Clan Drummond

Clan Drummond, in Gaelic Druimeanach, takes its name from the parish of Drymen west of Stirling, the name itself from Gaelic dromainn, a ridge or high ground. The clan’s traditional origin gives it a Hungarian prince called Maurice, said to have come north with Edgar Ætheling in flight from William the Conqueror and to have been received by Malcolm III, who married Edgar’s sister Margaret. That is legend rather than documented descent. Better attested is Sir Malcolm de Drummond at Bannockburn in 1314, credited with scattering caltrops — iron spikes that land with one point uppermost — against the English cavalry, after which Robert the Bruce granted the family lands in Perthshire. Stobhall came to them around 1345 through Sir John Drummond’s marriage to a Montfichet heiress, and John Drummond, 1st Lord Drummond, began Drummond Castle near Crieff in the fifteenth century.

Two episodes mark the clan’s fortunes in opposite directions. In 1367 Annabella Drummond married John Stewart, Earl of Carrick, who became Robert III; she was the mother of James I, born in 1394, and the family was thereafter tied to the crown. On 21 October 1490 came the Massacre of Monzievaird. Around twenty Murrays took refuge in the church there; the Drummonds, led by David Drummond, a younger son of Lord Drummond, set fire to the thatch and killed most of those inside or as they fled. Oral tradition puts the dead as high as 120 including women and children, a figure that is probably inflated. James IV had David Drummond and his ally Duncan Campbell of Dunstaffnage hanged at Stirling. The Jacobite century cost the family more. James Drummond, 2nd Duke of Perth, fought at Sheriffmuir in 1715 and fled to France; his son James, 3rd Duke, was wounded at Culloden in 1746 and died of it. The earldom, forfeited by attainder, was restored by Act of Parliament in 1853.

The Drummond tartan

The Scottish Register of Tartans returns thirteen records under the name Drummond. They include the plain Drummond setts, Drummond Ancient, Drummond Relic, Drummond of Fingask, three Drummond of Perth Dress patterns, a grey version credited to the French collection Clans Originaux, and an entry headed Perthshire or Drummond of Perth. That last title points at where the main sett comes from.

D. W. Stewart’s critique of the old tartan collections records the Drummond of Perth pattern in the 1819 Key Pattern Book of Wilsons of Bannockburn, the Stirlingshire firm that supplied most of the tartan trade from the late eighteenth century. Wilsons listed it under three headings — Perth; Perth or Drummond; and Drummond or Perth — and annotated it “This is the Clan Drummond Tartan”. The same pattern may be the New Perth sett of their 1775 account book. Drummond of Fingask is the same design but for the addition of one fine line. Drummond of Strathallan is a large, complex sett appearing in the Cockburn Collection of 1816–25 labelled simply Drummond.

A note on honesty: the best-known Drummond tartan began life as a town sett. Wilsons wove it and sold it as Perth, a district pattern, before it was a clan pattern, and the Register still carries it under the double name Perthshire or Drummond of Perth. The Strathallan sett is worse: the Register holds it twice, once as Drummond of Strathallan or Ogilvy and once as Ogilvy or Drummond of Strathallen, because two unrelated families claimed the same design and the trade never settled it. Ancient, Modern and Weathered Drummond, as sold today, are dye palettes applied to one threadcount rather than distinct tartans. This is commercial weaving-trade material of the decades after 1745, not a medieval clan uniform.

Clan facts

References

1. Drummond tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Members — The Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs
3. Massacre of Monzievaird, 1490