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Varieties of Thom(p)son(e) arms?

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Thomas Thompson:
Answer
           WHISKY   Did I spell it the Scottish way??  I know there is a difference but ??

That is why we yanks usually just lump everything under the umbrella    "Scotch".
In my younger and wilder youthful days I tried to upgrade myself to 'gentleman status by drinking Scotch. Somewhere someone ( a lass probally) told me I had to stop drinking moonshine and clean up my act. I gave it the old college try I must have tried a dozen different brands but didn't like any of them.
I guess I am stuck in the mud as being a hillbilly - I like TN Bourbon. Dickels 90 proff in fact.
Tom

Ernest Thompson:
I know, I know.
Ern

William J. Thompson:
I was thinking the other day about how arms were designed, while reading through some quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. Some used "stock" image language that stood for specific things, some were punning on the armiger's name, used images of place or interest, etc. I'd always puzzled over the meaning of the Thompson variations. Then, after reading about the Reivers, a dim bulb flickered to life over my cranium.

The majority of English variations are Per fesse ar. and sa., a fesse counterembattled, betw. 3 falcons, counterchanged, belled and jessed or. Crest, an arm embowed in armor quarterly or. and az., the gauntlet ppr. holding the truncheon of a broken lance of the first. Which looks like this: (Staggeringly beautiful engraving from the Thompson One Name website)

What do you see? The field divided between north and south, both sides embattled against the other. Like the Border. Falcons are on both sides -- Thomsons were on both sides of the border. And what is a belled and jessed falcon? A trained bird of prey, who at the behest of its commander, flies out, swoops, attacks, takes, returns. Like the Reivers. Cool, huh? The crest, a broken lance; the Reivers were horsemen whose weapon of choice was the lance, no?

Similarly, the version that is: Or., on a fesse indented az. three estoiles (stars) of the field, on a canton of the second, a sun in splendour of the first., and looks like this:

exhibits similar imagery. The border is jagged in this case, reflecting its uncertainty and changability, perhaps? One can even imagine the space of the a fesse as the no man's land, and within; three stars. Three marches, three wardens? The sun in canton usually represents allegiance to the king, I think. That I'm uncertain on. There are versions, with the a fesse divided per fesse, with the three falcons within, as well. Interesting how that imagery pervades.

Which beings me to our Old Ilk: Ar., a stags head cabossed gu., on a chief az two mullets of the field.

The mullets are spurs, an obvious allusion to the horsey Border Reivers. But the stag? Traditional imagery, perhaps. Or maybe an image of the Thompson lineage -- two horns, two branches with a common root, and many forks on those branches. Sounds like a good theory to me.

Of course, this is all just theory -- my brain whiling away in my spare time. Anyone have any evidence to corroborate any of this, or am I just WAY off in left field?

uneven:
The broken lance is my favorite. I've seen it with a different motto though for a different Thompson family. The motto was "broken but not beaten" or something to that effect. If I had the choice, I would pick that motto for my own triumphantly broken family.

On that note. I've been trying to find the significance of the broken lance but all I can find are descriptions of Thompson arms.

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