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The Cummings claim descent
from Richard Cumyn, a Norman noble whose descendants migrated into Scotland, from England
in the reign of David I, 1124-53. William de Comyn received a grant of land in Roxburgh
and in 1133 he was appointed Chancellor of Scotland by David I. A later descendant,
William married the heiress , Marjory, Countess of Buchan in 1210 and became Earl of
Buchan. His son became Earl of Menteith and acquired the Lordship of Badenoch by grant of
Alexander II. His nephew , John known as "Red Comyn" was the father of
"Black Comyn" who was one of the six guardians of Scotland during the minority
of the Maid of Norway and later became a competitor for the Crown of Scotland. He married
Marjory, sister of John Baliol and their son John was also known as "Red Comyn".
John followed Baliol in the struggle against King Robert the Bruce and was killed by the
King's followers in the church of the minorities in Dumfries in 1306. From then on the
power of the Cummings declined and they never again regained that power. Their estates
were forfeited and the main line died out with John, son of John, the "Red Comyn"
in 1325. The Comyns of Altyre became the chiefs of the clan and through the 19th century
marrying the Gordons of Gordonstoun this name became Gordon-Cumming.
Another Account of the Clan
BADGE: Lus mhic Chuimein (cuminum)
Cumin plant.
 THERE
was no greater name in Scotland towards the end of the thirteenth century
than that of Comyn. With their headquarters in Badenoch the chiefs and
gentlemen of the clan owned broad lands in nearly every part of Scotland,
and the history of the time is full of their deeds and the evidences of
their influence.
Writers who seek to derive
this clan from a Celtic source cite the existence of two abbots of lona of
the name who held office in the years 597 and 657 respectively. The later
of these was known as Comyn the Fair, and from one or other of them the
name of Fort Augustus, "Ku Chuimein," was probably derived.
Another origin of the family is recounted by Wyntoun in his Cronykil of
Scotland. According to this writer there was at the court of Malcolm
III. a young foreigner. His occupation was that of Door-ward or usher of
the royal apartment, but, to begin with, he knew only two words of the
Scottish language, "Cum in," and accordingly became known by
that name. He married the only daughter of the king’s half-brother
Donald, and his descendants therefore represented the legitimate line of
the old Celtic kings of Scotland, as against the illegitimate line
descending from Malcolm III. The Comyns themselves claim descent from
Robert de Comyn, Earl of Northumberland, who fell along with Malcolm III.
at the battle of Alnwick in 1093. That Robert de Comyn, again, claimed
descent, through the Norman Counts de Comyn, from no less a personage than
Charlemagne. The probability appears to be that a scion of the house of
Northumberland came north in the days of Malcolm III., and obtained lands
in the county of Roxburgh, where one of the name is found settled in the
reign of Malcolm’s son, David I.
No record is left of the
family’s rise to influence and power, but in the course of the next two
hundred years the Comyns managed to make themselves by far the most
powerful house in Scotland. Richard de Comyn stood high in the service of
William the Lion, and his son William, marrying Marjory, Countess of
Buchan, became lord of that great northern earldom. In the days of King
Alexander II., Comyn, the great lord of Kilbride, and his wife, were the
chief builders of Glasgow cathedral. By this fact appears to hang a pretty
and pathetic tale. When the great work was half done Comyn died. His wife,
however, in loving faithfulness completed the building, which may be
taken, almost as it stands to-day, as a monument of her wifely love and
faith. It is an interesting fact that there exist in the lower church
which they built two fine likenesses of the Comyn Lord of Kilbride and his
lady, carved in stone. Along with them is a life-like carved head of
Alexander II. himself, and the three are believed to be the earliest
existing portraits of historic personages in Scotland. The building of
Glasgow cathedral above referred to took place about the year 1258, and
some idea of the enduring quality of the work may be gathered from the
fact that the oaken timbers of the roof, taken down some few years ago,
remained as sound as on the day when the Lord of Kilbride and his lady saw
them placed in position on the shrine.
A few years later, in the
reign of Alexander III., there were in Scotland, according to the
historian Fordun, three powerful earls, Buchan, Menteith, and Atholl, and
no fewer than thirty-two knights of the name of Comyn. There was also
Comyn, Lord of Strathbogie. As Lords of Badenoch they owned the formidable
stronghold of Lochindorb in that district, and a score of castles
throughout the country besides. Stories of their deeds and achievements
well nigh fill the annals of the north of that time. In the boyhood of
Alexander III., when Henry III. of England was doing his best by fraud and
force to bring Scotland under his power, it was Walter Comyn, Earl of
Menteith, who stood out as the most patriotic of all the Scottish nobles
to resist the attempts of the English king. When Henry, at the marriage of
his daughter to the boy-king of Scots, suggested that the latter should
render fealty for the kingdom of Scotland, it was probably Walter Comyn
who put the answer into Alexander’s mouth "That he had come into
England upon a joyful and pacific errand, and would not treat upon so
arduous a question without the advice of the Estates of his realm."
