Of the Pavilion.
49. After treating of these external marks of honour common to the nobles of the European kingdoms, it re mains to take notice of one entirely confined to sovereign princes, although not assumed by all of them, viz. the pa vilion. This is a tent or tabernacle, with a canopy roof, under which the arms of the emperors, of the kings of France, and of some other princes, are usually represent ed. Menestrier is of opinion, that the first who invented this use of the pavilion was Philip Moreau, and that from its having made its first appearance on the coins of Philip of Valois, it derived the name by which we know it. As a specimen of the mode of blazoning arms, we have in serted the royal achievement of Scotland, in Plate CCXC IV. Fig. 13. in which the blazon, according to Mr Nisbet, runs thus: " The sovereign ensign armorial of the king dom of Scotland—or a lion rampant guezdes, armed and langued azure, within a double tressurc counter flowered with flower de lysses of the second ; timbred with a hel met affrontee with bars or, adorned with lambrequins or, doubled ermine, and ensigned with the imperial crown Of Scotland ; and thereon for crest a lion sejant full-faced guies, crowned or, holding in his right paw a naked sword pro per, and in the sinister a scepter or, both erected ; and above, in an escrole, the motto " IN DEFENSE." The shield is encircled with the colour of the most noble order of the thistle, with its badge thereto appended of gold, enamel led azure, having the image of St Andrew surmounted of his cross argent ; and supported by two unicorns argent, crowned with imperial and gorged with openfecrowns, to the last chains affixed passing between their fore-legs and reflected over their backs or ; he on the denier bearing up a banner or, charged with the red lion of he on the sinister, a banner azure charged with the white cross of St Andrew, both standing on a compartment cheque or and azure like a pavement, on the first the lion of Scotland, and on the second St Andrew's All within a royal pavilion of cloth of gold, sem6e of thistles slipped proper, doubled ermine, the comhle or canopy rayonne.:, and adorn ed with precious stones, and topped with the crown of Scot land, over all on an escrole the device of Scotland (alluding to the thistle,) 44 NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSET." Of Precedency.
51. It is, as was formerly observed, the part of the herald.:
to settle the order or precedency of all those assembled in public meetings. The rules by which the precedency of individuals is ascertained, seem to he more fixed and de terminate in England, than with us of Scotland. Sir Wil liam Blackstone, in his commentaries on the law of England, book i. chap. 12, gives a Table of Precedence, which is here copied as the most safe authority.
Of Funeral Escutcheons, &c. in Scotland.
50. Although our code calls no man noble under the de gree of a baron, yet there is an old and well known dis tinction between nobiles nzajores and :zanies nzinores: the first comprehending all titled nobles from the prince to the baron ; the second, all between the baron and the gentle man inclusive.
A gentleman is one descended of three descents of bles (viz. of name and arms) by both father and mother, for gentility is not perfect in the person who first obtains arms among us, or letters patent of noblesse on the conti nent ; as, among the Romans, though the father was free born, and of the equestrian census, yet it was requisite that the grandfather should be so also, otherwise the son could not obtain the annulus, or symbol of the equestrian rank. Gentility, then, begins in the grandfather, increases in the father, and is perfect in the son.
The proofs of this nobility are the armorial ensigns or gentilitial tesseras of these ancestors, arranged in due or der on the sides of the escutcheon, (and therefore fitly here treated of among the external ornaments of the shield), not indeed commonly, but on particular occasions, as on that of the funeral of the bearer. The arrangement of these tessera is the same, to whatever number they amount. If the nobility be of four descents or lineages, the mode of ar rangement is as follows: The full funeral escutcheon of the Duke of Athole is represented in Plate CCXCIV. Fig. 14.
In England, the place of this genealogical escutcheon is supplied by the genealogical pennon before described in p. 339.
B. Married women and widows have the same rank among each other as their husbands would have among themselves, except such rank be merely professional or official. And unmarried women to the same rank as their eldest brothers would bear among men during the lives of their fathers." Father Menestrier has expressed the principal rules of heraldry in a very few verses, which may easily be retained in the memory.