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MACTHOMAS HERALDRY: THE MACTHOMAS OF FINEGAND
Written by Roger F. Pye for the Clach A' Choilich The Magazine of the Clan
MacThomas Society.
By Interlocutor dated 8th May 1967, Lord Lyon Sir Thomas Innes of Learney allowed
armorial bearings (matriculated on the same date) to the Chief of Clan MacThomas,
by the name and designation of "Captain Patrick Watt MacThomas of Finegand and
Cairn Derig in Glenshee" as follows. Arms: Quarterly 1St, or a lion rampant Gules,
armed and langued Azure; 2nd, Argent a dexter hand couped fessways issuant (1)
from the sinister and grasping a heart Gules; 3rd, or, a Lymphad Azure, sails furled
proper and flagged Gules, its oars in saltire also Gules; 4th, or a Lion rampant Gules,
armed and langued Azure, surmounted of a chevron Sable (for Thoms of Aberlemno);
the whole within a bordure compony Gules and Argent, each alternative pane
charged of a heart Gules. Crest: A demi-cat-a-mountain rampant guardant proper,
grasping in his dexter paw a serpent Vert, langued Gules, its tail environing the
sinister paw. Motto: Deo Fuvante Invidiam Superabo. Supporters: On a compartment
embellished of snowberry plants (being his proper Badge for the Clan MacThomas),
dexter, a blackcock regardant proper, and sinister, a domestic cock Sable, armed,
beaked, wattled, combed and membered Gules. Slogan: Clach na Coileach
In accordance with the Clan Chattan Declaration of 1672; whereby Lord Lyon Sir
Charles Erskine of Cambo had declined to allow arms to any of the component tribes
of Clan Chattan except as cadets of the Laird of Mackintosh's family, whose
predecessor married the "heretrix of the Clan Chattan," (2) the arms referred to
above are based upon those of The Mackintosh of Mackintosh; the first and second
quarters being identical in the two coats, while Mackintosh's 4th quarter has
become Finegand's 3rd.(3) Finegand's 4th quarter is occupied by the arms of Thoms
of Aberlemno, which lairdship has now become merged with the chiefship of the Clan
MacThomas, and the whole has been surrounded by a bordure compony (i.e. a
border divided into panels of alternate tinctures) to indicate that the Mackintosh
connection is an illegitimate one, although the allusion has been softened by
charging each white pane of the border with a red heart. (4)
It may be as well to explain the significance of the quarterings in question since
there is much which is not generally understood in this respect, even in
authoritative circles. It has become customary to say that the red lion, ramping in a
gold field, and with blue claws and tongue, is "for the MacDuff Earls of Fife," that
the red severed hand in a white field, holding a red heart, is for Mackintosh," and
that the blue galley with red flags, and red oars crossed before it, in a gold field, is
"for Clan Chattan," but in fact these are not so many family coats borne quarterly,
as we should expect outside the Highlands, but totemic symbols placed for
convenience in the quarters of a shield, and although they may have come to
acquire the attributions mentioned over the course of time, the true origins of these
figures were very different.
As Sir Iain Moncreiffe has made abundantly clear, (5) the lion is the totem of the
ancient kings of Dal Riada, and whenever it is properly borne in Scottish arms, it is
as an allusion to descent from that royal house. In so far as it is quite probable that
the Mackintoshes are in fact a branch of the House of MacDuff, who in turn seem to
have been the senior line of the Dalriadic royal house (6) and bore the red lion on
gold without difference, the attribution of the first quartering "for MacDuff" is not
unreasonable; but it seems clear that the Mackintosh's MacDuff ancestors were
never themselves Earls of Fife (7) but, at best, their cousins.
It is more difficult to say precisely what is the significance of the red hand, but as it
figured in the armory of several other Highland clans, we cannot doubt but that it
too was a totemic symbol and not a family coat. It seems to have come into use
about the end of the 15th Century, and was then always shown as an open hand,
palm outwards.(8) The first Mackintosh, known to have borne it so was the 15th
Laird, (9) who lived in the 16th Century, and the Mackintosh chiefs continued to
bear the open hand until some time into the 17th Century, during which it became
fashionable to make the hand a closed one, and to place some object within its
grasp. In the case of the Mackintosh chiefs this something was a heart (10) and, in
so far as this was peculiar to them, it may in that sense be correct to describe it as
"for Mackintosh," although it could never in itself be properly described as the coat
of Mackintosh.
The galley (as Sir Iain once again makes clear) (11) was the totem of the Norse
Kings of the Isles. It seems improbable that it should have reached the
Mackintoshes by way of Clan Chattan; in fact we have no reason to suppose that
Clan Chattan ever used the galley in its armory. It seems more likely that the
Mackintoshes derived it through the marriage, in the mid-fifteenth Century, of the
10th Laird with Mora Macdonald of Clanranald, who of course acquired it through her
descent from the Lord of the Isles. Although the so-called "galley of Clan Chattan" is
now always made blue, it was anciently black, and was in fact precisely the same
galley as that borne in numerous other Highland coats, and for precisely the same
reason, viz. In token of descent from the Norse Kings of the Isles. In so far as the
blue galley is now peculiar to Clan Chattan, it can presumably be said to be "for Clan
Chattan," but the attribution has no historical basis. The Aberlemno arms, borne in
the 4th quarter of the coat we are now considering, have already been discussed in
our previous issue. (12)
Turning to the crest, the cat-a-mountain (or wild cat as we should call it in ordinary
speech), has long been a favourite canting crest among the Clan Chattan tribes,
and the green serpent here placed within its grasp is the symbol of envy; thus
associating crest and motto in the very best heraldic tradition. The motto in its old
English form: "I shall overcom invy vith God's help," was carved in 1660 on Iain Mor's
newly built house at Crandart (13), and is thus over three hundred years old. It has
here been rendered in Latin for the sake of conciseness.