And when Henry marched towards the Scottish Border at the bead of an army,
it was Walter Comyn who collected a Scottish host, and made the English
king suddenly modify his designs. Alas! at the very moment when he seemed
to have achieved his purpose, when the English faction had been driven
out, and Alexander and the Comyns, with the queen-mother, the famous Marie
de Couci, had established a powerful government in Scotland, the Earl of
Menteith suddenly died. The incident was tragic. In England it was
said his death had been caused by a fall from his horse, but the truth
appears to be that an English baron named Russell had won the affections
of Comyn’s wife, and that she poisoned her husband to make way for her
paramour. It is agreeable to know that Russell and the faithless countess
were shortly afterwards hounded from the kingdom. From that time the
Earldom of Menteith appears to have passed into other hands, successively
Bullocks, Stewarts, and Grahams.
On the death of the Maid of
Norway, the infant queen of Scotland, in the year 1290, John Comyn, Lord
of Badenoch, known popularly as the Black Comyn, was one of the twelve
claimants to the Scottish throne, and the tradition of the marriage of the
young Comyn of Malcolm III.’s time with the daughter of Donald, King
Duncan’s legitimate son, is proved to be authentic by the fact that the
Lord of Badenoch’s claim to the throne was based upon that descent. He
was among the knights who supported King John Baliol against Edward I.’s
invasion in 1297, but was one of those forced to surrender in the castle
of Dunbar after the defeat of the Scots at that place.
On the patriot Wallace
giving up the governorship of Scotland after his defeat at the battle of
Falkirk, John Comyn, the younger of Badenoch, otherwise the Red Comyn, was
chosen as one of the two governors of Scotland, and in 1302, he, along
with Sir Simon Fraser, defeated three English armies in one day at the
famous battle of Roslin. By way of reprisal Edward, a few months later,
marched another army into the north, and took Comyn’s great stronghold
of Lochindorb. Comyn, nevertheless, afterwards bravely carried on a
guerilla warfare against several invasions by the English king. Finally,
however, defeated at the passage of the Forth., where Wallace had won his
great victory of Stirling Bridge, Comyn was forced to surrender.
In these wars against
Edward of England the Red Cornyn had a very personal interest. His mother
was Marjory, sister of King John Baliol, and accordingly he had an
immediate claim to the throne of Scotland should anything happen to King
John’s sons, the young Edward and Henry Baliol, at that time minors and
captives. This Claim was superior to that of Robert the Bruce, and
inevitably brought these two great families, the Comyns and the Bruces,
into bitter conflict. Comyn had further reason to look with hope on his
chance of succeeding to the crown. He had married Johanna, daughter of
William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, whose mother was Isabella, widow of
John, King of England, grandfather of Edward I.
There were also other
immediate causes of feud between the Comyns and the Bruces. After the
crown had been awarded to Baliol the Bruces kept apart from public
affairs, maintained allegiance to Edward I., and, living mostly in
England, kept possession of their great estates. Baliol and the Comyns, on
the other hand, fighting hard for the independence of Scotland, suffered
both in liberty and land. Resenting Bruce’s inaction, Baliol confiscated
his estate of Annandale, and gave it to John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, who
forthwith seized and occupied Bruce’s great stronghold of Lochmaben.
This insult the Bruces never forgave. At the same time it probably rankled
in the Red Comyn’s mind that, while he himself, who had the better claim
to the throne, and had done and suffered so much for Scotland, was
regarded with disfavour, the Bruces, who had consulted only their own ease
and interest, and had maintained allegiance to the English king, should
have been practically promised the reversion of the Scottish crown by
Edward I.
Matters were in this state
when, according to Wyntoun, the two barons found themselves riding
together from Stirling. The question of the claim to the throne was
broached, and Bruce, it is said, made the proposal that one of them should
give his estates to the other, and be supported by that other in an
attempt for the crown. Comyn, Wyntoun says, agreed to give up his claim to
the throne and accept Bruce’s lands, and, as a result of the compact,
became acquainted with the plans and alliances Bruce was forming for his
attempt. Then, when Bruce was at the English court, Comyn revealed the
matter to Edward I.
This may be merely a
popular tale, but nothing else has been brought forward to account for
what followed.
