdeen and Perth obtained early the right of honouring their arms with the addition of the Royal tressure. It appears on the still existing matrix of the burgh seal of Aberdeen, which was engraved in 1430.

      James V. in 1542 granted a warrant to Lyon to surround the arms of John Scot, of Thirlestane, with the Royal tressure, in respect of his ready services at Soutra Edge with three score and ten lances on horseback, when other nobles refused to follow their Sovereign. The grant was put on record by the grantee's descendant, Patrick, Lord Napier, and is the tressured coat borne in the second and third quarters of the Napier arms.

      When the Royal tressure is granted to the bearer of a quartered coat it is usually placed upon a bordure surrounding the quartered shield, as in the case of the arms of the Marquess of Queensberry, to whom, in 1682, the Royal tressure was granted upon a bordure or. A like arrangement is borne by the Earls of Eglinton, occurring as far back as a seal of Earl Hugh, appended to a charter of 1598.

      The Royal tressure had at least twice been granted as an augmentation to the arms of foreigners. James V. granted it to Nicolas Canivet of Dieppe, secretary to John, Duke of Albany (Reg. Mag. Sig., xxiv. 263, Oct. 24, 1529). James VI. gave it to Sir Jacob Van Eiden, a Dutchman on whom he conferred the honour of knighthood.

      On 12th March 1762, a Royal Warrant was granted directing Lyon to add a "double tressure counterflowered as in the Royal arms of Scotland" to the arms of Archibald, Viscount Primrose. Here the tressure was gules, as in the Royal arms, although the field on which it was placed was vert. In a later record of the arms of Archibald, Earl of Rosebery, in 1823, this heraldic anomaly was brought to an end, and the blazon of the arms of Primrose is now: "Vert, three primroses within a double tressure flory counterflory or." (See Stodart, "Scottish Arms," vol. i. pp. 262, 263, where mention is also made of an older use of the Royal tressure or, by "Archbald Primrose of Dalmenie, Knight and baronet, be his majesty Charles ii. create, Vert, three primroses within a double tressure flowered counter-flowered or.") Another well-known Scottish instance in which the tressure occurs will be found in the arms of the Marquess of Ailsa (Fig. 229).

      Two instances are known in which the decoration of the tressure has differed from the usual conventional fleurs-de-lis. The tressure granted to Charles, Earl of Aboyne, has crescents without and demi-fleurs-de-lis within, and the tressure round the Gordon arms in the case of the Earls of Aberdeen is of thistles, roses, and fleurs-de-lis alternately.

      The tressure gives way to the chief and canton, but all other ordinaries are enclosed by the tressure, as will be seen from the arms of Lord Ailsa.