HTML Transcription © F.Coakley , 2008
[From Manx Soc vol 5, 1860]
[please note this essay reflects the work of an amateur philologist + historian mid 19th C - much is highly speculative though some references are worth following up]
ACCORDING to many authorities the ship in ruff sables constituted the ancient flag of Man. But "the three legs armed," or the trie cassyn, are at present the existing arms of dominion of the government, and have been so without question since the annexation of the western isles by King Alexander III. in the thirteenth century (1266), when heraldic records of the three legs are first found. Although there can be no doubt that the ship was the flag of the Norwegian kings during the period they reigned in Man, yet it is nearly equally certain that the trie cassyn, after having been used from time immemorial, became the sole armonial bearings of Man after the departure of the Northmen, which will appear, I trust, in the following pages. The present Manx arms are emblazoned thus: " Gules, three legs armed, conjoined in fesse at the upper part of the thighs, flexed in triangle, garnished and spurred, or." Motto, " Quocunque jeceris stabit;" "It will stand wherever you may throw it," or "Wherever cast we will stand" or " go."-(Plate i, fig. 1)
Woods, in his History (1811), says, "The old arms of Man were a ship with the sails furled, and the motto Rex Manniae et Insularum"-(Plate v, fig. 2)
In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, article Heraldry, the three legs, as borne by the most noble John, Duke of Atholl, Lord of Man and the Isles, is thus stated : "Gules, three legs armed, proper, conjoined in the fesse point at the upper part of the thighs, flexed in triangle, garnished and spurred, or." On the south-eastern angle of the front of Castle Mona, lately the residence of the Atholl family, near Douglas, the same emblazonment is displayed, having for supporters two sea nymphs and surmounted by a naval crown, composing a very elegant coat of arms.-(Plate i, Fig. 3) This is the only instance I know of, where the trie cassyn alone in the shield is blazoned with supporters. It is one of the four escutcheons of the noble House of Atholl, on the sea front of Castle Mona, and occupies the left position, and is probably the most modern and correct emblazonment of the Manx arms extant; but is unknown to Clarencieux. Castle Mona was built by Duke John during the first year of the nineteenth century, and was opened in 1805 ? I certainly think that, to arms of dominion especially, supporters are an improvement in emblazoning the Manx arms.
As in Sovereign States the temporal authority is represented by armorial bearings of dominion, so we find the bishopric in the Isle of Man represented by arms of community : therefore before proceeding with our inquiry regarding the banners of the ship and the trie cassyn, let me record the arms of the bishopric of Sodor and Man, after doing which we can proceed in a more intelligible manner to state the additional evidence which we may have been able to collect, and to lay before the Society an analysis of the subject. The arms of the bishopric as now emblazoned are, "upon three ascents the Virgin Mary* standing distended between two pillars, on the dexter whereof is a church, in base the ancient arms of Man," which in every case I have met with have been the existing arms of the Island-the three legs. Peter Haylin, 1671, places three crosses immediately beneath the escutcheon. Some say that in Roman Catholic times three crosses was assigned to the Island and known by the name of the three crosses of Man. In a print of St. Germain's Cathedral, from Grose's Antiquities of England, three crosses are represented on the summit of that edifice.-(Plate ii, l.)
*Mr. French and others suppose this figure to be St. Bridget.
The arms of the Abbey of Rushen are a cross ; those of the Nunnery of St. Bridget, near Douglas, a cross saltire.-(Plate ii, figs. 2 and 3).
I have been given to understand at the office of the Lion King at Arms that, immediately after the Scottish annexation of the Isles, and when Man became separated territorially from that bishopric, the Bishops of Soder and Man assumed only an orle for their armorial bearing, and not the present bearing of our bishopric. This could only have arisen from the latter having declined to assume the same bearing that the Bishop of the Isles had, viz., " St. Columba in a boat at sea, pointing to a blazing star," and from their not having previously assumed any distinct and separate emblem or any motto as their armorial bearing. It follows that the present arms of the bishopric of Sodor and Man must have been assumed subsequently to the political separation of the two bishoprics, and that during the period they were united under the Norwegian dynasty both bishoprics displayed the same arms in common. In reference to the trie cassyn, this sort of inference does not appear to he necessary, for that emblem is found to have existed anciently, before as well as subsequently to the Scottish annexation of which we shall hereafter speak.
By noting records or traditions having a reference to the three legs and to the triquetra in general, wherever met with in accounts of middle ages or in ancient authors, and thereby accumulating evidence whenever found, I hope to be able to contribute towards satisfying the speculations and inquiries made by almost every one regarding the origin and derivation of this emblem; and towards tracing the ethnological relations which this small but central spot, the Isle of Man, hath had to the rest of the world, as well as to the countries immediately adjacent, in ancient times.
Manx families, unlike the modern possessors of the western Isles of Scotland, most of whom quarter the arms of dominion which descended from their feudal superiors, have not at any time adopted the arms of dominion of the Isle of Man, whether the ship or the trie cassyn, except such families as may have an. immediate relationship to the modern Sovereign Lords of the Isle; therefore we cannot expect to acquire materials for our subject by any inquiry after the coats of arms of modern Manx families. In fine, there is a deficiency throughout the Island of recorded armorial bearings, whether ancient or modern; and without any elaborate attempt at chronological arrangement, I shall proceed to record all traditions, facts, and observations which I may have met with on the subject of the existing arms.
This national emblem has been transmitted down to us by public men in office and by authentic and constitutional influence; for, speaking generally, the Manx of the present age at least are singularly apathetic about their flag,-many of them appear to know nothing about it, and to take no interest in the matter. Generally the abrogines of Man call their flag the "trie cassyn," and tell us the tradition that it proceeded of old out of the Tynwald Hill, with a little man, who was Manninagh Mac-ee-Lheir, who rolled the emblem as a wheel before him; and they add, "that was before the Gorees' days, who were kings in Dalby, and before the Danes held Peel Castle." [* Vide Appendix B.]Mac-ee-Lheir, according to the received, though, perhaps, fabulous history of the Island, was a paynim, which I suppose means a Druid or a Danish rover, for the ancient Saxon chronicle, noticing the piratical invasions of the Danes, so late as the ninth and tenth centuries, describes these invaders of England as pagans, who were often becoming Christians and receiving baptism at the hands of the Saxons. The wheel is an emblem distinctive of some of the pagan images of our Saxon ancestors, and also occurs on some of the coins or medals of the ancient Roman emperors. Verste an represents Saetor or Troda, the representative of Saturday the last day of the week, as an image standing on the fins of a fish, and holding a wheel in his left hand, instead of which the Romans inaugurated the wheel of St. Catherine. The foregoing legend, given me by an aged Manxwoman, is one of the trite traditions which some who have a taste that way narrate, with a conviction that they are founded on fact, however much they do vary in detail. The late Rev. Mr. Fitzsimmons, in his MS. History of this Island, presented to the Society by Richard Quirk, Esq., says, "That ingenious and industrious antiquarian Col. Vallancy, gives an Irish tradition thus, 'Trifod Erin, Alban, ayns Mannin,' that is, 'Ireland, Britain, and Man are three branches of the same stock,' and that the three countries were once united, but separated by an act of Druidism. Was Alban the original name of the whole Island of Britain? Are the three symbolized by the triangle or triquetra, which we know always referred to a higher object? It has been alleged that the three legs have a reference to some triangular form of the Island or its headlands. But the shape of this Island is not by any means triangular, whatever that of Sicily may be." It is worthy, of being remarked that the Manx have no mernorial whatever of the ship, either in sculpture or tradition, in any part of the Island; unless the water-bulls, so much enlarged upon by Waldron, be considered personifications of that emblem, and intended to personify the bulkheads of ships.
