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Drummond-Murray 3
Peter (William Edward Peter Louis) Drummond-Murray of Mastrick (1929-2014)

This image display of the late Peter Drummond Murray’s Hatchment was first published on pages 8 & 9 of Newsletter No. 21, of "Tak Tent", the Issue of July 2003 whilst PDM was verra much alive. The artwork is a rendering of Mark D. Dennis and was supplied from the files of Anthony Maxwell, editor of Tak Tent at that time. Accompanying and surrounding the image was an article by PDM, “Be Prepared” Thanks once again to Anthony Maxwell who has supplied the article to continue to accompany this image

Be Prepared


A Yorkshire vet, struck off for some impropriety, is trying to earn a living as an insurance salesman on television. He promises the aged, for a small monthly sum, sufficient funds when the time comes, to surprise “loved ones” or for “funeral expenses”. For me this is redundant advice. I am ready.
My funeral will, I hope, be at St. Catherine’s Convent. I shall be in a cardboard coffin covered by the mortcloth of the Order of Malta. My coffin will be carried by my four sons. It is a pity that one is much shorter than the others. Afterwards there will be shepherd’s pie and claret. The cook is shortly to be released on probation. It is pretentious to serve champagne with shepherd’s pie and he has learned his lesson.
During the eating of the funeral baked meats I shall be burnt and later interred in Innerpeffray kirkyard. The stone, italic writing on green Welsh slate, is by me as I write. My wife has assured me that she has no intention of marrying again so no subsequent change will be necessary.
Innerpeffray is the collegiate church founded in 1512 by David, 2nd Lord Drummond. The founder and many of his successors are buried in the vault including the Viscount of Strathallan who was killed at Culloden. As he lay dying his chaplain gave him the Last Sacrament in whisky and oatcake. I have indicated that I expect a similar attention. Burials in the church are no longer legal but, as a descendant of the founder, I have obtained permission to be buried in the kirkyard.
In the church, which is in the care of Historic Scotland, are two hatchments. I advised Bill Adams, one of our founders, on their restoration. There is also a monument to Sir James Drummond of Machany, common ancestor of the Earl of Perth, the Viscounts of Strathallan and the banking Drummonds. It is badly in need of restoration but due to the current policy of mouldy antiquarianism at Historic Scotland it will continue to decay.
So all was prepared. I went to lunch with Mark Dennis at our club in Princes Street. After paying at the cashier he made off with uncommon speed to the lavatory. It called to my mind the lines of the English bard, (Shakespeare is the only English bard), “For this relief much thanks!”. I paid my bill and went to the morning room.
There propped against a pillar was this exquisite work of art. On the same generous lines as the artist it is fifty-six inches high. Happily amongst his audience was a trustee of the Innerpeffray Library and I am hopeful that a home will be found for the hatchment there after it is removed from the chapel following my funeral. The Library was founded by David Drummond, Lord Maderty, brother-in-law of the Great Marquis some of whose books are in it, and is the oldest public library in Scotland. I am confident that all members of the Society will have hatchments but, thanks to Mark, I am in the happy position of enjoying mine now.
I am instructed to give an account of the Arms.
First Quartering: Murray of Mastrick
A composed coat with charges from the Arms of Stephen of Ardendraught, Davidson and the Murray stars. The motto borne by the descendants of Sir James Murray, younger brother of my great-grandfather, Colonel John Murray of Mastrick, was Ars et Industria. In the days before Latin was a dead language of no liturgical significance we translated this as Arty-crafty. Sir James was a very generous founder of Aberdeen Art Gallery. I chose Lord Have Mercy borne by another branch of the family. Sir James was Member of Parliament for East Aberdeenshire. He made two conditions before agreeing to represent his constituents. First that he should not be opposed and second that he should not have to make a speech. His memory is immortal as Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the Poultry Industry for which he was knighted.
