The main question, the Lord Justice-Clerk said, was whether Lyon had jurisdiction to decide on the Petitioner's application for arms or as incidental thereto any question between the parties as to who was chieftain of the Macleans of Ardgour They being a recognized branch of the Clan Maclean, each claimed to be chieftain of Ardgour. The person who bore the undifferenced arms was the "head" or "chief" of the armigerous family. "Chief" in the law of arms simply meant head or principal of an armigerous family. Had chiefship of a clan or chieftainship of a branch of a clan, apart from headship of an armigerous family, and significance in the law of arms?
There was no evidence of any practice that would point to the us Of "chief of clan" or "chieftain of branch of clan" as correct heraldic descriptions of headship of an gerous family, To stand in the succession of an ancient line of chiefs or chieftains might bea legitimate ground of family pride, but it was not a status that the law recognized.
His Lordship said he was satisfied that chieftainship of a branch of a Highlznd clan had no armorial signiticane, It carried no insignia and it involved no patrimonial consequences. If it lingered in the social custom o? the "Highlands it was only as a survival and a remnant of an older order associated with turbulent and lawless times that had passed away. His Lordship could not think of apy. sanction known to the law that could enforce a finding of chieftainship on a recalcitrant clan, He thought they should vary the interlocutor of Lyon in order to make it quite plain that the questions of chieftaincy and the position of the parties to the chief of the Clan Maclean or their relative places within the clan were not within the ambit of the present inquiry. The result was that the case would back to Lyon in order that he might decide the question of arms and supporters, and when that was done hi Lordship hoped it would be an end of a barren and melancholy controversy.
Lords Mackay and Wark concurred, as to the decision of the appeal
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.