The holder of the title · 27th holder

The Lord of Regality of Slains

Contemporary keeper of a dignity born in the 14th century, perpetuating the memory and honour of the lordship of Slains.

0th

Holder of the dignity

Root of the lordship

Centuries of heritage

Dynastic orders

The present holder

The contemporary keeper

Twenty-seventh Lord of Regality of Slains, the present holder perpetuates a Scottish feudal dignity whose roots reach back to the Barony granted to Sir Gilbert Hay in the wake of Bannockburn, in 1314. To this title belong both the Lordship of Regality of Slains and the Barony of Slains, recorded in the Scottish Barony Register, his arms having been matriculated by the Court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms.

In keeping with the discretion proper to the office, the House publishes neither the name nor the likeness of its Lord. It is the dignity, and not the person, that this page sets forth: an office of honour and memory, exercised in the service of the continuity of Slains.

A man of law by profession — an advocate admitted in several jurisdictions, on both sides of the Atlantic — the holder has made legal rigour the through-line of his career. This international practice, at the meeting point of several legal traditions and systems, sustains a broad view of affairs and institutions. He is the founder and head of a house devoted to legal counsel and practice, the structure through which he carries on a calling turned toward the guidance and defence of those he serves.

To this primary vocation is joined an entrepreneurial spirit: the founding and leadership of several companies attest to a taste for initiative and for building things meant to last. It is in this same spirit — to build, to hand on, to make endure — that the office of Lord of Regality of Slains takes its place: not as an ornament, but as the natural extension of a life lived under the sign of responsibility and continuity.

Slains Castle upon its cliff — Pl. IIThe domain of Slains — North Sea coast

A domain of distinction

The lordship of Slains

The royal favour that founded the lordship was signal: Robert the Bruce granted the Barony of Slains to Sir Gilbert Hay “free of taxation and wardship” — a rare mark of a king's trust in the most faithful of his companions. From the 14th century, the name of Slains thus denoted the coastal heart of Hay authority in Aberdeenshire.

Tradition makes of these shores a high place of Scottish memory: it was near Cruden, a mile from Slains, that King Malcolm II is said to have defeated in 1012 the Danes led by the young son of Sweyn Forkbeard — the future Cnut the Great. In memory of the treaty, a chapel was dedicated to Saint Olaf, patron of Norway and Denmark, whose font still serves the baptisms of the parish.

A traditional account, first recorded in writing in 1536. Like the legend of Luncarty, it belongs to the memory of the place rather than to attested history — yet it speaks of the antiquity and prestige attached to the name of Slains.

Foundation & legitimacy

A registered and armigerous title

Lordship of Regality

A Scottish feudal dignity — a superior form of barony — become a transmissible personal honour since the 2004 reform.

Scottish Barony Register

The Barony of Slains is recorded therein — the reference register of Scotland's baronial dignities.

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Court of the Lord Lyon

Arms matriculated by the Lord Lyon, King of Arms — Scotland's sovereign heraldic authority.

The dignity of regality

The prerogatives of a lordship of regality

Within the Scottish nobility, regality held a rank apart: an authority higher than the ordinary barony, inherited from the old law of Scotland.

A regality arose from the erection of lands in liberam regalitatem — “in free regality” — by the sovereign himself. The holder thus received a share of royal authority, exercised in the Crown's name over a defined territory.

The Lord of Regality held prerogatives comparable to those of an English earl palatine. His regality court exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction, superior to that of ordinary baron courts, which it superseded within its bounds.

In criminal matters, his powers — the so-called “pit and gallows” — were comparable to those of the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland's supreme criminal court, save only for cases of treason reserved to the Crown.

Holders of coastal lordships could claim admiralty rights, protected as heritable property rights under Article 19 of the Acts of Union 1707. Slains, set upon the North Sea, belongs precisely to this maritime tradition.

Legal framework · 2000–2004

From high justice to incorporeal property

A Lord of Regality once held high justice over his lands — the so-called “pit and gallows” power, which placed in his hands the life and death of those subject to his lordship. For centuries the dignity remained inseparable from the soil: land and honour were one.

The Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, which came into force on 28 November 2004, recast this edifice. The dignity ceased to be attached to the land and became an “incorporeal heritable property” — a heritable incorporeal property, distinct from the landed estate and henceforth transmissible in its own right. It is under this regime that the Lordship of Regality of Slains now passes, detached from any ground, as a personal honour.

The Lord Lyon King of Arms accompanied this change. By the so-called “Lyon Blair” declaration of 17 December 2002, he announced that from 28 November 2004 he would no longer officially recognise the style of “feudal baron” nor grant baronial additaments. Yet section 62 of the 2000 Act expressly preserved his jurisdiction and prerogative: the Lord Lyon may still matriculate and grant arms to holders of baronial dignities. Scotland's sovereign heraldic authority therefore remains fully competent over the Slains title.

Vocation

The Lord's role today

Stewardship of heritage

Watching over a part of Scotland's national story: its feudal memory, its places and its traditions.

Patronage & works

Supporting cultural institutions and charitable works, in the spirit of the contemporary Scottish baronage.

Heraldic tradition

Keeping alive the life of arms and blazon, under the authority of the Court of the Lord Lyon.

Research & memory

Encouraging research into the genealogy, heraldry and local history of Slains.

Transparency

A distinction openly stated

The Earldom of Erroll, created on 17 March 1452/53 by James II for Sir William Hay, and the peerage titles attached to it — including that of Lord Slains (1452) — remain borne by Merlin Hay, 24th Earl of Erroll and Chief of Clan Hay. To that earldom is still attached the hereditary office of Lord High Constable of Scotland. The House of Slains claims neither the earldom, nor the peerage, nor that office.

The dignity perpetuated here is that of Lord of Regality of Slains: a distinct Scottish feudal honour, registered and armigerous, whose legitimacy rests on contemporary law and matriculation by the Lord Lyon. Two heritages sprung from one root — the Barony of Slains granted to Sir Gilbert Hay after Bannockburn — which have since followed separate paths and must never be conflated.

Arms of the House

Heraldry

The arms of the Lord

Matriculated by the Court of the Lord Lyon, the personal arms of the Lord of Regality of Slains seal every official act of the House.

Serva Jugum
Motto of the House

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The history of the lordship The Chancery