Mastrick is the lands between the Don and the Dee and so the only way that Aberdeen could expand. If I owned it I would have my thumb on the city jugular. Before the war it was tenanted farms. It is high and exposed to the icy wind from the gulag and so was regarded as a suitable site for Council housing. The Murrays lived at Woodsde House, on the banks of the Don, which is now an old people’s home. Mastrick takes its name from Maastricht with which our Leith-Ross predecessors had trading relations. I introduced myself to Bill Cash, “Drummond-Murray, but you may call me Mastrick!”
Second and third quarterings:
This is a quartered coat split into what the drill sergeant called open order. Or three bars wavy Gules is the coat of the Earl of Perth who is also Viscount of Strathallan. Andrew Drummond, founder of the bank at Charing Cross, was next brother of William, 4th Viscount of Strathallan, who was killed at Culloden. His line was assigned a plain bordure Gules which was engrailed for mine. There is a Birthbrief under the Great Seal in 1512 testifying to the undoubted fact that our ancestor commanded the ship that brought Cousin Margaret (Saint Margaret to you) to Scotland and the waves commemorate this feat. It was remarkable for a Hungarian who cannot have been to sea before and even more remarkable that the ship did not founder before it got to Leith.
The first undoubted ancestor appears at the beginning of the thirteenth century and John of Drummond is buried in the Menteith aisle in Inchmahome. The Earls of Menteith bore three bars wavy the arms being known only from seals and so the tinctures unknown. That the Drummonds are cadets of this historic family is very probable. They are the only families to bear three waves
The third quartering is the Royal Arms of Scotland but the lion lacks his body. First borne on a canton, but now as a quartering, this is an augmentation commemorating James Drummond, Abbot of Inchaffray, who was with the King at Gowrie. The Reverend Father in God made such good use of his dirk that he was granted some of the Ruthven lands. He is one of the famous Lords of Erection, his church lands being erected into a temporal lordship under the title of Maderty still borne by Lord Perth. An account of this augmentation is to be found in volume 19 under the title of The Gowrie Conspiracy.
Drummonds Bank was a very profitable enterprise until it was sold when I was a boy. The real fortune from banking was made from financing Pitt’s North American Wars. We descend from the Pitts and were related to Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, known as the Dictator of Scotland. He was Secretary for War and put the Army vote in his own account getting the interest until the capital was needed! At his trial he was acquitted his behaviour being regarded as a time honoured custom of the trade!
The stroke of luck was Andrew Drummond’s only son John marrying Charlotte Beauclerk who late in life became heiress to her nephew Charles, 4th Duke of St Albans. The vast estates included the Adelphi which we sold for demolition some eighty years ago. Property had its rights in those days. The property may go but the quarterings remain!
Fourth Quartering: Heaven of the Forest of Birse.
These Arms were granted to my great-grandfather Joseph Robert Heaven of the Forest of Birse in 1899. He was always known as Robert or Don Roberto. He was already a very rich man when a childless uncle died in 1874 leaving £1, 200, 000. Birse, Kiftsgate Court in Gloucestershire and the house in Grosvenor Square followed. He already owned the Cheshire property. All was dissipated after his death not by vice but by stupidity. Buying the Sinai desert in 1913 was a particularly unfortunate inspiration!
Robert Heaven’s fourth son, Francis Joseph, was inspired by the name of his Imperial godfather to adopt the perilous career of a Spanish courtier. He spent vast sums on splendid Spanish documents which I have. One Diploma of Nobility cost £700 to prepare in 1900. However he took little heed of his English ancestry and this Grant was obtained so that the Spanish Arms could be quartered with it. They are the Arms of Heven of Heven, co. Hereford, which are recorded in several Visitations, and the golden Chief was added for difference. No proven connection has been made between the two families although one was constructed! My grandfather matriculated the gold bordure as a second surviving son. I handled his matriculastion in 1952. Proof was less exacting in the Lyon Court then and Lyon Innes of Learney said that it was good enough that he had known my Spanish great-grandmother. Later he decided to write to a Spanish King of Arms, the Marques de Ciadoncha. In reply he was given a quartered coat which forms the second and third grand quarterings of my grandfather’s matriculation. What we did not realise is that this was the Spanish proof of a hidalgo, hereditary noble, marshalled in the usual Spanish fashion showing the Arms of the four grandparents. Whilst my great-grandmother was heir to her father, Ramirez de Arellano, and her mother, the Marquesa de Braceras, there is no reason to believe that she was heiress to the other two grandparents.The purple lion of Braceras is unique in the Lyon Register.
