Montgomery Tartan

Clan Montgomery

The Montgomeries were a Norman family who came north in the twelfth century. Their descent from Roger de Montgomerie of Normandy is family tradition rather than documented fact. A Robert of Montgomery is usually said to have witnessed a charter to Paisley Abbey in the 1160s, but the sources differ on the year and none of them names the document. The earliest record that can be pointed to firmly is the appearance of Robert Montgomery, knight, and John Montgomery, son of Alan, as witnesses to a gift of land at Hillington in Renfrewshire between 1226 and 1232. John de Montgomery submitted to Edward I on the Ragman Rolls in 1296.

The family’s first lands were at Eaglesham in Renfrewshire, where Polnoon Castle stood. Eglinton and Ardrossan in Ayrshire came through the marriage of Sir John Montgomery to the Eglinton heiress in the later fourteenth century, and the Isle of Arran followed a grant after Sauchieburn in 1488. Sir John had taken Henry Percy prisoner at Otterburn in 1388. The lordship of Montgomerie was created in the 1440s — sources give both 1445 and 1449 — and the earldom of Eglinton in 1507. A long feud with the Cunninghames ran through the 1520s and cost Hugh, 4th Earl, his life in April 1586. The chiefship has never been dormant: the present chief is Hugh Montgomerie, 19th Earl of Eglinton and 7th Earl of Winton, who succeeded in June 2018.

The Montgomery tartan

Two distinct Montgomery setts are recorded, and they are not versions of one another. The older is the black, red, dark purple and green pattern registered as Montgomerie, or Montgomery of Eglinton, which comes from Wilsons of Bannockburn and carries a date of 1819; Wilsons sold it as their Eglinton pattern. The second, a green and dark blue check simply called Montgomery, was first published in the Vestiarium Scoticum of 1842 — the Sobieski Stuart book long since shown to be a forgery — and has no authority earlier than that.

The claim sometimes made that the Ayrshire Montgomeries adopted their tartan around 1707 cannot be true of the Wilsons sett, because Wilsons were not weaving then. The date of 1815 that appears in some retail listings is equally unsupported.

A note on honesty: Modern, Ancient, Weathered, Blue and Blue Green Montgomery are colourways — the same threadcounts in different shades — and not separate tartans. Only the Wilsons Eglinton pattern and the Vestiarium pattern are genuinely different setts. Neither predates the commercial era, and no Montgomery tartan can be traced to the middle ages.

Clan facts

References

1. Montgomery tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Montgomrie / Montgomery of Eglinton — Tartan Dictionary
3. Hillington, Renfrewshire — People of Medieval Scotland
4. Hugh Montgomerie, 19th Earl of Eglinton