Clan Grant - an outline history

(The name Grant was adopted as a surname in the late 1100s, so the term proto-Grant is used for previous generations of direct male ancestors.)

1. Foreign progenitors: The earliest definite ancestor we can pin down is Griotgard of Yriar - an area at the mouth of Trondheim Fjord in Norway. His ancestry is not completely clear, but MT etc. claim him as a descendant of the kings of East Anglia. His great grandson was Hakon the Great, who ruled Norway 970-995. Hakon's son Eric and Eric's son Hakon went to England to help Canute rule there. Hakon died early and his son Heming found himself exiled from England by Edward the Confessor and then landless in Ireland after Dairmit overran Dublin in 1052. He returned with his children to England where he remarried. Heming's daughters from his first marriage found husbands in Norway, while his sons both came to Scotland - Swein, the younger, being the progenitor of the Ruthvens and Olav (or Amlaim as it is in Irish), the elder, the progenitor of all the so-called "Siol Alpin". The children of his second family stayed and prospered in England.

2. Arrival in Scotland: Olav was put on the Scotland/Moray border by Malcolm Canmore - the area now known as Granish at the head of Strathspey. He later acquired the area round loch Freuchie (near Pitlochry) by marriage to a descendant of Giric (otherwise "Prince Gregor") and of Alpin. He was highly placed: One daughter married Donalbane, another into the Dunbars. His second son was a progenitor of the MacGregors and his third son of the Mackinnons (the other "Siol Alpin" clans seem to be septs of these family lines), while his heir, Patrick, was in the line which became the Grants.[Note: in all cases the adoption of the surnames and the development of the "clans" came some generations later.]

3. Early losses: By choosing the losing side in Edgar's successful usurpation of 1097/8, the proto-Grant line's lands were forfeit and broken up and they were beholden to the Mormaers/Earls of Moray and then the MacDuffs for any standing until 1174 when Shaw MacDuff used his position of temporary power in the North to install Allan as forerunner of Sheriff in Inverness, leasing him Stratherrick and giving him Devorguilla in marriage. Allan it was who adopted the surname and is counted as the first Chief of Grant.

4. Consolidation: The Grants were "well in with" the Bissets until their fall - even managing to prosper thereby. They then attached themselves to the Comyns and might well have suffered in the Comyns' fall, but for the alliance, through marriage, with the Bruce-allied Stewarts (causing a 100-year feud with the neighbouring Comyns). With the Stewart connection, further preferment followed; Stratherrick was disposed of, the Grants consolidating in Strathspey through the 1400s.

5. Clansmen take the name: So far the name Grant applied to the blood descendants of the chiefs and their families, but in 1483 when James III required the clans to support him at the siege of Berwick, the bulk of the clansmen took the surname too. From that date on it is useful to think in terms of the Clan Grant as such.

6. Peak of Grant Power: Grant support for the Crown led to their being highly trusted, so in a curious revisiting of the Malcolm Canmore scenario, Grants were again posted on the margins - in this case given Glenmoriston and Glenurquhart by James IV in 1509 in an attempt to pacify it and bring it under state control. This found its culmination in the creation of the Regality of Grant in 1694 and the characterisation of Ludovick as the "Highland King". But this never proved very successful. Later the keenly Protestant Chiefs were less than fully successful in converting the Great Glen men, and later still they were not in a position to enforce their instructions to withhold any support for the Jacobites in 1745.

7. Decline: Due to uncompensated financial losses incurred against the Jacobites, the Grants never really recovered properly, finding support in Ogilvie largesse by the turn of the 19th century. The close relationship between these families had been cemented by two marriages, the latter of which was to bring the Earldom of Seafield to the Grants, later given due recognition by the adoption of the name Ogilvie-Grant. Although by this time the clan system as such was really over, this bought three more generations of security for the chiefs until the next bad mistakes - the disentailment of the estates followed by the enforced exile of the Grant Chiefs in New Zealand for long enough to break all real connection between the Chiefs and their Strathspey homeland. It is this divorce which has allowed the revisionist histories to survive so largely unchallenged for so long.

8. Renaissance: This setting the record straight coincides with our Chief's grasping an opportunity to move back into Strathspey. The old ways will not return and so it will be a matter of democratic determination - the will of the clansmen as a whole, not of one autocratic individual - whether we shall be able to reconnect with our heritage and, proud of our forebears, work together to stamp our mark worthily.