Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 39 on 23/06/2008.

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The Clan Grant

James Irvine Robertson turns his attention to another of Scotland's family lines.

Like most clans in Scotland, the origin of Clan Grant is obscure.

One of the defining characteristics of Highland families is ancestral pride and arrogance. This has often driven them to embrace exotic and distinguished lineages, although the Mackenzies may have gone a bit over the top when claiming the god Coinneach, the Bright One, as their progenitor. However, any clan founder must have been a mighty individual, even if he is sometimes hard to pin down.

Based on an 18th century manuscript, the Grants now believe that their earliest discernable ancestor was Griotgardof Yriar from Norway, whose descendants, by a roundabout route via England and Ireland, found themselves in possession of lands in Inverness-shire. However, the traditional descent was through Sir William le Grant who married into the powerful Anglo-Norman Bissets and thus won possession of a manor in England.

An offshoot of the Bissets came north with a Grant before 1200, in the reign of William the Lyon. The Bissets were granted immense estates in north east Scotland, but these were forfeit in 1242 after Walter de Bysett unsportingly murdered the Earl of Atholl after being beaten by him at a tournament in Haddington.

But by then the Grants had acquired Stratherrick in the province of Moray through a Bisset marriage and were a power in their own right with William le Grant becoming Sheriff of Inverness in 1258.

Profitable marriages continued; Sir Iain, also Sheriff of Inverness, married an heiress of Gilbe.....

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By James Irvine Robertson

Section : Scotland Clans

Page number : 52