Notwithstanding the total disappearance of the ship as the arms of Man, the learned Camden, (page 1060), speaking of the arms of the Island, after stating that " Thomas Randolph, a warlike Scot, as also a long time after, Alexander, Duke of Albany, stiled themselves Lords of Man, and bore the same arms that the later Kings of the Island did, namely, three armed legs of a man, linked together, and bending in the hams, just like the three legs naked which were formerly stamped on the coins of Sicily, to signifie the three promontories. Yet the antient arms of the Kings of Man was a ship with sails 'hoised,'[ velo complicate] (Sir William Hol,) with this inscription Rex Manniae et Insularum, as I have seen in the seals they used." Clarencieux (1858) also considers a ship under sail, or with sails hoisted, wins the above motto, viz., King of Man and the Isles, the true arms of Man. Whereas Mr. William Anderson, Marchmont herald of the Lion Office, affirms that the only authenticated arms must be the three legs; others, if insisted upon, must be hypothetical, or at least not recognized by extant records;" and adds, "the ship in rough sables, i.e., furled, must have been the armorial bearings of the Kings of Man and the Western Isles, during the time the Norwegians were paramount in our seas," or whilst they were the sovereigns of Man, for a period of about two hundred years from the conquest of the Island by Godred Crovan, 1066, till the Scottish annexation by Alexander III. (1266.) This may be considered beyond doubt from the charters of the Kings of Man and the Isles, just published as one of the works of the Manx Society. But the Marchmont herald states further, in reply to queries on these subjects, that the arms of the Isle of Man are blazoned thus " Gules, three legs of a man, all proper, conjoined in the centre at the upper part of the thighs, flexed in triangle, garnished and spurred, or." Nesbit, in his Systerm of Heraldry, published at Edinburgh, 1722, vol. I, p. 271, observes that these arms are often to be met with in the armorial seals of our (Scotch) nobility, and of those in England also, who have been dignified with the title of Lords of the Isle of Man, and gives the following examples:-(I) King James II. of Scotland created his second son Duke of Albany, Earl of March, Lord of Annandale and of the Isle of Man., upon which account he carried the arms of these dignities quarterly, l, for Scotland; 2, for the Earldom of March; 3, for the Isle of Man; and 4, for the Lordship of Annandale. These arms were also carried by his sons, his successors in those dignities, and which are emblazoned in the Ancient Heraldic Manuscript of Sir David Lyndsay, of the Mount, King of Arms, 1542, p. 37 ; Douglas Peerage, vol. I, p. 58. This Duke of Albany was living between or about the years 1455 and 1457. And his son John, Duke of Albany, became Regent or Governor of Scotland during the minority of King James V., Anno 1515. And a fac-simile of a, piece of gold coin at the period in Andersonai Scotiæ Thesaurus, fol. c, 2,111, inscribed "IONNIS ALBANIÆ DVC GVBERN," dated 1524, and whereon the arms of the Isle of Man are indicated in the third quarter of his shield. He died in 1536, and in Nesbit's time his escutcheon was still in the College Church of Edinburgh. (2) Stanley, Earl of Derby and Lord of Man in England, as present proprietor of the Isle of Man (1712) quarters the same arms (Isle of Man) with his own, and (3) the Mac Lords quarter them as arms of Pretension, with their own, upon account of their progenitors, who were proprietors and possessors of that Island; and McKenzie, Earl of Cromarty, by being come of an heiress of MacLeod, quarters these arms in his achievement. Nesbit further remarks, "I have nowhere met with any account of carrying such figures for that Island, but in Edward Bolton's Elements of Armouries, where he says, These three legs represent the three corners, capes, or promontories of the Island,*[*This refers to Sicily, for Man is not triangular.] 'which point to England, Scotland, and Ireland, and being equivocally relative to the name of Man, these legs are adorned as belonging to a chevalier, and he observes that from these ancient arms of the Island of Man, legs have crept into the bearings of many private families in England." " In order to satisfy the inquiry, if any other arms than those above described ever existed for the Isle of Man it may here be explained, that although the heraldic manuscript of Sir David Lyndsay bears date 1542, being the earliest known record of arms extant in Scotland, yet the armorial bearings emblazoned thereon are not to take their date from that year, as there are many of them well-known to have existed back to the eleventh century, so far as regards Scotland; for instance, the arms of 'Janet' Margaret, qweyne off Scotland, dochter to Edward, prince and heretour to Ingland, and of Agatha, doctors to Salomone, King of Ungarie, and spous to yo rigcht noble prince, Malcolm III. Ceanmoler, between 1057 and 1093; and several others. Further, in the same record of Lyndsay, at p. 62, the arms of ' ye Lord of ye Isle of Man' are emblazoned along with three separate shields for Makcloid, Lord of Lewss ; the Lord of Annanderdale of Auld; and Lord Bissart of Bewford of Auld. From these circumstances it may reasonably be inferred, if not conclusive, that no known arms ever existed than those above described for or belonging to the Isle of Man ;" for if the Island ever quartered the ship, Sir David must have known of it.-Marchmont herald, letter dated August, 1859.
Finally, in reference to the ship or galley, there can be no doubt that specimens of the seals of those Kings of Man which have been called the race of Godred Crovan, have been preserved and seen; e.g., there was a seal of Godred in the Office of the Duchy of Lancaster, perfect in Camden's time, having his effigy on horseback on the reverse ; a ship in ruff sables, with the motto Rex Manniae et Insularum, on the obverse. This seal, when the deed was lately examined by Dr. Oliver, had disappeared; but he has been so fortunate as to discover two others among the Cottonian Manuscripts, in the British Museum, fast hastening to decay; (Frontispiece) they are pendant to two charters of Harold, in 1246, and probably now the only antique specimens of the ship of Man in existence, and were before unknown. These and other documents have been published this year in the transactions of the Manx Society, to which I beg leave to refer. Worsaes,in his late work "Danes and Northmen," delineates the ancient arms of Norway to have been a ship, and it is generally known that the Scandinavian nations have also borne the eagle, variously emblazoned. From these statements it is evident that Clarencieux, Marchmont herald, and old Camden are at variance respecting the original and early armorial bearings of this little Island. Therefore I shall endeavour to throw some light on the question, by simply stating the rest of the evidence on both sides which I have been able to collect, without much regard to order or tautology.
The arms of the ancient Lords of the Isles of Scotland on record, (quoting Marchmont Herald) according to Sir David Lyndsay, of the Mount, Anno 1542, were, " Or, an eagle displayed, gules, armed (beaked and claws) sable, surmounted, of a lymphad of the last." You will observe that this emblazonment contains the original of several northern nations, ancient as well. as modern, to wit, the ship, the eagle, and the hawk, or raven.
According to the same authority, the arms of the ancient bishopric of the Isles was an open boat at sea, with St. Columba in an attitude of prayer in it, and looking to a star, an emblem worthy of the devotional age of the Culdees of early ages in the west of Scotland. Many of the descendants of the Kings of the Isles and Princes of the Isles still quarter the galley with the other emblaaonments to which their families have succeeded in process of time, deriving them, doubtless; from similar origins; on the bearings of several of them the sun in full splendour and the mountain in flames, appear.
The Duke of Argyle quarters the galley for Lorn; the Duke of Hamilton for the Isle of Arran does the same; these families are probably the descendants of Somerled and the Earls of Herergadthia. The latter flourished antecedent to Godred Crovan. Many other Scottish families quarter the ship and some of them the three legs. The MacLeods of Cadboll, and the MacLeods of Lewis, not only quarter the Manx trie cassyn, but use the same motto, Quocunque jeceris stabit, which I think clearly points out that the chiefs of that name are descendants from the Norwegian sovereigns of Man and the Isles, or some other Manx connexion. Indeed, the manner of their descent may be rendered very probable by consulting Manx history, for in 1187 Reginald, the illegitimate son of King Godred, having been elected king by the natives, to the exclusion of Olave, the lawful heir, granted him the Isle of Lewis or Lodhus, one of the largest of the Hebrides for his maintenance. Here Olave lived for many years and married, first a daughter of a nobleman of Cantyre, and secondly a daughter of Ferker, Earl of Ross; in the 28th year of his age he succeeded to the kingdom of the Isles, and there can be little doubt that his descendants and the MacLeods mentioned either derived. the three legs from him, or that he, on returning to Man, adopted. anad carried the ensign from Lewis, which is not at all likely, for all the MacLeods quarter the galley, as the rest of the Principes Insularum do, as their family bearing. In 1219 Reginald, the immediate predecessor of the same Olave, surrendered himself and the Isle of Man a vassal. of the see of Rome, The seal is noticed in the deed of surrender in these words : "Hac literas fieri fecimus et sigillo nostro munire." What Regiuald's sigillum was I have no means of ascertaining, It may be asked here, was it the ship, or was it the trie cassyn, or did Reginald quarter both ensigns, one as the banner of the Scandinavian princes of the Hebrides, the other as the ancient flag of the Isle of Man, as do the MacLeods of Rasay and of Cadboll, to the present time ?
The numerous Highland families of distinction that occupy the west of Scotland who quarter the ship, still remain in possession of the territories identical with the ancient kingdom of the Isles, and some legends still exist demonstrative of the despotic powers and imaginary greatness of these princes. A daughter of the late MacNeill of Barra informed me, only ten years ago, that she had a perfect recollection from her childhood, of her father, then residing at Barra House, having such a pompous idea, of his own royal descent and pretensions, that, he never rose from dinner without ordering a herald to proclaim, from the summit of his tower or keep, as follows: "All the kings of the earth may now dine, for the Laird of Barra has dined." The ship borne by all these families has sails furled, whereas that of Man is stated by Camden to have had sails '' hoised." But I think, as Camden spoke from tradition, this must be a mistake, for on. the seal of Harold, 1246, -the sails are furled, similarly to all the Lymphads of the kingdom of the Isles, and Olave, in his charter of 1134, who also displays the Lymphad with sails furled, designates himself simply " King of the Isles," without including Man in his designation. It is therefore evident that the Kings of Man, of the time of Godred Crovan, considering themselves of Scandinavian and of Hebridean extraction, preferred using the arms of their original country rather than those of the Island they had subjected-the trie cassyn.
The MacLeod of MacLeod, who claimed to be the chief of the clan MacLeod, instead of MacLeod of Rasay, does not quarter the three legs with the ship as Rasay does. That is to say, he may be head of the MacLeods, but does not inherit any connection with the Lords of Man, whose ancient bearings are the three legs. The MacDonalds, the earliest chiefs of Islay and the original Lords of the Isles of Scotland on record, never quartered the three legs, and therefore I conclude that they did not lay claim to any of the genealogies of the Isle of Man, when the sovereignty of the two countries was united under the Scandinavian princes, by the conquest of Magnus Barefoot of Norway. This is an important distinction amongst families that adhere so accurately to their genealogy of race and family as Western Islanders generally do. It is evident that an identity of genealogy between the MacLeods of Rasay and of Cadboll, and the ancient race of Manx kings existed, more intimate than between those other families that do not quarter the three legs. This distinction clearly shows that each bearing had a separate and distinct existence in the united kingdom of Man and the Isles, and it is a fair inference, as I shall show hereafter, that each bearing had a separate existence before the sovereignties of Man and tire Isles became united. Hence it follows that the trie cassya, which I shall prove has been borne and quartered by noblemen of England as far back as recorded heraldry goes, was passed down to them in legitimate descent from Affrica, the female representative of Magnus, the last male descendant of the race of Godred Crovan or Cronan, (white hand), who was sovereign of Man and the Isles ; to all of which it may he added that the Scotch themselves lay no claim to having imposed this device 'upon Man in token of subjugation ; on the contrary, according to Camden, they bore the same arms for Man that the kings had done before them,
Thus I have endeavoured to trace both flags from the present time into the antiquity of the middle ages : it must rest with the reader to decide whether a case has been made out, worthy of attention, and of sufficient importance to be further investigated. It is not my intention to dwell farther in detail upon the ship as an armorial bearing, for that is familiar to every nation, from Egypt in the days of the Pharoahs, to the present time; but the three legs being a quaint old device, the origin of which is involved in intricacy, I will trace back its history as far as I can into primitive and classical ages also. I do so with the greater interest, having found traces of it in the most remote times of Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome, at periods when the original indentity of the Celtic race inhabiting the Deuealedonian Sea, Britain, Ireland, and Wales, Gaul, Spain, Carthage; Phoenicia, and other eastern nations, appears, by the etymology and sound of their language, to have been the same ; in all probability many centuries antecedent to the appearance in these seas of the Danish and Scandinavian name, as a maritime nation from the north of Europe.*[*Vide Appendix C.]
