of the old Celtic earls of Mentieth,
took their name from lands in the Lennox, the lands of Drymen (Dromainn in the Gaelic).
However, they also kept their connection with Mentieth, having a feud with the Mentieths
(the family of the Stewart earls) which was resolved in 1360, and acquiring Stobhall,
their seat in Perthshire, by marriage in about 1345. They rose to high office under the
Stewarts, and remained loyal to them through adversity, while at the same time remaining
Roman Catholic. As Mentieth had not been a separate political unit from Strathearn before
the creation of the earldom during the first half of the twelfth century, the original
Celtic earls may have been related to the House of Strathearn, and this thesis is
supported by the arms of the Logies (mentioned above under Strathearn), two of
which are recorded. One is a different version of the arms of the Celtic earls of
Strathearn; the other, like the arms of the Drummonds, a different version of the arms of
the Celtic earls of Mentieth.
As a note to these armorials, the unique royal livery colors of the Kings of Scots were
red on gold, and the King and his two chief peers, the Earl of Fife (see under MacDuff in
Chapter IX for the House of Fife’s early use of two arms) and the Earl of Strathearn,
all used these colors, tincture on metal, expressing their unity in the royal colors of
Scotland. These bearings seem to have been officially adopted, as a formal heraldry based
on tribal traditions, about the time of the founding of Scone Abbey in 1164 (their arms
appear on the Seal of Scone Abbey), just prior to the accession of William the Lion as
King of Scots. The other knightly and noble families no doubt followed suit, and thus
Scottish heraldry as a formal institution probably dates from this time. It is interesting
in this connection that the Drummonds too used these colors in their differencing of the
arms of the original House of Mentieth, red wavy bars on gold instead of blue wavy bars on
silver.
