Badge—Pine
(or, according to some,
Cranberry Heath).
With regard to the clan Grant, Mr Skene says,—“Nothing certain is known regarding the origin of the Grants. They have been said to be of Danish, English, French, Norman, and of Gaelic extraction; but each of these suppositions depends for support upon conjecture alone, and amidst so many conflicting opinions it is difficult to fix upon the most probable. It is maintained by the supporters of their Gaelic origin, that they are a branch of the Macgregors, and in this opinion they are certainly borne out by the ancient and unvarying tradition of the country; for their Norman origin, I have upon examination entirely failed in discovering any further reason than that their name may be derived from the French, grand or great, and that they occasionally use the Norman form of de Grant. The latter reason, however, is not of any force, for it is impossible to trace an instance of their using the form de Grant until the 15th century; on the contrary, the form is invariably Grant or le Grant, and on the very first appearance of the family it is ‘dictus Grant.’ It is certainly not a territorial name, for there was no ancient property of that name, and the peculiar form under which it invariably appears in the earlier generations, proves that the name is derived from a personal epithet. It so happens, however, that there was no epithet so common among the Gael as that of Grant, as a perusal of the Irish annals will evince; and at the same time Ragman’s Roll shows that the Highland epithets always appear among the Norman signatures with the Norman ‘le’ prefixed to them. The clan themselves unanimously assert their descent from Gregor Mor Macgregor, who lived in the 12th century; and this is supported by their using to this day the same badge of distinction. So strong is this belief in both the clans of Grant and Macgregor, that in the early part of the last century a meeting of the two was held in the Blair of Athole, to consider the policy of re-uniting them. Upon this point all agreed, and also that the common surname should be Macgregor, if the reversal of the attainder of that name could be got from government. If that could not be obtained it was agreed that either MacAlpine or Grant should be substituted. This assembly of the clan Alpine lasted for fourteen days, and was only rendered abortive by disputes as to the chieftainship of the combined clan. Here then is as strong an attestation of a tradition as it is possible to conceive, and when to this is added the utter absence of the name in the old Norman rolls, the only trustworthy mark of a Norman descent, we are warranted in placing the Grants among the Siol Alpine.”
GRANT.
With Mr Smibert we are inclined to think that, come the clan designation whence it may, the great body of the Grants were Gael of the stock of Alpine, which, as he truly says, is after all the main point to be considered.[220]
The first of the name on record in Scotland is Gregory de Grant, who, in the reign of Alexander II. (1214 to 1249), was sheriff of the shire of Inverness, which then, and till 1583, comprehended Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, besides what is now Inverness-shire. By his marriage with Mary, daughter of Sir John Bisset of Lovat, he became possessed of the lands of Stratherrick, at that period a part of the province of Moray, and had two sons, namely, Sir Lawrence, his heir, and Robert, who appears to have succeeded his father as sheriff of Inverness.
The elder son, Sir Lawrence de Grant, with his brother Robert, witnessed an agreement, dated 9th Sept. 1258, between Archibald, bishop of Moray, and John Bisset of Lovat; Sir Lawrence is particularly mentioned as the friend and kinsman of the latter. Chalmers[221] states that he married Bigla, the heiress of Comyn of Glenchernach, and obtained his father-in-law’s estates in Strathspey, and a connection with the most potent family in Scotland. Douglas, however, in his Baronage,[222] says that she was the wife of his elder son, John. He had two sons, Sir John and Rudolph. They supported the interest of Bruce against Baliol, and were taken prisoners in 1296, at the battle of Dunbar. After Baliol’s surrender of his crown and kingdom to Edward, the English monarch, with his victorious army, marched north as far as Elgin. On his return to Berwick he received the submission of many of the Scottish barons, whose names were written upon four large rolls of parchment, so frequently referred to as the Ragman Roll. Most of them were dismissed on their swearing allegiance to him, among whom was Rudolph de Grant, but his brother, John de Grant, was carried to London. He was released the following year, on condition of serving King Edward in France, John Comyn of Badenoch being his surety on the occasion. Robert de Grant, who also swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296, is supposed to have been his uncle.