Many collateral facts countenance this. The mercantile intercourse which the Phoenicians cultivated, in order to obtain the metal tin from the Cassiterides, as recorded by Pliny and other Roman historians, and the colonization of the South of Ireland by Phoenician merchants, and the difference of race, still manifest between the natives of the south and those of the north of Ireland, evidently imply that these merchants visited and perhaps colonized to a certain extent the Islands of the British Seas in primitive times, antecedent to the Vikingr of the Deucaledonan Sea. The Islands of the British Seas, from which the Phoenician merchants said they obtained the metal tin, which Pliny and Strabo describe as the Cassiterides, are not now to be readily found in the situation they point out. Different classic authors describe them as being situated in different localities. It would appear they were widely spread and numerous in the western seas of Britain, and the locality is not accurately defined by any author. There appears therefore to be grounds for a disquisition on the etymology of the word. It is thought by some who have studied the subject, that these merchants wished to conceal the source of their wealth, which could easily be done in those ages. Cassiterides was certainly a very imaginative name for ten islands on the coast of ancient Britain, where they cannot now be found. It is said to be derived from the Greek name for the metal tin or white lead. The derivation of the word from the cass or cassyn (a Celto-British word) is a more probable, a more desirable, and a less questionable derivation. The trie cassyn having been found delineated on the vases of ancient Greece and Rome, during the ages when the Phoenicians flourished, (as I shall presently show), it is quite consistent with our argument to give here a new etymology for the word Cassiterides. Cass in Celtic signifies a foot, cassyn signifies feet-also the legs; of which Cassiterides may be considered the plural number. The Phoenicians, who were addicted to myths, might say, we received it from those Islands whose emblem was the cassyn.*[*I believe Tripey is the name for a three-legged stool amongst the Manx cottager to this day]. I hope, therefore, I shall be pardoned for dwelling for a few pages more on the history of the trie cassyn, in that direction. Indeed I have pledged myself in my exorclium to this paper, to follow it as far back as I could.
In Moore's Oriental Fragments, published in 1832, the three legs are amongst the signs and hieroglyphics given by him as appertaining to India and the East. He places them in the same category as the crux ansata of the pillar of On, at Heliopolis. He points out etymological affinities between the Hindostani and the Celtic languages,-enters largely into the subject, on the grounds that community oflanguages implies community of origin amongst races,-and endeavours to show, from the etymology of many Greek, Phoenician, Celtic, and Hindostani words and phrases, that those races sprang from the same source, William Buckhard Barker, in Lares et Penates, 1858, describing the terra-cotta fragments found in the ruins and mounds of debris of ancient Tarsus, notices, among many other fragments, a tripod table with chimera legs, also a chair of state with a well-formed chimera front; both these objects appear to have belonged to temples most probably dedicated to Apollo ; but they carry us to a time antecedent to all history. The Phoenicians held Hector to be their patron and protector, and I am just about to notice that that champion of antiquity was associated with the three legs in more ways than one. Mr. Kneale, stationer, of this town, drew my attention to a vase of antiquity in the British Museum, with the three legs on it, and considered to be Grecian. This vase according to Dr. Oliver who has inspected it, has on its front the leg ofa man, coupè at the thigh, most distinctly delineated, and on the reverse side the three legs, united at the top of the thighs, very distinct, which is said by antiquaries to refer to the going out of Hector to battle.-(Plate viii, fig. 1.) In describing the shield of Hercules,* [*Vide Appendix D.] Hesiod, the oldest of all poets, speaks of a tripod which was proposed as a reward in one of those contests wherein that hero always proved victorious. Now it must be borne in mind that in half-civilized ages the tripod was an object of veneration; it was the three-legged stool upon which the Pythoness of the Pagan temple sat when she delivered the oracles of her temple; indeed it was considered one of the causes of her sacred inspiration. Few emblems of a humble description would have been better calculated to create veneration among the halfsavage votaries of heathen mythology.
It is not improbable that the academic tripods of the University of Cambridge may have some allusion to the improving influence of knowledge and literature in primitive ages. The tripod described by Hesiod some antiquaries think may have been the original of the trie cassyn, as represented on the vase spoken of. There is certainly a similitude between the two emblems, but whether or not, that suggestion by no means interferes much with the great antiquity of the trie cassyn., for which I am arguing. The relation of a few more facts will confirm this still further.
In the early ages of Greece, any victorious warrior of the race of Hector, who fought for civilization, safety, and justice was eonsidered one of the Heraclidae. The era of the original Hercules, and the apotheosis of his altars, is fixed by Thrasybulus at twenty nine years before the taking of Troy. His shield was the gift of Jupiter, presented to him just before he began his twelve labours, which it would be out of place to notice farther ; any emblem having reference to Hercules or his shield would be sure to find imitators ; hence it is found that three naked legs have long been the arms of the Island of Sicily, which was frequented and colonized by a Heraclidae, and on no part of the shores of the Mediterranean were they so likely to leave their traces behind there. Syracuse, the ancient capital of Sicily, was, according to Strabo, founded by a colony from Corinth under Archias, and rose to be a piece of much importance during the time of the Greeks. It is therefore probable that the device had its origin in Greece or Phoenicia. Upon nearly all the old coins of Sicily, with the three legs, I find the mottoes to be in Greek characters. Some of these have the legs above an Olympian race chariot, others under the horses, and not a few below a flying Pegasus.
In the Museum of Rouen is an Etruscan vase, upon which is portrayed the arms of the Isle of Man as they are at present emblazoned,--Gules, three legs armed, proper. It occurs on the shield of the principal figure, a warrior (probably Hercules) put hors de combat by a divinity. The motto is nearly illegible, but the word A(th)ENAIA is distinctly visible. In the British Museum there are many examples of the emblem on vases, coins, &c.
Mr. Fargher, proprietor of the Mona's Herald, has in his possession a brass coin or medal of Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, on which the three legs are distinctly seen beneath the left hand and buckler of the soldier, and one leg coupe on the right of the winged figure (a Mercury [Vide Appendix E]) who is in the attitude of crowning the warrior. This coin is delineated in the Numismatic Atlas, and is not a solitary example, for several others are to be found in the British Museum. Mr. Dean, engraver and photographer, has kindly presented me with a model of it. On the reverse side of the legs is the head and name of Agathocles, rather mutilated. Agathocles lived 290 or 317 years before Christ; so that this coin must possess an antiquity of nearly 2,200 years. From its great antiquity some persons are disposed to throw out doubts of its being genuine. I see no good reason for this. That such a man as Agathocles existed about that time is established by Plutarch in his Lives of the most illustrious Men of Antiquity, for in the Life of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, he states that one of his wives was named Lanassa, the daughter of Agathocles, and that he received with her the Island of Corcyra [modern Corfu ]which her father had taken. Pyrrhus flourished about 300 years before Christ, which corresponds with the reign of the Tyrant of Syracuse. Here, therefore, we trace manifestly the trie cassyz, directly from Syracuse and the Heraclidæ. Syracuse was founded by the Heraclid,,e in the second year of the eleventh Olympiad.
The device has been long common in Italy, and found on the coins of Palermo, Messina, Saragosa, Catania, and other places, variously ornamented with little wings, which evidently refer to the heathen deity Mercury. The Sicilian emblem being always naked, and variously represented with heads and little wings on the legs, whereas that of Man is always armed and spurred, which is an important difference in heraldry, but which by no means neutralizes the affinity of the two. The tabaria or wings annexed to the ankles is reckoned one of the attributes of Mercury in the heathen mythology, and it is admitted that Mercury was the god of merchants, and held in veneration by them. What I contend for is that the trie cassyn was known to the Phoenïcians and. the Heraclidu when they frequented the shores of Britain, and has been armed and spurred by the heraldry of the middle ages, according to the prevailing fashion of the different ages. According to Phillipot, the device is emblematic of expeditions of a mysterious and adventurous kind, which is a most likely interpretation, for Mercury is said to have been the messenger of the gods. But there is as manifest a difference between naked and armed expeditions as between naked and armed legs in heraldry. For the latter is evidently as well calculated to be the flag of the warlike and predatory tribes who infested the Deucaledonian seas by their expeditions, as the naked legs were to be that of the Phoenician merchants who prosecuted their trade in classic ages, outside as well as inside the Pillars of Hercules.
