17th century royal coat of arms within Petersfield Museum, Hampshire. Petersfield Museum is housed in the town's old courthouse and police station. Coat of arms of Kings Charles II and King James II, differenced by a baton sinister argent, denoting bastardy. Thus it is the coat of arms of one of the illegitimate sons of either King Charles II (1660-1685) of England, or of his younger brother and successor, James II (1685-1688). Possibly for the eldest son of Charles II, namely James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, who used a baton sinister argent, later with an inescutcheon of Scott (of Buccleuch) over it. However, the royal crown above suggests the arms of a monarch, as the arms of an illegitimate son of a monarch would display only a coronet. The Latin motto Per Mare Per Terras ("by sea, by lands") is that of the Scottish Clan of MacDonald, but also similar to that of the Royal Marines (given in the singular as Per Mare Per Terram("by sea, by land")), founded by the Duke of York and Albany (later James II of England) in 1664. However the motto was not adopted by the Royal Marines until 1775 (Battle of Bunker Hill, see below), over a century later, during the reign of the Georgian monarchs, when the royal arms had changed form from the royal arms of the Stuart monarchs as in the Petersfield Museum example. James II, younger brother of King Charles II, also had illegitimate sons, to whom these arms might therefore relate. The Clan MacDonald played a leading role in the support of Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-1788), the "Young Pretender", the grandson of King James II. Text from [1]:

"When Bonnie Prince Charlie fled from his defeat at Culloden in April 1746, the Government put a bounty on his head at £30,000. Fleeing across the Scottish moors and mountains, with Government troops in close pursuit, the young prince eventually came to the western shores where he boarded a boat to Skye disguised as Flora MacDonald’s handmaiden, Betty Burke. Thanks to the help of loyal supporters, the defeated prince eventually managed to sail to France from Loch nan Uamh in Lochaber".

Text from museum's website[2]: "The mystery of the Coat of Arms. The coat of arms used to hang over the mantlepiece in the Magistrate’s retiring room" (the museum building used to be used as a courthouse) "When it was restored by Hampshire Museum Service it was discovered that it was a duke’s coat of arms. The unicorn had paws, not hooves, as it was originally a greyhound with the unicorn’s head being added later. Investigations by the College of Arms in London revealed that the baton across the centre was used as a mark of esteem" (sic, should be "mark of difference") "for the illegitimate children of Charles II. Yet even with this new information, we still do not know who the coat of arms belonged to as its motto is written over an older original, which has no connection with a Duke’s arms."

Discussion of similarity of Clan MacDonald motto to that of the Royal Marines. The following text is here reproduced from highcouncilofclandonald.com[3]:

Per Mare Per Terram by Donald J. Macdonald of Castleton. This motto, made famous over the last 200 years by the Royal Marine Corps, is so like our own Clan motto that I am sure many of us. have wondered if, by any chance, there was some real connection other than co-incidental, it being so obviously suited to both of us. In September 1974 a letter from the Curator, Royal Marine Museum, Southsea, was passed to me for my attention by the Clan Donald Lands Trust, which read as follows:

It has been suggested to us that you may be able to assist us in establishing a connection between the motto of Clan Donald and that of the Royal Marines – Per Mare Per Terram. It may only be coincidence that the two are so close, but we have been puzzled by this for a long time.

The first mention, known to us, of the Marines use of their motto dates from the Battle of Bunker Hill, in 1775. At that time, there were five officers with the name of McDonald commissioned in the Corps; and in 1760, the date of our earliest list, five others are recorded. We wonder, from this, whether there was a clan tradition of service with the Corps.

We would be interested to know whether the McDonald motto may have also been the war-cry of the McDonalds of Sleat. We believe that many members of the branch emigrated to America after 1745 and enlisted with the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment at the outbreak of the American War of Independence. We know of one instance where the Emigrants and Marines certainly served together during this war; and we have reason to believe that some of the Sleat McDonalds joined the Corps.

We would be very interested in any information you could give, which might help us in our research.

I replied at once expressing our interest in the matter and giving a resume of what we knew of the connection with our Clan in the person of Ranald, 3rd son of Flora and Alan of Kingsburgh, who served in the Corps from 1775 to 1782. According to our records Ranald and his brother, Alexander were both lost at sea in the Ville de Paris, being members of a prize crew put aboard to bring that fine ship to England. She foundered with all hands in September 1782 outward bound from Nova Scotia.

In reply to my letter I received by return the following letter from Major Alastair Donald, Archivist of the Royal Marines Museum. His name, no doubt, made him take a personal interest in the matter.

10 October 1974

Dear Mr Macdonald

On receipt of your letter of 3 October I felt I could no longer remain in the background, because I too have always been fascinated by the similarity between the Clan and Corps mottoes. I was interested to know that you have a son in law in the Corps. Perhaps you will let me know who he is and where he is at present serving.

We also found your information about the fate of members of the clan after the ’45 most interesting.

We are aware of Ranald Macdonald’s service in the Marines (The Corps did not become Royal until 1802) and it is in consequence of correspondence concerning him that we have decided to pursue the question of the motto.

With reference to the loss of the two brothers in the Ville de Paris in 1782. I suggest that Alexander’s presence in the ship was something that the two brothers had managed to arrange and that he was not actually serving with the Marines at the time.

I do not know of any cases of infantry officers being seconded to serve with Marines at this time. It was, however, quite common for ships detachments to be found from infantry regiments, when Marines were not available.

In addition to Ranald, we have traced nine other Macdonalds who were commissioned in the Corps between 1760 and 1800. We have found no MacDonnells.

We have little or no information about the background of any of these officers as the only details that exist are those in our printed list of officers. We are therefore only able to prepare details of their seniority in each rank held and the companies in the Divisions (Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth) to which they were posted. We are not at present interested in obtaining further information on these ourselves, but merely thought the large number who served in the Corps at this time may have had some bearing on our adopting the clan motto. Should you, however, wish to have these limited details, please let us know

Between 1775 and 1827, when the present motto was officially recognised and borne on the colours, five mottoes were used by the Corps. In 1775 Per Mare et Terram was in use; in 1803 Per Mare Terramque Vincimus; in 1806 Ubique, per mare per terram. In 1775 Nee Aspera Terrent was also used, in common with many Army regiments.

Your sincerely,

Sgd. Alastair Donald Corps Archivist