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The Heraldry Society of Scotland
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The Court of the
Lord Lyon, King of Arms
H.M.
New Register House,
Edinburgh. EH1 3YT
Telephone: 0131 556 7255
Facsimile: 0131 557 2148
www.lyon-court.com
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The
Court of the Lord
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Lyon
King of Arms
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The Lord Lyon is not only a
Minister of the Crown but also a judge of the Realm; nowadays it is
perhaps in this capacity that he comes most in contact with the
public, for almost all Scottish heraldic business is conducted on
Judicial lines, through the machinery of the Court of the Lord Lyon
which exercises both a civil and a penal jurisdiction under the old
Common Law of Scotland as well as sundry Acts of Parliament. Scotland
and Spain are probably the only countries where a court of heraldry
and genealogy still exists in daily operation, before which lawyers
plead in wig and gown, though, thanks to the courtesy and interest
shown by the Lord Lyon and his officers, most of the business of the
ordinary applicant is settled without even the need for legal
assistance. The Court of the Lord Lyon indeed reflects, not the curt
severity of the Police Court or the Magisterial Bench, but rather the
stately benevolence of distant days when our ancient Scottish laws
were administered upon the "moot hill" of some old barony
or thaneage.
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The
statutes drawn up by the skilful Scottish statesmen of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries function as smoothly and efficiently today
and serve the lieges as effectively as they did in the Middle Ages. The
Court of the Lord Lyon is situated in H.M. New Register House, its
records (part of the National Records of Scotland) being entrusted to
the Lyon Clerk. When sitting in full Court the Lord Lyon wears, as he
did in Parliament before the Union, a robe of crimson velvet and
ermine, somewhat like the coronation robe of a British peer, but with
cords and tassels and no hood.
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Proclaiming the dissolution
of the Westminster Parliament May 2001. Ross Herald, Lord Lyon
and Carrick Pursuivant.
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The
duties of the Court are divided into two broad categories: (a)
Establishing rights to arms and pedigrees, which, when satisfactory
evidence is produced, results in a judicial "Interlocutor"
granting warrant to the Lyon Clerk to record in the Public Register
of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland, or in the Public Register of
All Genealogies and Birthbrieves in
Scotland, the particular coat of arms and genealogy which have been
established to his Lordship's satisfaction. (b) The penal and
semi-penal (State Revenue) jurisdiction is concerned with protecting
the rights both of private individuals and of the Crown in Scottish
armorial bearings, and over H.M. Messengers at Arms. This is regarded
as a matter of signal importance, for where persons or corporations
have paid fees to the Crown in return for the exclusive right to
armorial bearings, and a Scots coat of arms can belong to only one
person at a time, it is only proper that these rights should be
protected. Without such protection arms are indeed useless to anybody
or for anything.
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The
misappropriation or unauthorised display of a man's coat of arms is a
"real injury" under the Common Law of Scotland.
Accordingly
the registered owner of a Scots coat of arms may obtain judicial
interdict in Lyon Court against any person depicting his arms against
his wishes or to his prejudice. The Crown and the public have also an
interest, the former because in Scotland the fees on registration of
armorial bearings and pedigrees are payable to H.M. Treasury, and the
latter for prevention of fraud through improper assumption of coats of
arms because armorial bearings are legal evidence which may be used in
cases of succession and identity.
The
Lyon Court, like other Courts in Scotland, has a public Prosecutor,
styled, like those of Scots Sheriff Courts, a
"Procurator-Fiscal". He raises proceedings, when necessary
against those who improperly usurp armorial bearings, and in view of
the financial interest of the Treasury, the Scots Courts of Appeal regard
the Fiscal's intervention as analogous to an Inland Revenue
prosecution. The armorial offender in Scotland is accordingly viewed
with the same stern and unromantic outlook which meets any other
culprit caught evading national taxation. Lyon Court has by Statute 1592, cap. 125,
and 1672, cap. 47,
full powers of fine and imprisonment, and by 1669, cap. 95,
Letters of Horning as well as, at common law, power to erase
unwarrantable arms, and to "dash them furth
of" stained-glass windows, break unwarrantable seals, and, where
the Fiscal or complainer moves for forfeiture, to grant warrant for
seizing movable goods and gear upon which arms are unwarrantably
represented. He may also interdict usurpers of arms.
The
granting or regranting of Arms by Letters
Patent and various Birthbrieves, e.g.
Diplomas of Nobility or of Chiefship (Diploma Stemmalis), is not judicial but the exercise by Lyon of the
Sovereign's Armorial prerogative, and with this the Courts of Appeal "cannot
interfere". In this branch of Armorial jurisdiction Lyon, after
considering the Petition, issues a Warrant, which is the heraldic
equivalent of the Queen's "Signature" for a Crown Charter,
"authorising" the Lyon Clerk to prepare the Letters Patent.
On all these proceedings fees are payable to H.M. Exchequer. It is not
often realised that the Lyon Office is a revenue-earning Government
Department as well as being custodian of the pageantry and romance of
Scotland's mediaeval grandeur.
Sir Thomas Innes of Learney “Scots Heraldry”
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© The Heraldry Society of
Scotland last Update 21 Jan 2013
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