a camel and (sinister) an elephant, are depicted statant on either side of the shield, no actual contact being made between the escutcheon and the supporters. But in 1900, when in a belated compliance with the Act of 1672 the armorial bearings of the Royal Burgh of Inverness were matriculated, the position was altered to that more usually employed for supporters.
The supporters always used by Sir John Maxwell Stirling-Maxwell of Pollok are two lions sejant guardant. These, as appears from an old seal, were in use as far back as the commencement of the fifteenth century, but the supporters officially recorded for the family are two apes. In English armory one or two exceptional cases may be noticed; for example, the supporters of the city of Bristol, which are: "On either side, on a mount vert, a unicorn sejant or, armed, maned, and unguled sable." Another instance will be found in the supporters of Lord Rosmead, which are: "On the dexter side an ostrich and on the sinister side a kangaroo, both regardant proper." From the nature of the animal, the kangaroo is depicted sejant.
Supporters in Germany date from the same period as with ourselves, being to be met with on seals as far back as 1276. At first they were similarly purely artistic adjuncts, but they have retained much of this character and much of the purely permissive nature in Germany to the present day. It was not until about the middle of the seventeenth century that supporters were granted or became hereditary in that country. Grants of supporters can be found in England at an earlier date, but such grants were isolated in number. Nevertheless supporters had become hereditary very soon after they obtained a regularly heraldic (as opposed to a decorative) footing. Their use, however, was governed at that period by a greater freedom as to alteration and change than was customary with armory in general. Supporters were an adjunct of the peerage, and peers were not subject to the Visitations. With his freedom from arrest, his high social position, and his many other privileges of peerage, a peer was "too big" a person formerly to accept the dictatorial armorial control which the Crown enforced upon lesser people. Short of treason, a peer in any part of Great Britain for most practical purposes of social life was above the ordinary law. In actual fact it was only the rights of one peer as opposed to the rights of another peer that kept a Lord of Parliament under any semblance of control. When the great lords of past centuries could and did raise armies to fight the King a peer was hardly likely to, nor did he, brook much interference.
Of the development of supporters in Germany Ströhl writes:—
"Only very late, about the middle of the seventeenth century, were supporters granted as hereditary, but they appear in the arms of