The Rev. T. R. Brown, near Oundle, states that in Willis's Current Notes the three legs bare, after the manner of the Sicilian arms, are represented in Gesenius the historian, as an emblem over the figure of in ox at his manger, which he considered to be illustrative of the birth of Jesus Christ wir Saviour. He thinks the three legs evidence of the presence of the Magi or Wise Men of the East on that occasion. It is not necessary to suppose that this illustration of Gesenius refers to the Isle of Man, for we have seen that it is an eastern emblem, as well as the arms of the Isle of Man in very early ages. Mrs. Thomas Wilson, of Ravenscliff, and her daughter, during their visit to Rome in 1855, discovered the three legs on the celebrated Etruscan Vases, the beauty of which, and their unknown antiquity, have rendered them celebrated as works of art throughout the world. These vases were considered relics of antiquity at the building of Ancient Rome, Ante Dominum 754, and now are unquestionable proof of the remote antiquity of the trie cassyn as an emblem and chimera. The Etruscan Vases are specimens of the high degree of civilization and of the arts in the cities of that ancient Etruria which philologists and antiquaries think took its origin from a Grecian or Phoenician colony.
Another representation of the legs is to be found upon a similar vase in the British Museum; it represents a combat between Hercules, two giants, and Minerva. The following is a description of the combat, from notes made on the spot. Hercules attacks two giants; behind him stands Minerva; the hero girt with the lion's skin under which is a chiton (or coat) to the hips; he attacks a half-prostrate giant with his club; both giants are armed with a high-crested Corinthian helmet and angular buckler ; the fallen giant has on his shield an ivy wreath, and the other giant a triquetra (triangle) of legs. I will not detain the reader by entering into archæological disquisitions and drawing conclusions from these data, but shall leave it to his own sagacity and taste to form his own opinion on the subject.
Thomas Boys, in his Notes and Queries, says, " It is worthy of observation, that there evidently existed some peculiar relation between the three legs and Mercury or Hermes," as well as Hector. Lower, in his Chronicles of Literature, says, "Some of the coins of Sicily bear an impress of the three legs, exactly similar to the fancifill charge of the Isle of Man, except that they are naked, and have at the point of conjunction a Mercury's head, and at the ankle the little wing." And Walsh, in his Essay on Ancient Coins, remarks, on a gem bearing the image of Mercury, " He has all the symbols of Mercury about him,--his wings, cap, and buskins, and his caduceus ; but what distinguishes him most is his three legs."--(p" 60.)
The foregoing pages will, I hope, convey some correct ideas in reference to the question whether the ship or the trie cassyn were the true arms of Man. It appears that the Norwegian dynasty brought in the former with them from Norway and the Hebrides, and that the latter was imported, at a very early age, by colonists from the latitude of the Mediterranean Sea. Marchmont herald does not appear to have been aware, from records in Scotland, that the ship had ever become the bearings of the Island, from which we may infer that this Island had not been recorded as one of the Scottish Islands at the time heraldry was first cultivated.; that the ship fell into disuse when the Scots conquered it in 1266, from being separated from the source from which it had come; and that then the arms which a the Kings of Man, before them had borne was adopted by the Scottish lords, under the permission of the Kings of Scotland. Owing to the numerous changes of the sovereignty immediately subsequent to that period, and the unsettled state of the country from 1266 to about 1306, the descent of the trie cassyn became obscured and confused; therefore I think I ought to extend my enquiry, so as to render the transmission of the triquetra from ancient colonization, especially from the era when the three legs succeeded the ship, to the present time, as little doubtful as I possibly can. To such as esteem my labour and intentions dull and uninteresting I can only say with the poet,
"I do love these ancient ruins;
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some revered history."
The investigation appears to me to possess considerable importance in history, inasmuch as it is one illustration of the existence and of the meeting in our latitudes of the two great races of people, one from the south and the other from the north, who have contended so long, and still do contend for the possession of the landed property and political power throughout Europe, if not the world, a conventional antagonism, arising from differences in civilization, difficult to be obliterated. I mean the Celto-Phoenician of the southern, and the Celto-Teutonic and Sclavonian races of the northern latitudes, which contest has had so great an influence in the history of mankind. Historians who have studied the subject are, I believe, nearly agreed that these two races sprang originally from the same root, and were the descendants of Gomer, son of Japhet, who peopled Phrygia in Asia Minor, the plains of the Troad, and the adjacent countries, and who are understood to have gradually colonized the various parts of Europe. From Asia Minor they migrated westward in columns; one of which established colonies along the sea-boards of the Mediterranean and the European shores of the Atlantic, whilst another proceeded north-westward over Scythia, Germany, nrnd Scandinavia. In process of time, these two columns of common origin became gradually modified, both in their language and constitution of government, from the influences of climate, domestic habits, and public pursuits. The southern column, having acquired the name of Celts, first established themselves in Gaul and the British Isles, whilst the northern column does not appear to have reached Denmark and Norway till later, in such numbers as to cause them to press onwards in expeditions and colonization across the ocean. Owing to community of origin the languages of these two columns have even to this day an etymological affinity, and their primitive laws and customs, though much changed, are radically the same. Even the Phoenician, the Maltese, and the Punic languages [*Vide Appendix C.] which were spoken by the ancient inhabitants of Tyre and Carthage, who subsequently proceeded from the same source and became the most successful cultivators of mercantile and naval industry along the same coasts, are in many phrases identical with the primitive Celtic language of Europe. As ancient Phrygia and the colonized countries in which the Celtic exists are nearly on the same zone of latitude, it is reasonable to conclude that the languages spoken in them remained longer similar and unchanged by climate and custom ; whereas the Teutonic of the Scandinavian warriors in the northern zones, and the Punic of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the southern, would be subjected to stronger causes of change, and in a shorter period of time wordd ultimately become much more altered and divided into numerous races and nations ; so much so that at the ages alluded to, little or no affinity remained to identify their common origin, excepting the etymons of language and a similarity in constitutional plans of laws and customs. Hence our investigations acquire renewed interest, and may be conducted with precision, and I hope with success. I shall, therefore, go on to notice, in the first place, all the vestiges of our subject to be found in heraldry and sculpture, from the earliest ages-especially from the time of the Crusades-to the present age. The time of the Crusades may be truly called the heraldic age, when the assemblage of vast armies and numerous fighting knights from many different nations rendered it necessary to appoint and regulate banners for individual warriors, colours and ensigns for battalions of different nations, as well as armorial bearings for crowned heads and flags for their large armaments. From such necessities heraldry assumed all the dignity of a science, and became fashionable also among civil functionaries. Heraldic emblems, therefore, of a genuine kind, afford some of the most distinct and authentic evidence of ethnological relations to be met with in history.
In the second place I may be permitted to continue to bring forward those traces of the three legs to be met with in remote antiquity; and thirdly, to investigate cursorily the connection which the heraldic galley has with the numerous and warlike tribes of Northmen and their descendants, so as to enable me to discuss the whole subject.
As it appears most probable that the paramount flag of the Northmen, who gained the ascendancy in these seas from a very early age, was the ship or galley, in conjunction perhaps with the eagle; so it is equally probable that from the Scottish conquest by Alexander III. downwards, the numerous families who have had possession of the regalities of Man have all assumed the three legs as arms of dominion and often quarterly with their family arms, emblazoned according to the prevailing fashion of the day. Antecedent to recorded heraldry the subject is more involved and uncertain, but I think I have been able to show that the three legs united are traceable as an emblematic bearing far back into the early ages of antiquity. As we find the ship and the legs, even at the present time, not unfrequently quartered together by families in the West of Scotland of Norwegian or Danish extraction, but who for centuries have ceased to have any connection with Man, there can be no doubt that the emblazoilment of the three legs is strictly in virtue of that hereditary descent from those centuries when the Northinen and the Manxmen were united under one sovereignty. It has already been stated that the three legs were quartered in the escutcheon of MacLeod, Lord of Lewis; in that of the Lord of Annandale; in that of Lord Bissart of Bewford; and we will find evidences to prove that it has been borne by every sovereign of Man, whether Norwegian, Scottish, or English, to the present time, or about eight hundred years, and in all probability was well known antecedently from time immemorial.
In continuing this evidence I shall begin with that found in the Isle of Man itself. I am not aware of any private native families that claim the trie cassyn as their armorial bearing, excepting such as are descended directly from our hereditary sovereigns, or who have become allied to them in marriage, and quarter the arms of dominion in a scutcheon of pretence. All public functionaries are entitled to use the seal on national business. This is decisive as to its being arms of dominion; but excepting its being sculptured on a few modern public buildings, we look for it almost in vain on monuments of antiquity. Even insular tradition is very meagre in reference to the trie cassyn. Some refer its origïn to the sovereign necromancer Manninagh-beg Mac-ee-Lheir, and some will tell you that the trie cassyn was displayed by a chief from the Isle of Man, on the mainsails of his boat, who sailed to the assistance of a Norwegian king. So much for tradition. I will now give a few instances of the arms which are found in the Island, and it is a remarkable fact that only one good specimen of antiquity is to be found on the Island itself on which the three legs occur. I am not aware of even one specimen on which the ship is sculptured : we search for the ship on the stone crosses, the runic pillars, the walls of Castle Rushen and Peel Castle in vain. The relic on which the trie cassyn is carved is the beautiful old pillar called St. Maughold's Cross, (Plate ix., figs. I and 2,) at the gate of the parish kirk yard of Maughold, which was the reputed sanctuary for criminals in olden time. The pillar is without date, and its era is not recognized by tradition in any way. Maughold Church itself is allowed to be one of the most ancient kirks in the Island,-some say not less than seven centuries old,-and in all probability stands near the spot where Maughold was cast ashore in a. small basket of wicker work.* [* vide appendic G] This beautiful old pillar is much weather worn, and is usually attributed to the Danes, whose banner was the ship, and the Rev. Mr. Cumming, without adducing any evidence, ascribes it to the Scots, who he says may have introduced the present arms (those on the pillar) on their acquiring the sovereignty; more of which I will trouble the reader with hereafter. But as Kirk- Maughold was the acknowledged sanctuary, antceedent to the Reformation, tempore Henry VIII., and the cross has stood from time immemorial, there can be no doubt of its great antiquity.
