Alexander Nisbet

After graduating in 1682, he was employed as a solicitor for a number of years before giving it up in order to devote his full-time to his historical and heraldic studies.

He initially intended to obtain funding via subscription, but finding that this would not produce enough money, he appealed to the Scottish Parliament for help.

Nisbet's System of Heraldry was finally published in 1722, over twenty years after he had first set out to write the work.

He died three years later, likely in poverty, and was buried close to the Nisbet Tomb in Greyfriars Kirk, though the exact location is now lost.

In 1934 his kinsman Robert Chancellor Nesbitt arranged for John Buchan to unveil a memorial plaque in Greyfriars, which can still be seen today.