Recent Irish grants / Flatley arms

[Arthur Radburn]

For those interested in Irish heraldry : the Chief Herald of Ireland has published a selection of recent (2015-16) grants of arms, which can be downloaded from her web page (https://www.nli.ie/en/applying-for-a-grant-of-arms.aspx). Click the link at the bottom of the page.

One of them is this 2015 grant to the 'Lord of the Dance', Michael Flatley :

[Michael F. McCartney]

4400 Euros for a personal grant or confirmation :0
:O

[JMcMillan]

4400 Euros for a personal grant or confirmation :0
:O

Even at that, it's a bargain compared to what the College of Arms is charging--6,857 euros at today's exchange rate. By comparison, Lord Lyon is dirt cheap at 2,862 euros. I'm surprised the cost differential hasn't led to mass migration across the Tweed. Or arms smuggling in the opposite direction.

[Chris Green]

The quality of the Scottish LPs isn't a patch on the English ones.

[Martin Goldstraw]

Even at that, it's a bargain compared to what the College of Arms is charging--6,857 euros at today's exchange rate. By comparison, Lord Lyon is dirt cheap at 2,862 euros. I'm surprised the cost differential hasn't led to mass migration across the Tweed. Or arms smuggling in the opposite direction.

But what are we comparing? What are we actually paying for?

A Scottish grant allows one man to use the coat of arms that has been granted along with the courtesy right of his wife and his heir to use them (there is also a minor courtesy right of his daughters during their lifetime and his younger sons but only in their minority). His younger sons have a right to become armigerous but in order to do so they must open their purses and pay over the required sovereigns to matriculate arms. If they don't, they have no right to use armorial bearings.

An English grant allows the same courtesy rights to the wife and children of the armiger but, and this is the important difference, it also grants a substantive right to all of the male descendants of the grantee to use those arms as their own (suitably differenced or not as they choose).

Therefore, when comparing costs, we ought to imagine a scenario several generations down the line where there have been a number of male descendants of the grantee and work out a suitable cost comparison. In England, there would have been no additional cost even if we are talking about 10 20, 30 or even hundreds of male descendants of younger brothers, cousins etc.; every single one of them would be armigerous automatically In Scotland however, apart from the direct male heirs (who in any case are encouraged to matriculate every third generation but don't really have to) every other younger male descendant, be it younger brother/cousin etc. will have to pay to matriculate if they want to become armigerous. If we want to achieve an equivalency between the males of these two nation's families, in the end the Scottish family would have paid a lot lot more.

In a few hundred years time, with my English grant, I could have a boat load of male descendants all of whom would be armigerous and none of whom would have had to pay one penny more. Unless a great deal more money is spent, no matter how many hundreds of years have passed, my Scottish friend would have but one single descendant who could claim to be armigerous.

Now that's what I call value for money.

[JMcMillan]

Even at that, it's a bargain compared to what the College of Arms is charging--6,857 euros at today's exchange rate. By comparison, Lord Lyon is dirt cheap at 2,862 euros. I'm surprised the cost differential hasn't led to mass migration across the Tweed. Or arms smuggling in the opposite direction.

But what are we comparing? What are we actually paying for?

In interesting point, but, Martin, you just need to find a more creative heraldic lawyer. Scottish grants are also to the grantee and his descendants according to the law of arms, but the Scottish statute requiring matriculation by cadet lines doesn't apply outside Scotland. You get your (relatively) cheap Scottish grant, then move to England, Nova Scotia, North Carolina, New South Wales, the Northwest Frontier where Scottish law doesn't apply. It's still a substantive coat of arms from one of the Sovereign's heraldic officers, and no one is going to try to keep you from using it as is, or as you choose to difference it with the traditional cadency marks (thus conforming with the letter of the terms of the grant). You may say that the Court of Chivalry will not protect your rights against usurpers, but it won't do that for an English grant, either, not in practical terms.

And with a Scottish grant you can always demand to be received wherever you go as a noble in the noblesse of Scotland. It may not be in the letters patent, but it's still there in Tam Innes's book!

[Martin Goldstraw]

Even at that, it's a bargain compared to what the College of Arms is charging--6,857 euros at today's exchange rate. By comparison, Lord Lyon is dirt cheap at 2,862 euros. I'm surprised the cost differential hasn't led to mass migration across the Tweed. Or arms smuggling in the opposite direction.

But what are we comparing? What are we actually paying for?

In interesting point, but, Martin, you just need to find a more creative heraldic lawyer. Scottish grants are also to the grantee and his descendants according to the law of arms, but the Scottish statute requiring matriculation by cadet lines doesn't apply outside Scotland. You get your (relatively) cheap Scottish grant, then move to England, Nova Scotia, North Carolina, New South Wales, the Northwest Frontier where Scottish law doesn't apply. It's still a substantive coat of arms from one of the Sovereign's heraldic officers, and no one is going to try to keep you from using it as is, or as you choose to difference it with the traditional cadency marks (thus conforming with the letter of the terms of the grant). You may say that the Court of Chivalry will not protect your rights against usurpers, but it won't do that for an English grant, either, not in practical terms.

And with a Scottish grant you can always demand to be received wherever you go as a noble in the noblesse of Scotland. It may not be in the letters patent, but it's still there in Tam Innes's book!

Ah, I hadn't factored in the assumption of arms outwith Scotland. If one is going to assume arms then why bother to get a grant anyway?(Rhetorical). You don't need a lawyer if you're going to mix and match and make things up as you go along (and there's nothing to stop you doing so). If you're going to quote Tam, you may as well quote Walter Mitty

[Michael F. McCartney]

My understanding is that, in Scottish law, arms are a form heritable property, similar to any other heirloom e.g. grandpa's gold watch; and of course that inheritance is in accordance with the relevant Scottish law. So far, so good; Scottish law governs in Scotland.

But when one takes that heritable property elsewhere, then the laws and customs of the new country determine who inherits the gold watch and the arms.
An armigerous Italian or German who moves to Scotland will find that his Italian or German arms cannot be used or inherited based only on the laws of his old homeland - Scottish.law trumps re: use there. But like sauce for the goose etc., it cuts both ways...and if the laws or customs of whatever country the Scot or his arms go, differ from the Scottish practice, then the Scottish practice must yield ...

[Ryan Shuflin]

It Scotland you can sue people who usurp your arms, that is something. Arms in England are protected to some degree too. Trump usurped the arms of the previous owner of his Florida golf club. But because they were an English grant, he was not able to trademark them in England.

Really, there should be a heraldry lobby, that gets recognition of heraldic grants put into international agreements.

[JMcMillan]

But like sauce for the goose etc., it cuts both ways...and if the laws or customs of whatever country the Scot or his arms go, differ from the Scottish practice, then the Scottish practice must yield ...

Exactly. Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw, The Conflict of Heraldic Laws, 1988 JUR. REV. 61.