The Rev. William Kermode, of Ramsey, is in possession of a manuscript, dated 1775, wherein is given-speaking of the 24 Keys-the following distich inscribed below the Manx arms in the old Parliament House :
"Three Legs armed ;
Armed in self defence
Centrally united;
Security from thence."
This inscription was not renewed when the present House of Keys was erected, I believe, on the site of the ancient brick building [fpc not sure to what he refers - bricks were very rarely used in the Island pre 19th C and there are detailed accounts of building the 1706 Parliament building].
James Gell, Esq., High-Bailiff of Castletown, has now in his possession a representation of the trie cassyn on panes of coloured glass, which were long in the possession of the late Bishop Claudius Crigan of Sodor and Man, to whom the Bishop of Drontheim sent them from Norway, and which the Bishop left with the late John M'Hutchin, Esq., Clerk of the Rolls.-(Plate iv, fig. 3.) They are said to be a relic of the great window of the Cathedral . of St. Germans in PeelCastle; are still quite entire, and possessed of considerable artistic beauty. The Cathedral of St. Germans fell into ruins upwards of one hundred years ago; but if ever this specimen occupied a place in it, it must have been carried to Norway long before it fell into ruins.* [*see appendix H] We find specimens of "three legs" in England and Scotland, which never saw the Isle of Man.
In Rymer there is a copy of a letter [Oliver's Monumentae] or petition from the men of the Isle of Man to Edward I. of England, placing themselves under his protection, (1290), because their Island had "lately been laying desolate and oppressed with many enemies," in consequence of the death of Magnus their king and the forcible transfer of the sovereignty of their country to the crown of Scotland, to which was attached their "common seal." What device that was I have no means of ascertaining, but the fact evidently demonstrates the existence of a common. seal at that early age, as well as the independent action of the men of Man of that early period. By-and-bye it will appear probable that this seal was the trie cassyn, and that the combination of the people in claiming protection of the King of England was the result of a constitutional principle of independence among the representatives of the people, uncommonly rare in the thirteenth century. Since that period the Manx people have, independent of their sovereigns, entered into negotiations with foreign powers on several occasions, through their parliament, constitutionally elected, I suppose.
The numerous ancient Runic pillars and crosses to be found in many parishes contain no traces either of the legs or the ship, except, perhaps, the triquetra knot; whereas the ancient stones in Iona, and I believe in Islay, have the ship but not the Manx arms on them. Therefore, the evidence we want being so deficient within the ancient kingdom of the Isles itself, we must look abroad for information. Besides having been borne by the families who have held the sovereignty of the country as arms of dominion, it has crept from them as arms of pretension into many families, especially in Scotland, and is found sculptured on buildings in various parts of Britain. On the ancient well of St. Winifred, in North Wales, the triquetra of three legs is carved conspicuously, and on various places in the North of England, where probably it has found its way from the escutcheons of the Earls of Derby, Lords and Kings of Man. In. Baines' History of Lancashire there is represented an unarmed figure of a knight recumbent, (a sketch of which is preserved by Sir Wm. Dugdale,) on a tomb on the south side of the chapel at Ormskirk, which was constructed by order of Edward, third Earl of Derby, in 1572, having an escutcheon on his breast, on which the three legs are quartered first and fourth, and also represented on the right skirt of his doublet. The specimen on the well of St. Winifred was in all probability carved in consequence of some of the ancient chiefs of Man or Welsh kings having visited the well for sanitary purposes, or from the ancient connection between Wales and Man in times beyond memory. There is an antique vase at Thornicroft House, between Macclesfield and Knutsford, having the three legs on it, but I have not been able to obtain any history of it. It is generally admitted by tradition, and also in history, that in the early part of the middle ages, antecedent to the Orrys, this Island enjoyed a close intimacy with the old race of Welsh kings and, according to Bede, was not unknown to the Saxon Kings of Northumberland. From hence we learn that in consequence of matrimonial connections the Welsh kings reigned in Man from 517 till 913, i.e., from the time of the ascendancy of the Druid priests and patriarchal bishops till the invasions by the Danes and Northmen and the Vikingr in the days of the Orrys. As the only heraldic trace of this connection I may state that the armorial emblazonment of the fourth royal house of North. Wales displays a man's leg coupè, on ,in escutcheon of pretence, and which the Glynns of Hawarden still bear. We have seen a leg coupe represented on the medal of Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, three hundred years before Christ. The Glynns also bear the eagle, one of the most ancient bearings of the Macdonalds of Islay, the earliest race of Lords of the Isles recorded ; there is also the old stone near Bardsey, already mentioned, referring to a king of Mona.
Tread Dhoo was the primogenitor of one of the royal tribes of North Wales. Troa, the current or siege of a stream, a Manx noun, is the root of a series of verbs and epithets, as troafyr, to trudge; troiltagh, a traveller, a pilgrim; troyt, to trot, &c. It is no great stretch of the imagination to believe that Tread Dhoo, the wild prince, the dark-complexioned traveller, was an importation from the East, and that his descendants bear to this day the flag of the heiress, a leg coupe (the Agathocles leg?) on an escutcheon of pretence, and that he was one of the leaders of those ancient Phoenician expeditions which explored these Islands, the -Mediterranean Sca, and the sea-board of the Atlantic Ocean, in search of traffic and industry, and perhaps plunder. In all the settlements of the Troad, Hector, Ajax, and Achilles, and their emblems, were objects of veneration. Last year (1858), Mr. Wynne, M.P., informed our Hon. Sec. Mr. Paul Bridson, that a curious stone had been found on the beach near Barmouth, North Wales (opposite to the Island of Bardsey), and deposited at the neighbouring parish church of Llaanaber, having this inscription upon it: "CAELIXTVS, MONEDO REGI," or, " Calixtus, to the king of Mona." This appears an exemplification of the compounds of the word Mona, found in ancient times, and of the alphabet in its antique forms. It is most probably a tombstone constructed near Bardsey (Island of the bards,) in a very primitive age, by one Calixtus to the king of Man. Should the three legs on St. Winifred's Well, just mentioned, be found belonging to an ancient date, the coincidence would be interesting.
The three legs of Man are to be seen in the ruins of the ancient Castle of Dunbar, very distinctly, occupying a quarter of a shield, cut in low relief upon a stone fixed in a few yards of the old ruined wall, which appears to have formed, when entire, one of the sides of a quadrangle near the centre of that old historic structure Tradition assigns this castle to that Earl of Dunbar whose power extended along the Scottish border from sea to sea, who was the friend of king Robert Bruce, from whom he received the Isle of Man as a fief, and it is probable was at the same time allowed to blazon in his coat of arms the three legs of Man, the armorial bearings of previous kings, among the other symbols of his long descent and vast authority. The date of Dunbar Castle is unknown, but the three legs on one of its principal foundations is doubtless a convincing evidence of its being anterior to the fourteenth century. According to Ragman Roll, Nisbet's Heraldry, Thomas Randolph, or Sir Thomas Randolph, died governor in the minority of David II., anno 1331. He was meritoriously raised by Bruce to the dignity of Earl of -Murray, Lord of Annandale and the Isle of Man. In 1372, George De Dunbar, Earl of March, was Dominus vallis Manniae, (Train, p. 152.) Mr. Anderson, Marchmont Herald, in a note to my address states,-" The only known authentic arms must be the three legs; others, if insisted upon, must be hypothetical, or at least, not recognised by extant record."
