Blazon of Arms: Azure a Fess Chequy or and Gules in Chief Three Mullets of the Second in Base a Crescent Gold
This is from "The Boyd Family" by the Genealogical Research Institute, Arlington, VA, 1973.
"The family name BOYD illustrates the evolution of names,
for in Old Gaelic (Irish) boidh signifies a person with yellow
hair. Since the Celtic Irish were dark-haired, Boyds were probably
not completely Celtic - many no doubt partly Saxon.
The BOYD family originated in Gloucestershire, England, where
Artorious Pendragon, the King of Arthur of legend, maintained
a stronghold at Cadbury during the fifth century. Arthur
defeated the Saxons at Badon Hill about 450, but after his death
the invading Saxons successfully established themselves there.
Some of the Boyds then fled across the sea to Ireland or to the
west coast of Scotland in search of a new home. At the beginning
of the sixth century there were four groups competing for control
of Scotland: the Picts, an old Caledonian tribe that had resisted
the Romans, and held the central plain of Scotland, the Dalriada,
or Irish lords, who held much of the west coast and the large
outer islands of Scotland; the inhabitants of Ida in Bernicia's
kingdom who held the area between the Tweed and the Firth of
Forth; and finally, some Welsh imigrants, who although few, were
cultured and organized. The Boyds were probably among these last-
they soon allied themselves with the Dalriada and other Irish,
for they were strong swordsmen and skilled seamen.
From these ancient times, then, Boyds held the island of Arran and
a large area of the western Scottish coast called Kilmarnock.
Arran, in the Firth of Clyde, is twenty miles long and about ten
miles wide; a rugged place that bred rugged men. The Boyds,
1from Kilmarnock, have, as the earls of Arran, been among the most
powerful lords of Scotland for centuries. Today there are
approximately twenty-five branches of the Boyd family in Scotland,
all of them concentrated south of the Forth and the Clyde."
From "The BOYD Family" by the Genealogical Research Institute,
Arlington, VA., 1973, pages 4-5
"These powerful BOYDS, a major force in the history of Scotland,
were also related to the royal house of England, through Walter
the Steward (Stuart). The first High Steward of Scotland, he was
an uncle of an earl of Arran; his daughter married King Robert
Bruce, and their descendants became kings of England, Scotland,
and Ireland.
One famous and powerful BOYD was Lady Macbeth, of Shakespeare's
play. In the intrigue that followed her husband's political
machinations the whole Scottish royal house was embroiled; the
throne might have passed to the Boyds but the heir, her nephew,
was crippled in combat--and thus disqualified.
King James III of Scotland was kidnapped by a Lord BOYD in 1466.
The old earl then ruled in the king's stead as governor until
1488. But then the BOYDS lost their power to the English, who,
under Henry VII, were reasserting their power in Scotland after
the end of the long War of the Roses. The feuding Scots were
eventually forced to accept English domination. And so the Boyd
family entered the sixteenth century in a nation politically,
religiously, and economically in a state of great change.
Many Boyds found the strife and unrest in Scotland very difficult
to bear. Presbyterians, they wanted to avoid the persecutions of
the Episcopalian English. Some sailed to Ireland and re-established
themselves there. The BOYDS of Ireland are concentrated around
Ballymacool, in Donegal. All have a common origin in northern
Ayreshire in Scotland and share a common coat of arms dating back
to about the year 1200. Several Boyds immigrated to America from
Ireland in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries."
