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Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Bt, THE LAW OF SUCCESSION: ORIGINS AND BACKGROUND OF THE LAW OF SUCCESSION TO ARMS AND DIGNITIES IN SCOTLAND. Ed by Jackson W Armstrong Edinburgh: John Donald (www.birlinn.co.uk), 2010. xxiv + 293 pp. ISBN 9781904607861. £70.

Document Cited authorities 1 Cited in Related
Vincent
Pages503-504
DOI10.3366/elr.2011.0073
Date01 September 2011
AuthorDavid Sellar
Published date01 September 2011

Sir Iain Moncreiffe, Unicorn Pursuivant of Arms, and later Albany Herald, is now best remembered as the writer of one of the most popular and successful books ever written in English on heraldry, namely his Simple Heraldry (1953), “cheerfully illustrated” by Don Pottinger, and also for his The Highland Clans (1967). It is a pleasure, therefore, to welcome the publication of Sir Iain's Edinburgh PhD thesis after a lapse of fifty years, and to congratulate the editor, Jackson Armstrong, on his painstaking and thoughtful editing of this handsome book. The decision to publish a thesis submitted as long ago as 1958 may seem surprising, especially given the great flowering of Scottish historical studies in the interim, but it is well justified. Although the title may suggest a dry discussion of an arcane topic, this is no narrow study: nothing Sir Iain wrote was ever dull or less than engagingly discursive. The thesis covers en passant many topics which still engage the attention of Scottish medieval historians – not all of whom will have been aware of Sir Iain's work – topics which include matrilineal succession among the Picts, the identity of Malcolm “MacHeth”, the Law of Clan MacDuff and the role of the derbfine. Some of Sir Iain's suggestions no longer convince, but most are based on sound and wide learning combined with a willingness to speculate.

Sir Iain's discursive style, moving seamlessly, for example, from succession and sub-kingdoms among the Picts to succession and throne-names among the Bemba of central Africa, and from succession among the Norsemen in the British Isles to succession among the Grand Princes of Kiev, poses difficulties for any editor seeking to impose order. Jackson Armstrong has solved the problem, on the whole successfully, by placing the more discursive passages into “Annexes” at the end of each chapter. He has also tidied up Sir Iain's references and provided a bibliography, as well as noting more recent contributions to a topic, highlighting some which would seem to render Sir Iain's arguments no longer sustainable.

The main purpose of the thesis is to demonstrate, contrary to opinions expressed by Lord Mansfield in the Cassilis Peerage case of 1762, and by Lord Justice Clerk...

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