Sorry, not now! In 1823 The Scotsman carried an advertisement placed by David Clyne SSC, Lyon Clerk and Lyon Depute, advertising the sale of the vacant DINGWALL PURSUIVANCY. Applications, perhaps bids, were to be sent to Mr Clyne.
The post appears to have been snapped up by a David Alexander WS (later Snawdoun Herald) who held it for five years before moving up the ranks. He died in 1845.
Then in the Edinburgh Evening Courant on 22nd October 1864 we find TWO unnamed pursuivancies for sale:
Presumably the two pursuivancies were DINGWALL and CARRICK as two new Officers took up those posts in that year:
Dingwall was the artist (and Royal Scottish Academician) Samuel Bough, born in Carlisle and working as a scene painter in Manchester and other places before joining the staff of the new Princes Theatre in Glasgow where he was sacked for marrying one of the singers, Isabella Taylor. He moved to Edinburgh and developed as a landscape painter of considerable repute.
Carrick was an Archibald Thorburn, formerly Clerk to the Teinds Office.
The Post Office Directory for 1866-1867 lists the whole Lyon Court:
Of course the Act of 1867 stopped not only the selling of offices but also abolished the Lyon Deputy. The Lyon Clerk Depute post lasted until 1890. The 1867 Act also reduced the number of Heralds- and Pursuivants -in-Ordinary to three each.