Such are some of the facts which establish that the Scottish sovereigns of Man bore or quartered the three legs during the time they were in possession of the island, and of course the insular government used it at the same time as their national arms. When the English line of sovereigns acquired possession we find the trie cassyn continued as the arms of the island. The ancestor of Sir John Cole Orton, in Leicestershire, is recorded in an old Irish peerage, published by Aaron Crossley, printer, of Dublin, thus :"Henry, Lord Beaumont and Lord of Whitwick, in Leicestershire, in right of his wife, daughter and coheiress to Alexander Comyn, Earl of Bockquan (Buchan), he beareth the arms of the Isle of Man, that is, three legs embraced in armour." Lord Viscount Swords and Lord of Whitwick, Sir Thomas Beaumont, Baronet, Lord of Grace, died early in the fourteenth century. Edward II. recognised this Lord Beaumont as Lord of Man about the year 1307, since which time all the Manx sovereigns have undoubtedly borne the three legs, In one year, 1307, Edward II, made no less than three grants of the island, viz., to Piers Gaveston, Gilbert de Macgaskell, and the abovenamed Henry De Beaumont. It is, therefore, certain that the Scottish and the English sovereigns bore the three legs as arms of dominion for Man, but the origin of their assumption of the bearing is as intricate and obscure as the politics of that eventful time proved to the kingdom of Man and the Isles;. There exists no direct proof of the Isle of Man having adopted about this period the emblem for the first time. On the contrary, the Scots assumed the arms which former kings of Man had borne, and quartered the three legs (not the ship) with their own arms, 1265. Let us endeavour to remove this confusion in some degree, and perhaps we may point out the channel by which the emblem of this triquetra has come down to us from the earliest ages of antiquity. Marchmont Herald says, in regard to the western isles,-"I would take the only known arms to be those inserted in Sir David Lindsay, anno (or prior to) 1512, at p. 50, for the Lord of the Isles (not Man), a tracing of which I send, and may be blazoned thus :-Or, an eagle displayed,* gules armed (beak and claws) sable, surmounted by a lymphad of the last. [*In Burke's Heraldry the modern name of Goddard or Godred hears an eagle displayed to this day.] The arms of the Isle of Man, as they appear in Lindsay, p. 62, may be blazoned thus :-Gales, three legs of man in armour, conjoined in the centre at the upper part of' the thigh, flexed in triangle, and spurred, When the dynasty of Godred Cronan was in the ascendant in Man and the Isles, from 1065 to 1266, it has already appeared evident that these two armorial hearings had been in conjunction, the ship being the favourite bearing with the Northmen, but, not to the entire exclusion of the three legs. In the records of the Duchy of Lancaster there is a charter commencing, " G. dei gralue Rex insularum,." In Camden's time the same charter was intact, and had attached uninjured, a ship in ruff sables, with the motto, " Rex sjiwzni~e et insv-lareana." Dr Oliver says"When I saw it the seal was gone; the charter and seal-tye were intact." In the charter of King Olave, which is the very first deed recorded in the Lancaster archives, 1131, that monarch styles himself " King of the Isles" only, and not king of Man and, the Isles. Among the Cottondan manuscripts are two charters of Harold, king of' Man,1215 and 1216, having the remains of a seal attached to them, (Frotispiece), with the galley on the obverse, and on the reverse the figure of a beast, which appears from the form of its tail to be a lion; the same seal has on other specimens the motto of "Rex Manniæ et Insularum." Such appears to have been the case with the arms of Man and the Isles in 1265, when Magnus, the last of the race of Godred Cronan, died, leaving everything in confusion. On the completion of the treaty between Alexander III. of Scotland and of Magnus IV. of Norway, the chiefs of Man and the western isles, shorn of much of their dignity and importance, submitted after a short time, and quietly returned to their family estates; most of them continued to bear the galley as their armory ; only a few of them quartered the three legs with the galley, thus preferring to symbolise their connection with the Isle of Man even after they had been separated from it. But this acquiescence in the conduct of' the Norwegian and Scottish kings was not the case in the Isle of Man. Magnus having returned to Castle Rushen during the negotiation, does not appear to have been treated with any consideration by the contracting parties, and he died in the same year in disgust. The people of the Isle of Man also demurred to the annexation of their country to Scotland for a suen of money, rose in defence of their constitutional rights, and maintained that they had a vote, or an acquiescence in the nomination ot their sovereign. Even during the despotic period of Godred Cronan, they had frequently exercised their right of electing their sovereigns. They formally put themselves under the protection of Edward I., (see Oliver's Monumenta,) and their independent conduct prepared the way for numerous changes in these parts, which it is not my business at present to detail, for that belongs more to the chapter of our subject on the prerogatives of the king and the constitutional privileges of the Island, than to that on armorial bearings.
In this state of affairs, Affrica, the sister of Magnus, and. Mary, his niece, the only remaining heirs of the line of Cronan, took refuge in England to avoid the Scots, taking with them the public records and documents necessary to prove their claims to the kingdom of Man. Mary preferred her claims before Edward I. of England, and was referred to the King of Scotland, who at that time held possession of the island, and ultimately to Edward II. and Ill., by whose command a marriage was consummated between the Earl of Salisbury and the said princess. The children of these two ladies intermarried, each being in the third degree in descent from Olave, the black King of Man, and thus their claims to the island became united. Now if the Isle of Man had any armorial bearings whatever at the period of the flight of these ladies, doubtless they would assume it as their right, and as an important evidence in support of their claims. Mr. Papworth, who, I understand, is now publishing an admirable ordinary of arms, says the legs of man were borne by the name of Affrick, or Auffrick, whose posterity carried them and the sovereignty of Man into the family of Alontacute. In Burke's Encyclopaedia of Heraldry, the name "Auffrick" (1844) has for bearings " three legs armed proper, conjoined in the centre at the upper part of the thigh, flexed in triangle, garnished and spurred, or." Crest, "two arms embowered and erect, in armour, holding in their bands a gem ring, all proper;" no motto given. The Montacute's in England are, I believe, the most direct descendants of this Manx princess Affrica. They do not now quarter the three legs generally, but all the branches of there retain the number three under various emblems on their escutcheon, viz., three lozenges conjoined in fess, three fussils, three torteaux, all in fess, and having, therefore, a close analogy to the three legs.
I think it has already been stated that about this period the Isle of Man was formally included by name in a truce between France and England (13S9), which was signed by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moravia, and by William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, the former as sovereign of the island in the Scottish interest, the latter as the King of Man then recognised by England. This double signature seems to have been suggested by the contest for the island continuing unsettled, and from the piratical dangers of the seas in consequence thereof. Ultimately the Earl of Salisbury's conquered the island from the Randolph family, And being confirmed in all. his rights by the King of England, quartered the three legs with those of his family, similarly as the Scots had done before him. Seiden, in his Titles of Honour, speaking of the kingdom of Man in the sixth of Richard II., 1390, describes the seal of the Earl of Montague, Seigneur de Manniæ, as having the arms of the island quartered with those of his own family, but does not say whether those arms were a galley or the three legs; I have already shown that they were the latter, and that they were so will become more and more certain as we proceed. A deed in the thirteenth of Richard II. (1397) has the legs in the first and fourth quarters, and those of Montague in the second and third, with a coronet something like that of modern dukes, having between the strawberry a fleur-de-lis, with the name inscribed inside the coronet. The monarchs of this age had not arched or closed crowns, and it is not certain whether the earls had any coronet belonging to their rank. This coronet worn by Montague, Earl of Salisbury, is now supposed to be in right of his rank as King of Man, and may be taken as the pattern of the Manx royal crown (a golden one) as worn by the first kings of the English line. Its singularity supports by analogy the conclusion I am arguing for,-that Affrica conveyed by marriage the royal paraphernalia of Man, as well as the three legs, to her husband, the Earl of Salisbury. To a document of the Earl of Salisbury, 1351, granting a yearly rental for the life of one A'm. Faryndon out of the lands of Man, published by the Manx Society, a seal in red wax is attached, having three fussils in fess over the coats or coronet; supporters, two griffins; inscription, Will ...... le ocuto, comes Saraoaa et (1118. de Man et de Dcaheyha ,, (Oliver's Monumenta), which is clearly only a domestic bearing of the family. But in an example of the State bearings of the second Earl of Salisbury, copied from his monument and that of his wife in Salisbury Cathedral, by his lineal descendant, F. C. Montague of London, barrister, and an eminent antiquarian, his effigy in full armour wears a breastplate, on which are quarterly the three legs and the three fussils. On this same monument his Queen wears the long robes of the period which has on the left side a large cross, sable, engrailed, as the daughter of Lord Mohun of Durnster. These two monumental figures are joined together by a chain which is said to have been of gold. Tradition informs us that this monument represents Montacute, second Earl of Salisbury and his wife, Queen of Man. Mr. Montague has deposited in the British Museum -records emblazoned on vellum, in six volumes, illustrative of the history of the Montacute family, which never have been published, and which are worthy of being consulted on this subject.
I am unable to give any examples of the three legs from the house of Scrope, (see Appendix), during the time they were sovereigns of the Island, nor can I obtain any information on the subject in reference to the Earl of Northumberland, in the reign of Henry IV. Indeed there appears to be an obscurity concerning the Manx sovereigns of those periods which can only be unravelled by sculptured and documentary evidence ; notwithstanding, we find the descent of the Manx legs uninterrupted in the hôuse of Stanley, as they had been in the Montacute family.
I have also been unsuccessful in ascertaining whether Anthony Beek, Bishop of Durbam, who obtained possession of the sovereignty from Sir William Montacute, son of Sir Simon, and was confirmed in the same by Edward I, ever blazoned the arms. I should conjecture that in the Bolden Book of Durham, and in some charter or other document of this ambitious bishop, some monument or seal might be discovered amongst the archives of the bishopric of Durham which might throw some light upon his connection with the Isle of Man, for he was a prelate whose state was only exceeded by his sovereign the king of England. His ordinary suite of attendants consisted of one hundred and forty knights.
The same remark applies likewise to the period of four years when the Dukes of Northumberland held the Island, immediately antecedent to the succession of the house of Stanley.
Pendant to the original of a letter, (1123,) in the British Museum, from James de Stanley to Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moravia, Lord of Annandale and Man, respecting a charter of Magnus to the bishop and church of Sodor, are the fragments of a seal in red wax, the charges on the seal are very indistinct, but the impalement appears to be the three legs.
In 1475 there was a controversy between the families of John, Lord Scrope, and Thomas, Earl of Derby, steward of the king's household, sixty-eight years after the first grant to Sir John Stanley, in 1407. Our learned secretary Dr. Oliver informs me that the records of this discussion were preserved in the Tower of London, but are now removed to the Record Office, Fetter-lane. Unfortunately they give no idea as to what the arms in dispute were. Doubtless they were the three legs, whose descent in the horse of Derby for three hundred years has been continued uninterruptedly, and which Lord Scrope had purchased from the last of the Norwegian race of the kings of Man and the Isles, the descendants of Affrica, the princess of Man. Hence it follows that the three legs were not first introduced as arms of dominion by the Scots. Had they been of recent adoption from their competitors the Scots, under Robert Bruce, in token of subjugation, it is very improbable they would have been a source of contention between two English noblemen, both antagonists of the Scottish throne, or that the people who had rebelled against the Scots would have acquiesced in such a token of sovereignty. The motto, "Quocumque jeceris stabit," first appeared in 1300, about thirtyfive years after the secession of the Norwegians from the Isles, and about the time the Scots are said to have introduced the three legs [fpc: he gives no reference for this and I suspect is based on the MacCloud arms - no historian has dated this motto before the 1668 Manx coinage]. About this time heraldry became much cultivated and mottoes adopted. It is just probable that the Scots only introduced this motto in the thirteenth century, which gave rise to the opinion that the device was in token of subjugation, whereas it had been well known long before to Manx families in the Hebridean Islands, and adopted by them as arms of pretence.