Bruce, it is said,
questioned at court by Edward I., asked leave to go to his lodging for
papers proving his innocence. There he received a warning from his young
kinsman, the Earl of Gloucester, who sent him a feather or a pair of
spurs, and forthwith he fled to the north. Five days later, as he crossed
the Border, he met a messenger of Comyn’s on his way to the English
court. The man was slain and the letter seized upon him proved the
treachery of Comyn. A few days later—it was in the month of February,
1305—the two great barons met at the Justice Ayre in Dumfries. To
discuss their difference they retired to the church of the Minorites,
which had been built by Comyn’s grandmother, the famous Devorgilla,
heiress of the ancient Lords of Galloway. There, as all the world knows,
question, reproach, and retort ended in Bruce losing his temper, drawing
his dagger, and stabbing the Red Comyn in the throat. The deed was
completed by Bruce’s henchman, Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, with the
unforgotten exclamation "I mak siccar," and Sir Robert Comyn,
uncle of the slain man, who rushed in to save him, met the same fate.
It was this act which drove
Bruce to open war, and brought about the ultimate freedom of Scotland; but
during the struggle which ensued the king again and again paid bitterly
for the rash deed he had done at the high altar of the Minorites in
Dumfries. Alexander of Argyll had married the Red Comyn’s daughter, and
for that reason his son, John of Lorne, was Bruce’s bitterest foe, and
more than once put the king to the utmost peril of his life. John of
Lorne, of course, was overcome at last, and his descendants survive only
as private gentlemen, the MacDougalls of Dunolly. The same fate sooner or
later overtook all the other connections of the great house of Comyn. The
Comyns themselves, under the leadership of Comyn, Earl of Buchan, were
finally defeated by Bruce at the battle of Inverury. For many days, sick
to death, the king had been carried about in a litter, and the hearts of
his followers had begun to fail, when the Earl of Buchan and Sir David of
Brechin made the attack; whereupon the king, calling for his warhorse,
mounted, led his little force to battle, and vanquished his sickness and
his enemies the Comyns at the same time. Buchan fled to England, while
Bruce burned his earldom from end to end to such effect
That eftir that,
weile fifty yheir,
Men menyt "the Heirsehip of Bouchane."
The son of the Red Comyn
was the last of his line, and about the time of his death the collateral
branch which held the earldom of Buchan also became extinct.
In the churchyard of
Bourtie is to be seen the effigy of a knight said to have been one of the
Comyns slain in the battle of Inverury.
Gradually throughout the
country the Comyns were supplanted by other families. An instance of this
is the occurrence enshrined in the tradition regarding the transference of
Castle Grant on Speyside to the family of its present owners. According to
tradition a younger son of Grant of Stratherrick eloped with a daughter of
a Macgregor chief. With thirty followers the pair fled to Strathspey, and
found a hiding-place in a cavern not far from the castle, then known as
Freuchie. The Comyns naturally looked with disfavour upon such an
invasion, and tried to dislodge the band, but Grant kept possession of the
cave. Then Macgregor descended Strathspey at the head of a party of his
clan, and demanded his daughter. His son-in-law was astute. Receiving him
with every show of respect, he contrived in the torchlight and among the
shadows of the wood to make his men appear a much larger following than
his father-in-law had supposed, and a complete reconciliation took place.
Grant then pushed his advantage farther. He complained of the attacks of
the Comyns, and induced Macgregor to join in an assault on Freuchie. By
stratagem and valour they took the stronghold; the chief of the Comyns was
slain in the attack, and his skull remains a trophy in possession of the
Earl of Seafield to the present day.
The Comyns at Dunphail had
a similar fate, which is well told by Mr. George Bain in his book on the
Findhorn. When Bruce’s nephew, Thomas Randolph, was made Earl of Moray,
the Comyns found their old privileges as Rangers of the king’s forest of
Darnaway restricted. By way of reprisal the Comyns set out, a thousand
strong, under the leadership of young Alastair of Dunphail, to burn
Randolph’s new great hall at Darnaway. The force, however, was ambushed
by the Earl at Whitemire, and cut to pieces. Young Alastair Comyn fought
his way to the Findhorn. He found the further bank lined by the Earl’s
men, but, throwing his standard among them with the shout "Let the
bravest keep it," he leapt the chasm at the spot wrongly called
Randolph’s Leap, and with four of his followers made his escape. Moray
then besieged Alastair’s father in his Castle of Dunphail, and brought
the garrison to starvation point. On a dark night, however, the young man
managed to heave some bags of meal from a high bank into the stronghold.
Next day, by means of a bloodhound, he was tracked to a cave on the Divie.
He begged to be allowed out to die by the sword, but was smoked to death
by the Earl’s men. Then the heads of himself and his companions were
thrown into his father’s courtyard, with the shout " Here is beef
for your bannocks." The old chief took up the head of his son.
