School heraldry: St Ninian's High School, Eastwood

One of Scotland's top state schools, St Ninian's celebrated its 30th birthday in 2014. Significantly, on its foundation, the Headmaster immediately applied to the Lyon Court for a grant of arms and they are rather splendid: 

"Azure a Celtic cross cantoned between in dexter chief a dove volant descendant and in sinister chief a book expanded Argent binding and fore-edges Gules in dexter base a crozier head contournée and in sinister base a crozier head Argent."

Hamilton Palace reconstructed

Hamilton Palace was demolished in the 1920s, largely because the coalmines which had provided successive dukes with much of their wealth were causing dangerous subsidence. Now much of the old drawing room, which had been dismantled and packed off to America, has been reassembled in the National Museum of Scotland.

Now the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) has created a virtual reconstruction of the Palace HERE.

Bank of Scotland Museum of the Mound

Two minutes' walk from Waverley Station is a fascinating museum you should not miss if you are in Edinburgh: the Bank of Scotland's Museum of the Mound. As well as a very interesting display of coinage and banknotes and as a history of Scotland's oldest bank, there is some good heraldry on display.

The bank's coat of arms, which dates from 1701, is a saltire (St Andrew's cross) for Scotland with gold circles or bezants in between the arms of the cross to suggest coins.

The last one is a very witty roll of winners of the Bank's gold competition with the bank's motto "Tanto uberior" - "so much more plentiful"

Tournament Melée

Here is a poster, painted by Mark Dennis, of a tournament melée as it might have appeared before King Robert the Bruce and Queen Elizabeth to celebrate the first birthday of their son, Prince David (late King David II) on 5th March 1325.

You can identify some of the participants from the key below:

Knights of the Thistle

The Order of the Thistle is Scotland's only national order of chivalry. As the Commonwealth Games get underway in Glasgow, we congratulate the chairman of the organising committee, Lord Smith of Kelvin, shown here with the other new knight, the Earl of Home, invested earlier this month by the Queen.

Lord Smith's coat of arms includes references to the Commonwealth Games and to the Royal Museum of Scotland the board of which he also chaired for many years. 

Palio of Siena

One of the greatest heraldic pageants in the world takes place in Siena on July 2nd and August 16th each year with a wild horse-race round the city's main square - the Campo. Siena is split into 17 contrade each with its own livery and symbol. Ten of the contrade take part in each race - this year (2014) the winner was the "Drago" (the dragon). The race is preceded by a pageant in which the heraldry is displayed.

Football Heraldry

Here is an image made by one of our Junior Members showing some of the coats of arms of Scottish football teams. It would be good if some of our other Junior Members might show us something of the heraldry of other sports or the football teams of other countries. Here is the coat of arms of Queen's Park FC to which Ross refers:

Battle of Bannockburn 1314

Competition 2: Closing Date June 30th

On the 23rd and 24th June, Scotland will celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, outside Stirling. The protagonists were Robert the Bruce (Robert I of Scotland) and Edward II of England.

A full account of the battle can be found HERE.

Your job is to identify the owner of each of the shields and say to which army the bearer belongs.

Clan Motto Competition

Here is new anthem for the Heraldry Society of Scotland: the words are all taken from mottoes.

Competition 1 is to identify the owner of each motto and to translate it into your own language.

Nemo me impune lacessit,

Nil sine labore,

Sic transit gloria mundi,

Via veritas vita

Nobilis est ira leonis

Ora et labora

Corda serrata pando

feros ferio

Tak tent o'armes, Tak tent o'armes,

Tak tent o'armes,

In medio virtus stat.

Sola virtus nobilitat

Fortiter et recte

Virtutem coronat honos

Praesto ut praestem

Sub sole sub umbra virens

Nunquam non paratus

Audentes fortuna juvat 

Fortitudine

chorus: Tak tent o'armes, Tak tent o'armes,

Tak tent o'armes,

In medio virtus stat.

Welcome to the Junior Section of the Heraldry Society of Scotland

The HSS has a small but enthusiastic number of Junior Members in Scotland, England, Italy and Germany and would welcome many more.

Once a month, sometimes oftener, a competition will appear on this page with an interesting book as a prize: have a go at them, they are supposed to be fun and I hope they are!

In the meantime, Junior Members are encouraged to send in photographs of heraldry which they have taken themselves. To start us off, here is a photograph taken by our young member, Julian Tristan of Bavaria, of the Spanish galleon. Neptune in harbour at Genova. The ship was rebuilt for Roman Polanski's film Pirates.