As regards the other external additaments (in the present case indicating the
bearer's chiefly status); the Gaelic slogan Clach na Coileach, which here appears
below the shield, can be translated as "Stone of the cock," and its origin and
significance have been explained in our last issue (l4). The domestic cock which
figures as the sinister supporter is a further allusion to the same tradition; while the
blackcock on the opposite side, besides being a bird indigenous to the clan country
of Glenshee, provides a suitable foil to its companion. The two supporters stand on
a "compartment" or mound, which represents the territorial possessions of the chief
(15), and from which grow plants of snowberry (Symphoricarpus racemosus); the
plant badge of the clan. This badge has only recently been allotted to the
MacThomases, for whom no ancient plant badge is known other than the red
whortleberry; shared by all the clans of the Clan Chattan confederation. The
armorial bearings as described above are naturally entirely personal to The
MacThomas of Finegand, but are also borne by Young Finegand, as heir apparent,
with shield and supporters each differenced by the superimposition of a
three-pointed green label.
R. F. P.
1) The word "issuant" (which has the armorial sense of "issuing from the edge of the
field or ordinary" is here wrongly employed and is in direct contradiction to the
earlier adjective "couped" (meaning cut off). It should therefore be omitted from any
future matriculation. In the 1967 patent it has led to the artist illustrating the hand
as emerging from the inner edge of the bordure, instead of being severed at the
wrist as was intended.
2) Frank Adams, revised by Sir Thos. Innes of Learney, Clans Septs and Regiments
of the Scottish Highlands, 1960, p. 194
3) In the former, however, the sail is blue; in the latter "proper."
4) Although this produces an attractive coat, the arrangement is open to serious
criticism on technical grounds, implying as it does that all that is within the bordure
was somebody's legitimate coat, and that the present line descends illegitimately
from that somebody. In fact, by the rearrangement of the quarterings and the
introduction of a further quartering for Thoms of Aberlemno, the basic quarterly coat
is already completely distinct from any Mackintosh coat ever borne, and since it
seems utterly superfluous to resurrect a bastardy of over 600 years ago at which
time, as many authorities have pointed out, it was not customary to armorially
distinguish bastardy as such, it is to be hoped that the bordure may be quietly
dropped at the next matriculation. Many precedents exist for such dropping of
bordures.
5) Sir lain Moncreiffe of that ilk, Bt. The Highland Clans, pp.20 and 46-'7; (see also
the same author's letter in The Coat of Arms, Vol. 11, p. 39).
6) ibid. pp. 46 and 126.
7). The earlier (and, sad to say, even a few of the modern) Mackintosh historians
equate one of these Earls of Fife (the 5th) with that Thane (Gaelic: Toisach) from
whom the Mackintoshes (Mac-an-Toisich) take their name. This of course is
unmitigated rubbish, and it seems pretty obvious that the Mackintoshes' early
forebears were Thanes of Rothiemurchus (the Mackintoshes being in possession of
the Thanage of Rothiemurchus so soon as they appear on record in the 15th
century... need we look further for the Thanage from which they took their name?
Sir Iain Moncreiffe in a letter to the writer, 1968). There were of course other
thanes of other places, the Toshes of Monzievaird, in Strathearn, were derived from
the Thanes of Strowan (via. Moncrielfe, The Highland Clans, p. 126), while the
Mackintoshes of Glentilt (who were really Macdonalds, and from whom the
MacRitchies of Dalmunzie, neighbours of the MacThomases in Glenshee, most
probably sprang) derived from the Thanes of Glentilt. This did not prevent the Clan
Chattan Mackintoshes from claiming both families as their cadets! (Sir Aeneas, 23rd
of Mackintosh, Bt., makes them respectively 1st and 4th of the Nine Tribes of
Mackintosh), and in fact both the Toshes of Monzievaird and the MacRitchies of
Dalmunzie later placed themselves under the protection of Clan Chattan towards the
end of the 16th century.
8) The open hand was the symbol of the derbhfine or "true family," the palm
representing the father, the first finger joints the children, the second the
grandchildren and the third the great grandchildren. Relations outside the hand's
compass were not considered to be of one's "true family." Shortly after the
Macdonald forfeiture of 1475, the chiefs of several of the branch clans into which
Clan Donald split are found using the open hand in their armory. Perhaps as members
of the derbhfine of the Lord of the Isles, High Chief of Clan Donald, and it seems
probable that it then found its way into the arms of the chiefs of Mackintosh and
Maclean (and possibly others) through Macdonald marriages. In the case of
Mackintosh, this could have been the marriage of Malcolm, l0th of Mackintosh, with
Mora Macdonald of Clanranald from whom, as mentioned later in the text above, the
galley was probably also derived.
9) As strewn in his armorial seal in 1543 (W. R. Macdonald, Scottish Armorial Seals,
1904 No. 1827).
10) In the next issue I hope to be able to expand on this.
11) Sir Iain Moncreiffe, op. cit. p. 56
12) Vid. pp. 8-10
13) Wm. M'Combie Smith. Memoir of the Families of M'Combie and Thoms, 1889, p.
93.
14) Vid. p. 2.
15) Sir. Thos. Innes of Learney, Scots Heraldry, 1956, p. 39.
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