Robert Burns again

Another very interesting post from Professor Gillian Black:

 Robert Burns and Jean Lorimer

 Perhaps the most famous “faux” arms in Scotland are those designed by Robert Burns – and I was surprised and delighted to find them on a memorial in East Preston Street cemetery, in Newington, Edinburgh:

The stone was erected in 1901 by the Ninety Burns Club, to mark the grave of Jean Lorimer, or “Chloris”. She lived from 1775 – 1831, and inspired at least 24 of Burns’ songs, including (as noted on the gravestone) “The Lassie wi’ the Lintwhite hair”.

 

More information about Jean’s eventful life can be found here:

http://www.robertburns.org/encyclopedia/LorimerJean17751511831.541.shtml

 And as for the arms on the stone: 

 These show the arms which Burns sketched out for himself in a letter to Alexander Cunningham in 1794, although they were only registered in 1988 by the Burns Federation. The blazon is:             “Argent, a holly bush and in chief a club and stock-and-horn saltireways all Proper."

and for crest: "A woodlark perching on a sprig of bay tree Proper."

More details on this history of the arms, and Burns’ interest in heraldry, can be found in this previous HSS blog:  http://heraldrysocietyofscotland.blogspot.com/2017/01/burns-night.html

 A final note is that this stone is also a very rare example (in fact, to date, the solitary example) of arms on a Celtic cross. I am not sure why this should be, but my graveyard ramblings so far have never yet yielded a Celtic cross displaying arms.

Editor's note: here is the wonderful painting done in 18th century style by one of our Vice-Presidents, Mark Dennis, of the Bard's assumed arms:

You can follow Gillian's necropolitan excursions on Twitter @SHeraldry