The Heraldry Society of Scotland
4 Dryden Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1RP
Scotland, UK.

Contact

The Heraldry Society of Scotland is pleased to announce the publication of The Dunvegan Armorial in a limited edition of only 500 copies. 

This superb Armorial has rarely been seen outside its home at Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye in the last 250 years. The last occasion was at the Glasgow Exhibition of 1911. Compiled about 1582, probably as a Royal gift, the manuscript contains the achievements of 23 Earls, 29 Lords, and the arms of 215 Gentlemen. As a bonus, a Liber Amicorum belonging the William Shaw, Master of the King’s Works in the 1580s, containing the arms and signatures of Foreign Ambassadors, was bound into the volume at an early date.  

All the images have been scanned and are now published with detailed biographies of the Nobles. The Gentlemen’s Arms, many of which were not originally identified, have now been carefully researched and named through comparisons with many contemporary armorials. The Introduction covers the dating, provenance and probable origins of the Armorial, the problems of working with manuscripts of this sort, and a brief biography of Sir David Lindsay of Rathillet (Lyon King 1567 - 1592). The appendices include a list of the manuscripts used for the comparisons, a table of the relative ages of the Nobles, and a detailed comparison of The Dunvegan with Rathillet’s and Hector le Breton’s Armorials.  

The volume is A4 size, with 256 pages in full colour throughout. It is bound in maroon simulated leather with the title in gold on the spine and front cover, and the arms of the Macleod of that Ilk and the Society in gold on the front and back covers respectively.  It is a perfect companion to the Society’s Dublin Armorial.