"It is indeed a bitter morsel," he said, "but I will gnaw
the last bone of it before I surrender." In the end the little
garrison, driven by hunger, sallied out and were cut to pieces. Early in
the nineteenth century the minister of Edinkilly found the skeletons of
young Alastair and his companions, seven in number, at a spot still known
from the fact as the "grave of the headless Comyns."
The Comyns were still
powerful, however, after Bruce’s time. Edward III., when he overran
Scotland in the interest of Edward Baliol, made David Comyn, Earl of
Atholl, governor of the country. It was he whom Bruce’s brother-in-law,
Sir Andrew Moray, overthrew and slew at the battle of Kilblene, and it was
his countess whom Moray was besieging in the stronghold of Lochindorb when
word arrived that the English king and his army were at hand. Moray, it is
said, put courage into his little force by waiting to adjust his girths,
and even to mend a thong of his armour, before retreating. But he knew the
passes of the Findhorn, and led his little company into safety across the
river at Randolph’s Leap.
At a later day the Comyns
had descended to be merely a warring clan among the clans. In their feud
with the Mackintoshes it was they who attempted to drown the latter out by
raising the waters round the castle in Loch Moy, when the attempt was
defeated by a Mackintosh clansmen issuing on a raft at night, breaking the
barrier, and letting the flood loose upon the besiegers. On another
occasion the Comyns, pretending peace, invited the Mackintoshes to a feast
at Rait Castle, where at a secret signal, each Comyn clansman was to stab
a Mackintosh to the heart. But Comyn’s daughter had revealed the plot to
her Mackintosh lover; the Mackintoshes gave the signal first, and the
plotters were hoist with their own petard.
Still another incident of
the long feud with the Mackintoshes arose out of jealousy regarding a fair
dame of the time. Comyn of Badenoch had reason to resent the attentions
paid to his wife by his neighbour, Mackintosh of Tyrinie, and the feeling
reached its climax when Mackintosh presented the lady with no less a gift
than a bull and twelve cows. Cornyn, thinking it time to interfere,
invited Mackintosh and his followers to a feast, and slew them all. As the
Comyns were slowly ousted by their Mackintosh and Macpherson neighbours
they were driven to wild and lawless deeds, and on one occasion, in
reprisal, Alexander Macpherson, known as the Revengeful, slew nine of
their chief men in a cave to which they had resorted for hiding.
The Comyns, however, were
not altogether extinguished by the warfare and feuds in which they played
so striking and unfortunate a part. In the eighteenth century their chief
was a simple gentleman, Cumming of Altyre on the Findhorn. He represented
the knight who fell with his chief, the Red Comyn, in the church of the
Minorites at Dumfries. That knight was Sir Robert Comyn, fourth son of
John, Lord of Badenoch, who died about 1275. Early in the eighteenth
century, Robert Cumming of Altyre married Lucy, daughter of Sir Ludovic
Gordon, Bart., of Gordonstown, lineally descended from William, Earl of
Sutherland and his wife the Princess Margaret, daughter of King Robert the
Bruce, and from George, Earl of Huntly, and his wife, the Princess Jean,
daughter of King James I. Robert Cumming's great-great-grandson, Alexander
Penrose Cumming, through this connection inherited the estate of
Gordonstown, near Elgin, assumed the name of Gordon, and was created a
baronet in 1804. He was M.P. for the Dumfries burghs. The second baronet
was member for the Elgin burghs at the time of the Reform Bill. He married
a daughter of Campbell of Islay and granddaughter of John, Duke of Argyll,
by his duchess, the famous beauty, Elizabeth Gunning. His second son was
Roualeyn George, the famous lion-hunter, while his youngest daughter is
the well-known traveller and author, Miss Constance F. Gordon-Cumming, and
the present baronet is his grandson.
Sir William Gordon-Cumming,
Bart., of Altyre, is the fourth holder of the title. He succeeded his
father in 1866, and saw active service as a Captain and Lieut.Colonel of
the Scots Fusilier Guards. He holds the medal with clasp for the South
African Campaign of 1879, the medal with clasp and the bronze star for the
Egyptian Campaign of 1882, and two clasps for the Nile Expedition of 1884.
His possessions in the county, some 38,500 acres, are considerable for a
private gentleman, but will hardly compare with the vast possessions once
owned by his ancestors, the great chiefs of the Comyns of the days of King
Alexander III.
It should be added that a
considerable body of the Comyns at one time, taking offence at being
refused interment in the family burial-place, changed their name to
Farquharson, as descendants of Ferquhard, son of Alexander, sixth laird of
Altyre, in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Septs of Clan Comyn: Buchan,
MacNiven, Niven.
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