Clan Montgomery

History

Clan tradition, as told by the Clan Montgomery Society, traces the family to Roger de Montgomery, a Norman lord prominent in the circle of William the Conqueror. His grandson, Robert de Montgomery, is said to have travelled north into Scotland in the household of Walter fitzAlan, the steward who founded the Stewart royal line, and to have received lands at Eaglesham in Renfrewshire from David I in the twelfth century. Written evidence for this period is thin, as it is for most clan origin stories, but Eaglesham remained the family's base for the next two hundred years.

The family's fortunes changed in 1388. At the Battle of Otterburn, Sir John Montgomery is said to have captured Sir Henry Percy — 'Hotspur' — in single combat, and Percy's ransom reportedly paid for a new stronghold at Polnoon, near Eaglesham. Around the same time, Sir John married Elizabeth, heiress of Sir Hugh Eglinton, bringing the baronies of Eglinton and Ardrossan in Ayrshire into the family. Eglinton rather than Eaglesham became the Montgomerys' principal seat from this point, and in 1507 Hugh Montgomery was created Earl of Eglinton, a title the family still holds.

Eglinton Castle was rebuilt more than once over the following centuries. The ruins that survive today are of a large castellated Georgian mansion, commissioned by the 12th Earl and completed in 1802. It did not last: a costly new harbour venture at Ardrossan drained the family's money, the house fell into disrepair, its roof was stripped in the 1920s, and the remaining shell was pulled down decades later. Eaglesham fared better. In 1769 Alexander Montgomerie, 10th Earl of Eglinton, began laying out the old kirktoun as one of Scotland's earliest planned villages, and his brother Archibald, the 11th Earl, completed the work; its broad, symmetrical main street survives much as they left it.

The family's best-remembered moment came in August 1839, when Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, staged the Eglinton Tournament at the castle: a lavish, self-funded medieval joust and pageant, conceived partly as a response to what its organisers saw as a threadbare coronation for Queen Victoria. Tens of thousands turned out for what was meant to be a three-day spectacle of knights in armour, but heavy rain washed out much of the final day, and the tournament is remembered nearly as much for the weather as the chivalry.

A separate branch of the family looked to Ireland. Sir Hugh Montgomery of Braidstane, an Ayrshire laird, struck a deal in 1605 with the wife of the imprisoned Ulster landowner Con O'Neill and, working alongside the Scots adventurer James Hamilton, secured a share of O'Neill's lands in return for his freedom. Montgomery went on to lead large numbers of settlers from south-west Scotland into the Ards Peninsula and north Down, making him one of the figures credited with founding the Ulster-Scots community, and he was later created Viscount Montgomery of the Great Ards.

Today the chiefship of Clan Montgomery goes with the earldom of Eglinton. The Council of Scottish Clans & Associations lists the Earl of Eglinton & Winton as the clan's recognised chief and a member of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs, and the family's Ayrshire and Renfrewshire connections it traces back to Eaglesham and Eglinton are still central to how the clan understands itself.