In fact a connection may exist between the Hereford and Gloucestershire families. The Heavens were of good position in Gloucestershire. Amongst the family properties were Archers Court, a Queen Anne manor house, and Stoutshill a splendid Regency Gothick house, now a preparatory school, where Captain Mark Phillips received an education. The ownership of Lundy, Isle of Puffins in Norse, inspired me to get a puffin as my heraldic badge.
The family vault is in Woodchester Old Churchyard where is commemorated one who was drowned in the Gulf of Mexico in 1828. He was elder brother of Robert Heaven’s father, another Robert, so it was about this time that the family became established in Mexico. Robert’s mother was Dona Joaquina de los Cobos, of the House of the Marquesses of Camarasa, brought into the front rank of the Spanish nobility by Don Francisco de los Cobos, Secretary to the Emperor Charles V. The title has been inherited by the Duchess of Medinaceli. Robert Heaven married Dona Guadelupe Ramirez de Arellano y Braceras, Marquesa de Braceras, with whose family I shall deal shortly.
The inescutcheon: Quarterly 1 & 4, Navarre, 2 & 3, Ramirez de Arellano.
The Ramirez de Arellano are an ancient branch of the Royal House of Navarre and came off long before the use of heraldry. King Alfonso XIII, in a document which I have, gave permission to quarter the Royal Arms to my great-uncle, Francis Joseph, Conde y Principe de Ramirez de Arellano. There have been various versions of the Ramirez de Arellano Arms, one with a bordure of France. Lope de Vega in his Los Ramirez de Arellano says that they are the Arms of France in the colours of Navarre.
The earliest, who is on record in the Court of the Lord Lyon, is Don Garcia Jiminez, King of Navarre in 716. The first Lord of Arellano was Don Sancho Sanchez Ramirez who received Arellano from his uncle, Don Garcia Ramirez, King of Navarre, in 1111. Don Sancho’s grandfather, the Infante Don Ramiro, went over the wall at Jerusalem in 1099 opposite the Pool (Piscina) where the angel troubled the waters. As he wrote “the treasure that I took from Jerusalem” was used in founding the Divisa Real y Casa Solar de la Piscina. This is a Society based on a charming Romanesque church in Navarre and membership, in which I am included, is limited to his direct descendants who must not be “Jews, Arabs, mixed blood, bastards or villeins”. Don Ramiro married Dona Elvira daughter of the great Spanish hero, Don Ruy, or Rodriguez, Diaz de Vivar, Mio Cid or el Cid Campeador which means Lord of the Battlefield.
Our line was based at Viguera in the Lordship of los Cameros of which the Counts of Aguilar, created in 1475 for Don Alonso Ramirez de Arellano, were lords. In reference books we are sometimes referred to as the line of the Marquesses of Sierra Nevada because the brother of our direct ancestor held this title in the 1790s. He was governor of the Royal Marquessate of Oaxaca, the title and estate of Don Hernan Cortes, because the Conquistador married Dona Juana Ramirez de Arellano y Zuniga daughter of the Count of Aguilar and niece of the Duke of Bejar. The great palace of the Marques de Sierra Nevada still stands in Mexico City. The titles of Roman Count and Roman Prince were created in 1792 and 1793 respectively.
The Imperial Eagles were conferred by the Emperor Charles V. Despite the heraldry manuals they do not indicate any rank in the Empire. In Scotland they are limited to the Head of the family but in Spain to all its members. Originally the eagles heads were surrounded by haloes, or glories, but in 19th century exemplifications these were replaced by the crowns of the Austrian Empire.
The Crests:Murray of Mastrick. I suppose that the palms refer to the family contribution to Aberdeen Art Gallery. If only we still had the dozens of Orpens which are now so fashionable!
