These arms are the territorial arms of the earldom of Atholl. They
are found as independent arms and also as a quartering of the arms of
various earls of Atholl, including the Stewart and Murray earls or
dukes of Atholl.
The Cover Letter for the February 2002 LoAR stated:
In this month's submission for Aethelwine Aethelredson
(Calontir), a commenter raised the question of whether we should
protect the non-SCA arms of the Earl of Atholl.
Ordinarily, such a request during the commentary cycle would cause
a pend of the associated SCA armory and would be discussed there
rather than in the Cover Letter. In this case, the armory in question
was returned for a different reason, so there was no need for a
pend. Laurel procedure in the past has been to rule on all requests
for protection, whether they are raised in commentary pertinent to a
submission in progress or whether they are raised in Letters of Intent
to Protect. Therefore, this "orphaned" issue is presented for your
consideration here in the Cover Letter.
The Cover Letter then quoted the section of the letter of comment
which requested protection of these arms.
This item is being pended for the College's further consideration
for two reasons. One reason is the ambiguity in the wording of the
Cover Letter for the February 2002 LoAR. The second reason is the
amount of new and pertinent information on this item which was
received by the Laurel office, but which had not been presented to the
College.
On the issue of ambiguity: As a general rule, when new items are
presented to the College, the intent of the writer is clear to the
readers. "Letter of Intent" is an accurate term. The Cover Letter for
the February 2002 LoAR did not state that it was the intent of either
Laurel or Wreath to protect the arms of the Earl of Atholl. It just
asked for "consideration" of a commenter's request for protection of
these arms.
The ambiguity in the request for consideration became apparent when
we found that we must rule on this submission based on very sparse
commentary. The general policy of the College of Arms has long been
that "silence implies assent." The intent of the writer of a Letter of
Intent is assumed to be supported (or at least, not opposed) by all
members of the College who do not comment on the submission. Since the
intent of Laurel and Wreath concerning this submission was not made
clear in the Cover Letter, it was not clear how we should interpret
the silence concerning this request for consideration. We asked some
members of the College how they would interpret this silence, and
received very disparate answers, implying that the ambiguity was a
legitimate problem. Some members of the College felt that, since the
Cover Letter did not state Laurel's (or Wreath's) intent to protect
the submission, silence implied a lack of support for
protection. Others felt that since the cover letter quoted the
commenter's request for protection, silence implied support for the
commenter's request for protection.
While the College is not, and has never been, a "voting
organization", the criteria by which we choose to protect, or not to
protect, real-world arms involve opinions as well as fact. Fame,
familiarity, and importance are not easy to quantify. If twenty
members of the College all provide the same argument explaining why
two pieces of armory conflict, the argument is no more or less
compelling than if only one commenter has done so. However, if twenty
members of the College all state that a particular piece of real-world
armory is, or is not, "important", "famous" or "familiar", that shared
opinion is more compelling than hearing the same opinion espoused by
only one commenter. We therefore strongly encourage all members of the
College to comment on issues of protection of real-world armory. While
scholarship and informed discussion are always preferred, there is use
in even a short comment like "The evidence presented [does]/[does not]
justify protecting this armory in the SCA."
It is therefore necessary to state unambiguously how silence will
be interpreted in reference to this pended item. Because this item
originated as a request for protection of the Earl of Atholl's arms as
important non-SCA arms, silence will be interpreted as support for (or
lack of opposition to) the protection of the arms. Please note
that this statement does not reflect the personal opinions of either
Wreath or Laurel.
As a reminder to the College, the grounds for protecting (or not
protecting) this piece of armory are in the Administrative Handbook,
section III.b (Protected Armory) subsection 3 (Significant Personal
and Corporate Armory from Outside the Society). This states in
pertinent part, "Modern or historical armory may be considered
significant or recognizable enough to protect on a case-by-case
basis". The Administrative Handbook does not specify what the grounds
for the "case by case basis" for protection might be, so we must turn
to precedent for guidance. The Cover Letter for the LoAR of August
1999 states:
I am more likely to decide that an item is important
enough to protect if it appears in multiple general sources...
The importance of protecting individuals' arms is a combination of
the "arms" and the "man" schools of thought. The "arms" school
contends that we should protect famous arms regardless of the
importance of the owner of the arms. One example of arms that fall in
this category is arms used as examples of design in heraldry
texts. The "man" school maintains that the arms of famous people
should be protected regardless of the familiarity of their arms. Past
rulings try to balance these two schools of thought.
Here follows a summary of the documentation pertaining to this
submission which has been presented to the Laurel office, but has not
yet been presented to the College of Arms. This does not include the
material that has already been presented to the College in the Cover
Letter for the February 2002 LoAR or in commentary thereupon: the
College is encouraged to revisit the pertinent past
correspondence.
Arms School
These arms are found as examples in some standard heraldic
references. Woodward's A Treatise on Heraldry, British and
Foreign gives them as the illustrated example of
paly. They are also found as an example of paly in
A.C. Fox-Davies' The Art of Heraldry.
The arms are found in a number of period rolls in Scotland, England
and the continent. Note that while England and Scotland had many
cultural ties throughout our period, for the entirety of our period
the two were independent sovereign (and at times, warring)
kingdoms.
Scottish Rolls: Scots Roll, Balliol Roll,
Lindsay of the Mount's roll.
English Rolls: Herald's Roll, Sir Wm. Le Neve's roll, the
Fife Roll (an English roll despite the name), Camden Roll, Fitzwilliam
Roll, Everard Green Roll, Walford's Roll, St. George's Roll, Charles
Roll, Glover's Ordinary, Segar's Roll.
Continental Rolls: Grand Armorial Equestre de Toison d'Or,
Gelre.
Man School
Britannica.com mentions three of the Atholl nobility in entries
under their own names. All three used these arms as a quartering. The
first is John Stewart fourth earl of Atholl, summarized in
britannica.com as a "Roman Catholic Scottish noble, sometime supporter
of Mary, Queen of Scots". His use of the Atholl quartering is
demonstrated in Lindsay of the Mount's roll. The second is John
Murray, second earl and first marquess of Atholl, summarized in
britannica.com as "a leading Scottish Royalist and defender of the
Stuarts from the time of the English Civil Wars (1642-51) until after
the accession of William and Mary (1689)." The third is John Murray,
second marquess and first duke of Atholl, the son of John Murray,
first marquess of Atholl, summarized in britannica.com as "a leading
Scottish supporter of William and Mary and of the Hanoverian
succession". (He's the Atholl who captured, and then lost, Rob
Roy). Both Murrays also used the Atholl quartering, as demonstrated in
the Lyon Ordinary.