In the Chapel Royal, Windsor, are emblazoned the arms of the Lords of Man, indubitable evidence of the descent of the three legs through the houses of Scrope and Stanley. The plates relating to the arms of the Island, and the manner in which they are quartered, are as follows, according to the late Sir John Vanburgh, Clarericieurx :
" Wm. Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, in 1393, (see Seacome,) who bought the Island from the Earl of Salisbury, was a Knight of the Garter, but being attainted his shield has been removed."
Staney.-There are no arms for Sir John Stanley, knight, in the Chapel Royal.
In the thirteenth stall on the sovereign's side is a plate which is inscribed "Mon. Sennour Stanley," which has quarterly in the first and fourth, or, on a chief indented gales, three plates argent, being Lathom ; and in the second and third quarters, THREE LEGS in armour argent, spurs or.
In the fifth stall on the prince's side is a plate inscribed "Thomas, Lord Stanley," with arms quarterly. First, Stanley, argent, on a bend azure, three buck's heads, cabossed or; second, Isle of Man, three legs armed interlaced in triangle argent, purfled and spurred, or ; third, Warren, chegriy, or and azure; fourth, Lathorn, on a chief indented gulos, three plates, argent. (This was the first Earl of Derby of that surname.) -
In the sixth stall on the prince's side is a plate not inscribed, where the arms are quarterly. First Stanley, then Lathom, afterwards Warren, and lastly the Isle of Man. This plate was for Lord George Stanley, Lord Strange, son of that Earl. No plate for Sir Wm. Stanley, the lord chamberlain.
In the ninth on the prince's side is a plate inscribed " Lord Montitegle," being quarterly of four. First, Stanley ; second, Lathom ; third, Warren ; fourth, Isle of Man.
In the fifth on the sovereign's side is a plate inscribed, " 22nd May, A.D.1517. Anno reguo regis Ed. VI. primo, le tres noble et puissant Seigneur, Edwarde, Comte de Darbi, Seigneur Stanley and de Man; quarterly of eight. First, Stanley; second, Lathon-1; third, Isle of Man; fourth, Warren ; fifth, Strange of Knocking, -gules, two lions passant argent, armed gules; sixth, Woodville-argent, a fesse and canton gules ; seventh, Mohun,-or, a crossel engrailed; eighth, Monthault, or, a lion rampant argent, armed -lrles.
In the seventh stall on the sovereign's side is a. plate, "dutrés noble et puissant Seigneur, Henry, Count de Darby, Seigneur Straunge, Stanley, et du Man, 1574," consisting of the same eight quarters, having an inescutcheon quarterly of four coats, being tirose of his countess, the daughter of the Earl of Cumberland ; first and fourth, Clifford,-cheque or and azure, a fesse gules ; second, Brandon,-barry of ten argents and gulel, over all a lion rampant or, crowned per pale of the first and second; the third likewise quarterly, first and fourth, Bruin,-azure, a cross molin, or; second and third, Rokesby, cheque lozenge, arm and gulos.
In the fourth stall on the prince's side is a plate, " du tres noble et puissant Seigneur, Guilliaume, Comte de Darby,Baron Stanley, Seigneur Strange de Knocking et Mohun, Seigneur Ly'ile de Man, Sze., 160i." e0,€iarte'iy of tveelve coats :-first, Sta.-iley; second, Latl2olî's; U_lrd, Isle ni ~-',lan; fourth, iViParren; f,"Ji, Strange; sixth, "9ø godville; seveileh, _loran; eighth, Nionthault, ninth, Clifford; tenth, Brandon ; eleventh, Bruin ; twelfth, Rokesby.
There is no plate remaining for Sanses, Earl of Derby.
From these details it appears that the arms of Man have been diversly borne, and, what appears strange, by the younger branches, who had not the dominion of the Island. All the Stanleys bore them in different quarters, which seems to be a mistake, and contrary to the ancient method of Montague, who bore them in the first quarter, which is the regular form for arms of kingdom, and of feudal arms.
It is rather remarkable that the first thing almost that strikes the eye on entering the Heraldry Office, at London, is the Manx arms. This office was once the residence of the Earls of Derby, which accounts for the coincidence. In the old painting of Peel Castle, when occupied as a fortress about two hundred years ago, sent by the present Earl of Derby to the Committee of the Peel Bazaar, the trie cassyn is seen floating on the flagstaff on the summit of the ancient round tower of the Castle. In the old church of Malew, underneath the gallery, the Manx arms of some antiquity are to be found delineated ; also in some of the modern churches ; as well as on the pediment of the front of the Free School, Douglas, erected in 1_610. The monument to Lord Henry Murray, youngest brother to the last Lord of Man and the Isles, of the house of Atholl, has the arms inscribes. conspicuously upon it, and all the Public Offices of Government and of Record use it as their only seal. Such is the evidence of the existence of the three legs on the armorial bearings of Man, for a period of about six hundred years, or since the Scottish conquest in 1265, which I have had in my power to bring forward. And it is worthy of remark that English heralds in general, after Camden, lean toward the ship, and not the three legs, having been the ancient emblem.
I find that the antiquarian heraldry of early ages, though very imperfect end not at Jl a not by any means destitute of the armorial bearings of the early British and Saxon kings; and I must say that when these are found upon sculptures and. engraved must say of undoubted authenticity, we have no right to cast discredit upon them, merely because the knowledge of heraldry was very rude in Britain and in England in early ages. In an ethnological point of view, such evidence is as good and as worthy of belief as that of later times. I feel satisfied that any old stone well authenticated is worthy of attention, and in such cases that the heraldry given by the early authors ought not to be thrown aside, particularly in ethnology. Though not a science, it was a fact, and doubtless a study in the middle and dark ages. Therefore I consider the Runic crosses in the Island very valuable in this respect. In 1823 I first drew the public attention of antiquaries to these stones, by publishing fourteen etchings of them, collectively, in Part 2, Vol. ii, of the Transactions of the Scottish Antiquaries and I can bear testimony to the beautiful and able manner in which Mr. Cumming has published representations of upwards of thirty more of them in his recent work entitled the Runic and other Monumental Remains in the Isle of Man. It is unnecessary, therefore, to rehearse his description of them here; but as we have been led into ethnological reasoning, founded on the evidences furnished by Grecian and Phoenician relics of antiquity, I hope patience may be extended to me a little longer, whilst I review such evidence as may be found at home, for although the Runic stones do not come within the limits of armorial bearings, (Plate v.) it appears to me that we have arrived at a point where a few more data will enable us to determine pretty nearly the date of these interesting relics of Manx antiquity.* [*On a Runic stone found bar him in Malew, the Rev. Mr. Cumming has delineated a figure holding in his right hand an object more like a "leg coupè" than anything else, It is deposited now in the Museum of King William's College.-Monumental Remains, Plate v, fig. 15.] Mr. Cumming's belief is that the era of these crosses must be between 888 and 1266, but as they all appear to be Christian crosses, and as the Danes and Norwegians were not converted till the tenth century, it appears to me not very probable that they are relics of christianized colonists of a people who are not recorded to have been devotees in Christianity, but on the contrary daring adventurers and robbers by sea as well as by land. In all these stones, with few exceptions, the prima facie impression made on every one that sees them is that they are Christian crosses of an early age, but the Runic alphabet which records their inscription is unknown to moderns in general; it is the Norse or Teutonic alphabet, better known in Britain anciently than now, and the language it expresses may be considered as a dialect of the oldest Celtic from Gorner, varied by Teutonic races. It is a remarkable fact that neither the ship nor the three legs is engraved on these stones, although the former occurs on the crosses at Iona, where no runes are in existence. The ship occurs in the monuments of the Lords of the Isles at Iona, and others as late as A.D. 1500, but like every relic of antiquity the origin of which is unknown or doubtful, they are referred to the Danes and Norwegians, and the warlike and maritime people who frequented these seas in early times, and who ruled in the Isle of Man for a period not much exceeding two hundred years, during all of which time the Islands were turbulent and unsettled to an uncommon degree, and who have left no other traces of their civilization and peaceful habits behind there.*
[* One of the Runic crosses at Kirk Braddan is assigned by the Runes on it to one Utr. Can this be the Ottar or Oclrtar who headed the Manx in a civil war about 1093, about the time of the invasion of Magnus Barefoot of Norway, and who was killed at the battle of Sanuthwart or Santwart ? On one of the Runic stones at Onchan is inscribed the name of Arthigy, and according to Pryune, Edward II. granted the custody of the Island, during pleasure, to one John Athrig; but we have no evidence that these individuals were Norwegians. If these inscriptions are genuine Runes, and are good for anything, they prove that Runic, or something like it, was a spoken language in Man as late as the fourteenth century, which is very probable, and that Runic ornamentation had lost its peaceful characteristics of domestic animals, and assumed that of ferocious beasts.]