Drummond. The earliest illustration in colour of the Drummond arms is in the Armorial de Gelre where some later owner has put l’inconnu below the Arms of Sir Malcolm Drummond, Lord of Mar! This is dated about 1360. The crest is a hound’s head. There are two sorts of hound. Those that hunt by sight are gaze hounds and such are greyhounds. Those that hunt by scent are sleuth hounds and such are bloodhounds. Sir Malcolm’s crest is a gazehound but later Drummonds used sleuth hounds at first only the head but later the whole beast. This continued until the extinction of the line of the Earls of Perth and Melfort in 1902 when the Perth title passed to the Viscounts of Strathallan. There are rare exceptions such as the goat’s head on the seal of Sir John Drummond of Cargill about 1400.
The Drummonds of Machany and the Lords Maderty, since 1902 Earls of Perth, used various crests. All seem to have been inspired by the Seal of the Abbey of Inchaffray, acquired at the Reformation, which was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. This shows an eagle reguardant with a glory about its head. This is my crest with the addition of a collar engrailed Gules. On the seal the eagle holds a scroll with the first words of St. John’s gospel, In principio erat verbum, on it. However in the Lyon Register Sir James Drummond of Machany, about 1672, recorded a falcon hooded jessed and belled proper whilst his younger son William, then Drummond of Cromlix but later 1st Viscount of Strathallan, had a falcon standing upon one foot and holding up in the other a Laurel-garland Vert. The garland is an allusion to the General’s military career.
All of these crests were used indiscriminately by the family sometimes all of them together. At first the family were attainted Jacobites and when the attainders were removed in the 19th century not much resort was had to the Lyon Office during the reigns of our kinsmen the Earls of Kinnoull.
George Drummond, Representer of Andrew, founder of the Bank, matriculated the eagle of St John with its halo in 1852 and the late Earl of Perth recorded a goshawk wings expanded Proper armed and jessed Or in 1953. A sleuthhound Argent collared and lined Gules is a badge of Lord Perth.
The Drummond motto GANG WARILY refers to the then chief scattering caltraps on the field at Bannockburn to bring down the English horses. It is, therefore, not an injunction to us to be prudent but a warning to our enemies to approach us carefully. In the modern world of over regulation mottoes are made to answer that of the chief. So I have AYE GANG WARILY and my kinsman, Maldwin Drummond of Cadland, has AY GANG WARILY. In the same spirit my third son Robert has a gold martlet on the red collar of his eagle. Elsewhere I have described these rules as needing the mind of a mandarin and the eye of an eagle to follow them.
The Collar: This is the insignia of a Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta to give the Order of Malta its full style.
The Badge: The red shield surmounted by an ox yoke and a sixteenth century earl’s coronet is that of Slains Pursuivant to the Hereditary Lord High Constable of Scotland, the Earl of Erroll, Chief of the Name and Arms of Hay. An ox yoke is the Hay badge.
Hope of Luffness and Rankeillour.
The oval is the Arms of my wife, Barbara, daughter of Arthur, Lord Rankeillour, sometime Governor of Madras.The Hopes are a great legal dynasty. Even now David, Lord Hope of Craighead, is a Lord of Appeal. The first of note was Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, King’s Advocate, who was created a baronet in 1628. This line sold Craighall to the Earl of Hopetoun in 1729 and was known as Hope of Pinkie from possession of that property, now Loretto school. The arms were Azure a chevron between three besants Or. The cadet line, Charles, created Earl of Hopetoun in 1703, when twenty-one years old, and later Marquesses of Linlithgow in 1902, placed a laurel leaf from the Arms of Foulis, feuilles, heiress of Leadhills on the chevron.
General Sir Alexander Hope, younger son of the 2nd. Earl of Hopetoun, was given Luffness and Rankeillour by his father. The Luffness family difference with a bordure Argent. Sir Alexander’s second son, James Hope-Scott of Abbotsford, married the heiress and recorded the Arms of Scott of Abbotsford. From this marriage descend the Maxwell-Scotts of Abbotsford. By his second marriage, to Lady Victoria Fitzalan Howard, he had a son James who was created Lord Rankeillour. He matriculated a bordure ermine in 1898. These Arms descend as a quartering to our children.
Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick

2014 0419

dqw266@gmail.com
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