[Chad Arnow]

John de Balliol (aka King John of Scotland) was the person appointed King of Scots by Edward I of England during a succession dispute in the late 13th century. John was undermined by Edward, who pulled most of the strings. Balliol was forced to give up the throne. William Wallace and others actually fought on behalf of Balliol early in the war of independence.

John is often called "Toom Tabard", meaning empty cloak, supposedly for his lack of real authority. Others say the nickname comes from when the coat of arms of Scotland was formally torn from his clothing when he abdicated the throne.

But....

I had a thought a while back while looking through a book of mine. A dagger had been identified as belonging to Balliol's cousin Alexander. It bears a heraldic charge on its pommel: argent, an orle gules (on a silver or white background, the outline of a shield in red). An orle is the outline of a shield. This book also states that the orle was used frequently by members of the Balliol family, including King John, though the color of the orle and the color of the background changed from family member to family member.

Is it possible that nickname of "Toom Tabard" can be attributed in any way to a heraldic charge that is essentially an empty shield, being just an outline of one? Could the nickname be a play on that?

Here's a 16th century image of King John, with his coat of arms (from Wikipedia):

[Chad Arnow]

No thoughts on this? Oh well.

[J.D. Crawford]

Chad, I'll try:

I thought a tabard was something more like a shirt - at least that's how I've seen it translated in popular history books (Empty Shirt). Would heraldry really appear on a tabard?

But speculating, If your theory is right, it could have originated as a play on words and then stuck for its other meaning. I doubt the nickname would have stuck if it did not have a nasty connotation related to the man's political status.

-JD

[Chad Arnow]

The term tabard has also been used for garments worn over amour in certain periods. Here's some Wikipedia info (which may not be accurate, of course, since it's Wikipedia):

[Lin Robinson]

[Chad Arnow]

Lin,
Thanks for the reply. You confirmed one of the two theories I've seen published, and though I knew the rest of the story, it was still nice to read your concise version of the events.

I suppose it may be as simple as being stripped of the coat of arms, though some still hold to the "lack of authority" story. I still think it's interesting that a basically-empty heraldic charge is associated with the family, but I suppose we'll never know for sure if that played any part in the enduring nickname.

[Justin King]

I came across a reference from Andrew Wyntoun's "Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland" (complete with period spelling) that touches on this-just to note, I did double-check the spelling and capitalization which have some odd inconsitencies even within the space of this passage. If you want your wife to think you have gone insane, try reading this aloud phonetically.


"This Johun the Balliol dispoyilyeide he
Off al his robis and royalte,
The pellour that tuk out his tabart,
Tuyme Tabart he was callit efftirwart
Amd all othir insignyis
That fel to kynge on ony wise,
Bathe septure suerde, crowne and rynge,
Fra this Johun, that he made Kynge,
Hallely fra hym, he tuk thar
And mad hym of his Kynrick bare"

I came across this reference in Alan Young's "Robert the Bruce's Rivals: The Comyns, 1212-1314", which provides some interesting perspectives and some less-common history concerning the political realities in Scotland preceding and during the Wars of Independance. The original sources we do have for this area of history tend to write from a perspective that is pro-Bruce and therefore cast the Comyns as villains to a large extent, and have probably distorted our understanding of these events and the social and political climate in which they took place.

[J. Scott Moore]

[Justin King]

What I find interesting is that you can actually read the Scots accent in the some of the words, the atrocious spelling which is notorious in old Scots and old English is often phonetically unique to the region and accent of the writer.

[James R.Fox]

Sirs- The reason the spelling was the same is that the lowland scots and the northumbreans were originally inhabitants of the Saxon Kingdom of Norhumbria, which was not finally split into English and Scots portions untill the days of William the Bastard, and his son William Rufus, who completed the split by conquering Cumbria from Scotland.Many lowland scots famlies, like the Bruces, held land in borh kingdoms.For this reason they spoke the same dialect of english, a fact often remarked on by the historians of the period,