In this manner the aboriginal Christian Celts or Britons are thrown aside. But the ornamentations and grotesque representations of domestic and other animals which cover these stones bespeak for their authors a peaceful character and a neglect of the art of war. Notwithstanding this, they are still ascribed to a warlike race of sea-kings, accompanied with warlike followers, worshippers of Woden in the Valhalla, and who plundered everywhere, in defiance of Christianity, to which they were not converted until the tenth or eleventh century. The true state of the case is that we lay all antiquities we cannot give a good account of at the door of the Danes and Norwegians, regardless of the common sense of the case. Gilbert G. French, Esq., of Bolton, in his paper on the origin and meaning of the early interlaced ornamentation found on the ancient sculptured stones of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, arrives at the conclusion that these Runic pillars are imitations on stone of the wicker work of the ancient British and Saxons, who are known to have constructed crosses of basket work. He says, "the earliest authentic records of Britain refer to its inhabitants as expert basket makers ; their houses were made of willows and reeds ; their fences and fortifications were living trees; their boats were baskets covered with skins ; their domestic furniture, defensive armour, even the images employed in their erroneous religion, were each of wicker work." Mr. French very ingeniously adduces evidence to prove that the existing stone crosses were reproductions of still. earlier crosses of twigs. If this theory be correct, it suggests the true origin of them to be from the aboriginal Christians of Britain. It is indeed a novel idea that these crosses are the only relics we possess of the first Christians in Britain and ot the ancient British languages,-a dialect of that Celtic tongue which we have reason to believe was identical to Hindostan, Phoenicia, and Iceland, and to the intermediate shores, but which has since been transmuted into so many various languages apparently quite distinct from each other. The learned Mr. Borrow, who visited this Island three yearo ago, and who understands the Runes of the ancient stones as well as any living man, says that some knowledge of the Manx language is indispensable for understanding some of the inscriptions on the Runic stones. This is corroborative of what I have already stated, viz., that the Runic language and. the Manx are dialects from the same roots; or the original tongue of the ancient Britons and of the Celts of Europe.
Not only the convoluted ornamentations are in character with -Mr. French's opinion, but the peaceful character of the inscriptions and of the figures are opposed to their being relics of a warlike race; such as the Danes and Norwegians and maritime Vikingr, who would not have failed to have perpetuated representations of their arms, their ships, and their warlike devices on them. Instead of such emblems of a stirring people, we find on these stones representations of the domestic animals, or those of the chase, accompanied with a simple record of affection inscribed from the living to the departed soul. It is certainly a venerable idea, and I think quite a probable one, that these crosses are relics of the primitive British Christians and their immediate descendants, wlio fled from England and the persecution of the Emperor Dioclesian and others, and took refuge in Man and the Isles. The Runic cross is not to be found in Saxon England, but only in those portions of Britain, Ireland, and Scotland where the aboriginal Celt was left in quiet possession of the country, and in those districts in fine where the Culdees flourished. There is a fine specimen of one at Kirk Oswald, in Cumberland, where I believe the Northmen never reached to form a settlement. If they ever existed in England the energy of the conquering Saxon must have obliterated them, and after the Saxons had received Christianity the fashion of erecting them had passed away. The same remarks apply to the Norwegians who ruled, but never peopled the Isle of Man, except with warriors very partially. In evidence of these being representations of a quiet and peaceful people we have also the ecclesiastical divisions of national territory into parishes. The Runic crosses all stand near places of Christian worship. Wherever Kirk or Keeil is found affixed to designations of places, the names of parishes are for the most part of Celtic etymology, and wherever these stones are found the names of parishes are Celtic or ancient British, and probably Culdean,-on the west coast of Scotland and in the Isle of Man for example, where a community of origin is very well marked. On the eastern coast of Britain, and indeed throughout England, the names of places are Saxon and Norman-French, more modern in their etymology, but still containing many Celtic or Runic roots. The majority of names of parishes in this Island, and in the western parts of Scotland and the Isles thereof, either begin or terminate with Kirk or Kil, a genuine Celtic word for church, as Kirk Michael Kil Martin, Kirk Onchan or Kilchonan, Kilpharric or Kirk Patrick, and the like. All the old Treen Chapels in the Island are called Keeils by the neighbours, and some of these have distinctive names. Kirkoswald is the name of a parish in Ayrshire, and a village in Cumberland, and is therefore in all probability of Celtic origin.
The Saxons on their becoming Christians adopted the same kind of divisions of territory into parishes, but abandoned Celtic names in favour of their own language and civilization. Now the Norwegians never were in possession of the country of Man, with the same force and power of amalgamation that the Saxons and Normans in England were, for they neither supplanted our language nor our Celtic customs; therefore they have left no relic of their civilization behind them, and could have been neither in theory nor in character the architects of the peaceful cross and the names of parishes in the Isle of Man.
These observations are rather discursive from the subject of Armorial Bearings, perhaps; they lead us to a position in ethnology, however, where the primitive Northmen who occupied the sea coast of Europe and Asia might be traced and recognized by the dialects of the language which they severally spoke. There certainly was once a time when that language was much more common than it is now, when it was the primitive and common language of many countries of Europe and Asia. Should etymology and the affinity of languages among different races be objected to, in our endcavour to trace the identity of origin of such races, we certainly are denied one of tile most rational means of treating the ethnology of nations,-the scriptural origin of the races of mankind.
From this position we might, perhaps, have investigated with advantage the historical connection of these countries, before proceeding to the second division of this paper. But allow me only to remark that the Celtic appears to me to have once been as common and as much alike in all the ancient countries under view as it now is in the remote corners of many principalities where it still prevails as different dialects of the same language, viz., in Gallicia, Britany, Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Inis or Ynys Gall or the Hebrides, the Highlands of Scotland, and those parts of the Lowlands where tile wave of progress and change has not been successful in obliterating it altogether. In such districts the Celtic language continues more or less characteristic, according as it has been more or less exposed to those currents of innovation which have resulted in tile corruption or disappearance of it. Where changes have orignated from different causes, often facilitated by an internal desire of tile peoples themselves for change, but principally from external causes, from mercantile and other intercourse by sea, from colonization of races superior in civilization and in power, from hostile invasion by war and the pressure onwards of the exterminating presence of strong nations against the weak, and to the breaking tip and dismemberment iiltimately of strong nations. Since the fall of the Roman Empire strong and powerful races of Tento-Selavonic origin have invaded the Celtic people, and have driven them gradually from their most choice localities in Europe. Wave after wave of warlike invaders have flowed westward, permanently so as to obliterate the memory and almost every trace of Celtic nations, possessed originally of characteristic nationalities, so that we even now find the original Celtic people driven up into remote corners of territory, where they are undergoing the process of obliteration from amongst nations altogether.
Whether the Isle of Man, or the Vikingr (vicar kings?) of those seas who frequented it, had adopted any flag or symbol during the ascendancy of the Celtic aborigines and the maritime Scots, or after the coming of the Saxons and tile Danes had reduced and colonized the country, is very problematical. We have found symbols and armorial bearings go back into primitive ages and the days of Hercules.* [* Pliny, speaking of the Druids in his time, (the reign of Nero,) tells us that they had a badge of distinction called the Anguinium or Serpent's Egg, and says, "I have seen that, egg, it is the insignia or badge of distinction of the Druids] .In Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, page 118, that learned man is stated to have said, " armorial bearings are as ancient as the siege of Thebes," which he proved by a quotation from one of the tragedies of Euripides,-" in the centre of his shield Parthenopmus bore the domestic symbol of Atalanta slaying the AEtolian boar." In holy Scripture it is recorded that parabolic emblems were understood among the Jews; and the cross has been an emblem from the earliest ages, especially to the ancient Egyptians ; but it did not become an object of adoration among Roman devotees till the 7th century, under the auspices of the Emperor Heraclius. It cannot be doubted that the superior classes of men and those addicted to war, owing to their maritime position in these Islands, have, in all ages, more or less closely kept pace with the fashion and progress of other nations; and it is not at all unlikely that they copied their visitors the Phoûiricians and the Anglo-Saxons in their day, as they did the Normans after the Conquest of England, in this particular as well as in many others. The principal flag of tile Scottish, tile Danish, and the Norwegian Vikingr, previous to the Conquest as well as after it for some centuries, was in all probability the ship or lymphad. Sacheverell states in his Survey, on what authority he does not say, that the flag of Macon, one of tile Orry kings of Man, who was nominated by King Edgar as admiral of his fleet of 360+[ Train says 3600] .vessels for scouring the British Seas of robbers, was the ship, which countenances, I think, the tradition that the Orrys were Vikingr; and in Camden and other numismatic authoritities we find the galley or lymphad, or other modiflrcations of the ship, common on old. coins, British as well as Saxon. An open boat at sea constitutes the emblem of St. Columba of Iona, (865,) and has been continued as that of the Scottish Bishops of the Isle to this day; indeed I have seen gold coins of the Heptarchy found in the Isle of Man, on which the galley was the most conspicuous ernblazonment. Does not this identify the Saxons with other Northmen who infested the shores of Britain in the middle ages? There can be little or no doubt, therefore, that the ship or galley were the armorial bearings most generally displayed by the Northern Vikingr; although lost sight of since the introduction of lions quarterly in the Royal armour of England was initiated.
Finally, from all this it is clear that the triquetra of legs is a very ancient emblein. Starting from the middle ages we have traced it up to the classic ages of Greece, through the Heraclidae and the Etruscan civilization, and have had reason to believe it probable that it seas not unknown to the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. Starting from the same point we have traced it down to modern times, uninterruptedly in use as the heraldic bearing of the Isle of Man, from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the present time, a period of 560 years. If we have lost sight of it in the dark ages, viz., from the disappearance of the Phoenician and Roman power in these latitudes till the fourteenth century, we have had glimpses of it, at least occasionally, in the bearings of some of the Hebridean chieftains, in the arms of Sicily, at the well of St. Winnifred, and in the " leg coupè" of the Wynnes of Halvarden., in North Wales, and have, in a small degree, observed the relationship of races and of languages of many peoples.
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