Blazon of Arms:
Shield: Quarterly: 1st & 4th, Azure, a Sun-in-Splendour proper (Lothian, as a coat of augmentation); 2nd & 3rd, Gules, on a Chevron Argent, three Mullets Gules (Kerr of Jedburgh).
SOURCE, NOTES AND CREDITS: Illustration for background and the caption’s text adapted for the entry from the Wikipedia article. The name “Kerr,” from the Old Norse “kjrr” meaning “marsh-dweller,” arrived in Scotland from Normandy. In Scotland it was rendered Kerr, Ker, Carr and Carre, with a Scottish variant on the west coast taken from the Gaelic “ciar,” meaning dusky.
The Marquess of Lothian is a title created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1701 for Robert Kerr, 4th Earl of Lothian. The Marquess holds the subsidiary titles of Earl of Lothian (created 1606), Earl of Lothian (created again 1631), Earl of Ancram (1633), Earl of Ancram (created again 1701), Viscount of Briene (1701), Lord Newbattle (1591), Lord Jedburgh (1622), Lord Kerr of Newbattle (1631), Lord Kerr of Nisbet, Langnewtoun, and Dolphinstoun (1633), Lord Kerr of Newbattle, Oxnam, Jedburgh, Dolphinstoun and Nisbet (1701), all in the Peerage of Scotland.
The 6th Marquess was created Baron Ker, of Kersheugh in the County of Roxburgh (1821) in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. As such the marquesses sat in the House of Lords before 1963, when all Scottish peers first sat in the House of Lords in their own right. The current 13th Marquess is better known as the Conservative politician Michael Ancram. In November 2010, he received a life peerage as Baron Kerr of Monteviot and so became entitled to sit in the House of Lords. The heir presumptive to the marquessate is his younger brother Lord Ralph Kerr, who owns Ferniehirst Castle in Roxburghshire, which is the family seat. The holder of the marquessate is also the Chief of Clan Kerr.
The artwork is an interpretation of John Hamilton Gaylor.
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