Arms: Barry wavy of six Argent and Azure
or, if you prefer, Argent three bars wavy Azure.
Here we have more than just a laird, these arms belonged to a great Scottish Mormaer
Muireadhach, Earl of Menteith of the ancient earls of Menteith. The arms are illustrated in colour by Don Pottinger in the “Clan Map Scotland of Old” by Moncreiffe and Pottinger, published by Bartholomew in 1975 and more recently by Collins in 2018. By my count, Pottinger drew 189 achievements and arms in this map. The earls of Menteith arms are among 13 sets of larger arms in the top of the map and its fourth from the right.
Additionally, these arms of these early earls are described but not illustrated in ”Scotland’s Historic Heraldry” by Bruce A. McAndrew, The Boydell Press, 2006 on page 51: “it has been proposed that the original arms of the earldom were three bars wavy, to which the colours of argent and azure have been added on the grounds that the earldom is watered by three rivers !” The source footnote #36, states this quote is from: J. A. Stewart, “Inchmahome and the Lake of Menteith”, Edinburgh, 1933, page 103.
“The Scots Peerage”, Vol. VI, Ed Sir James Balfour Paul, Edinburgh, 1909, the article on the Ancient Earls of Menteith contributed by the Rev. John Anderson, is found on pages 124–141. On page 124 is a B&W illustration of the Menteith earls’ arms by Graham Johnston, Heraldic Artist to the Lyon Office with no indication of tinctures. On page 140 the original territorial arms of the earldom were barry wavy of six with no mention of tinctures.
We believe it likely Don Pottinger read and went with the tinctures proposed by J. A. Stewart in his “Inchmahome and the Lake of Menteith” of 1933.
The artwork is an interpretation by John Hamilton Gaylor
2021 0222
dqw266@gmail.com
