Vestigia insulae manniae antiquiora, or, A dissertation on the armorial bearings of the Isle of Man : the regalities and prerogatives of its ancient kings, and the original usages, customs, privileges, laws, and constitutional government of the Manx people / by H.R. Oswald.

  • Oswald, H. R.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestigia insulae manniae antiquiora, or, A dissertation on the armorial bearings of the Isle of Man : the regalities and prerogatives of its ancient kings, and the original usages, customs, privileges, laws, and constitutional government of the Manx people / by H.R. Oswald. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    36/270 (page 6)
    THE ARMOEIAL BEAEINGS Holj) with this inscription Rex MannicB et Tnsularum, as I have seen in the seals they used.” Clarencieux (1858) also considers a ship under sail, or with sails hoisted, with the above motto, viz.. King of Man and the Isles, the true arms of ]\Ian. Whereas Mr. M^'iHiam Anderson, Marchmont herald of the Lion Oflice, affirms that the only authenticated arms must be the three legs; others, if insisted upon, must be li^^pothetical, or at least not recognized by extant records;” and adds, ‘'^the ship in rough salles, i.e., furled, must have been the armorial bearings of the Kings of Man and the M’^estern Isles, during the time the Norwegians were paramount in our seas,” or whilst they were the sovereigns of Man, for a period of about two hundred .years from the conquest of the Island by Godred Crovan, 1066, till the Scottish annexa- tion by Alexander III. (1266.) This may be considered beyoird doubt from the charters of the Kings of Man and the Isles, just published as one of the works of the ISIanx Society. But the Marchmont herald states further, in reply to queries on these subjects, that the arms of the Isle of Man are blazoned thus : “ Gules, three legs of a man, all proper', conjoined in the centre at the upper part of the thighs, flexed in triangle, garnished and spurred, or.” Nesbit, in his System of Heraldry, published at Edinburgh, 1722, vol. I, p. 271, observes that these arms are ofteu to be met with in the armorial seals of our (Scotch) nobility, and of those in Englaird also, who have been dignified with the title of Lords of the Isle of Man, and gives the following examples;—(1) King James II. of Scotlaird created his second son Duke of Albany, Earl of March, Lord of Annandale and of the Isle of Man, upon which account he carried the arms of these dignities quarterly, 1, for Scotland; 2, for the Earldom of March; 3, for the Isle of Man; and 4, for the Lordship of Annandale. These arms were also carried by his sons, his successors in those dignities, and which are emblazoned in the Ancient Heraldic ManuscrigA of Sir David Lyndsay, of the IMount, King of Arms, 1542, p. 37; Douglas Peerage, vol. I, p. 58. This Duke of Albany was living between or about the years 1455