Clan Cumming

History

The surname Comyn, later Cumming, reached Scotland with Norman settlers. It is usually linked to Comines, near Lille. The family prospered under David I and his successors, and in the time of Alexander III the Comyns held the earldoms of Buchan and Menteith as well as the lordship of Badenoch. That lordship came to them through Walter Comyn, and Ruthven was its chief stronghold.

In the later thirteenth century few families in Scotland stood higher. John Comyn II of Badenoch, called the Black Comyn, served as one of the Guardians of Scotland after Alexander III died. His son John, the Red Comyn, was a nephew of John Balliol and a rival to Robert the Bruce for influence, and perhaps for the crown.

The quarrel ended in the Greyfriars church at Dumfries on 10 February 1306, where the Red Comyn was killed, either by Bruce or by his followers. Bruce then took the crown. The Comyns stayed on the Balliol side. Their cousin John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, was defeated by Bruce at Barra in 1308 and the family's great estates were broken up. The name lived on, but the power was gone.

The line that became chiefly is the Cummings of Altyre, near Forres in Moray. Tradition traces them to Sir Robert Comyn, a knight said to have died beside the Red Comyn at Dumfries. A clan society account says the chiefs descend from this line. Older writers differ over the details, and the early generations are not well documented.

In 1795 Alexander Penrose Cumming of Altyre succeeded his cousin, Sir William Gordon, to the Gordonstoun estate and took the additional surname Gordon. He was created a baronet in 1804, of Altyre. That is why the chiefs of Clan Cumming have been Gordon-Cummings since.

Cumming and Comyn are now spread widely across Scotland and the Scottish diaspora. Many people with these names have no clear link to Altyre, and Cummins and Cummings also arise elsewhere. Clan societies, including one in North America, now keep the connection alive, and the chiefly family remains at Altyre.