“Clan Grant and its Cadet Clans”

Author: Dr Steve Goodall
Published by the Grantown Museum 2025

A Review

This is probably the worst book ever written about the Clan Grant. It was a badly conceived project from the start and, besides the incompetence, its rushed preparation is evident throughout. It is so badly misleading in so many places that it would require a book larger than the book itself to discuss and resolve the many errors, obfuscation and wilful obscurantism, never mind the grammatical failures. So this “review” will focus on a handful of illustrative examples only.

The book brings all parties concerned into disrepute, including the publisher and the institution which awarded the author his “research” degree. So I urge every reader of this page not to buy it and the Grantown Museum to pulp however many remaining copies they have.

This is all a great pity because in some respects on a technical level it is “nicely” produced (albeit page numbers for the start of each chapter on the contents page and proper chapter headings might have helped navigation) and the 15 pages of potted biographies of Grants other than the “usual suspects” would have been a good idea if only it had been executed at all well (which it is not).

Sadly this work is in the same vein as others by the same author (see some examples in the miscellany section of this website). Nothing has been learned, apparently. So inter alia it comes as no surprise that there is no reference to my book “Scottish Clans: Legend, Logic & Evidence”, which Sir James, our late chief, endorsed as the authorised version of that part of the Clan’s history which it covers. So too there is no reference to this website.

The Essence of Clan and Feudal Society

We can start near the beginning – on page 2 (which is not really page 2 whichever way you look at it):

Copying Charters:

Surviving charters are usually later copies. The copyists did not always understand the meaning of some words used in the original manuscripts. They may have substituted a word they knew and which they thought would serve. For example ‘Dominis’ Laurence le Grant was replaced with ‘Sir’ rather than translating it as ‘Master’ or ‘Owner’.

What nonsense! It is the author, not the copyists, who “did not …. understand the meaning….”.

  1. You were only called ‘Sir’ if you had been knighted. It had nothing to do, per se, with land.

  2. The nominative of ‘Dominis’ is ‘Dominus’ (the form which should have been

  3. used) and means ‘Lord’. It reflects the status of the land holding. Thus you can be a ‘Sir’ without being a ‘Dominus’ and a ‘Dominus’ without being a ‘Sir’. The author may have been confused (no surprise there) but it is fatuous to suppose that a scribe would be confused by this.

  4. Under the feudal system there is no ‘owner’ apart from the king. People HOLD the land – they do NOT ‘own’ it. Your parcel of land can be held from a chain of feudal superiors. The charters specify what you can and cannot do on your land.

  5. ‘Master’ in this context has no meaning whatsoever. It has been used as a variant of ‘younger’ to imply an heir-in-line who was very much NOT the ‘Dominus’.

This is compounded on p 102:

The Tullochgorm and Drumuillie mortgages were redeemed by Sir James Grant of Grant in 1771.

Errr…. No. The author does not understand the concept of the wadset and so does not understand the implications. To imply that the terms “wadset” and “mortgage” are equivalent is to demonstrate that you don’t have the slightest clue what you are talking about. It was the wadset which was redeemed thus reducing the lairds of Tullochgorm from the rank of wadsetter to that of tacksman. One reason for this was that it was part of a greater programme ending the Clan System in Strathspey generally, but here it was also political – punishing the Tullochgorms for their Jacobite sympathies In the 45 (for details see their page in the Cadets’ section of this site). [Ironically the Tullochgorms thus freed from their land-based bonds of loyalty to the chiefs went on to flourish and excel in a way they had never been able to do before.]

We may add another piece of lèse-majesté and evidence of a deep ignorance of the whole nature of the clan system as well as an insult to our Chiefs. On p122 Sir Patrick Grant of Dalvey is described as “Chief of Clan Donnachie” – a crass error. A clan chief is the chief of the name. [As with most general rules, the Lyon Court does recognise one or two exceptions – but this is not one of them.] There is ONE Grant Chief. Dalvey is NOT a chief. He is at best a chieftain – a two, not three, feather man. For Sir Patrick’s ancestral origins see below and the Dalvey page in the cadets’ section.

There is, of course, a bona fide Clan Donnachie, the collective name for the Robertsons.

By themselves, these fundamental – fatal – flaws
are more than enough to condemn this book.
But there is more…… so much more.

The Role of the Church

Even earlier – on page “1” – we find:

“…..marriage dates may be of legal contracts of marriage, not marriage ceremonies. For the majority of marriage was a verbal agreement between the families. They were not celebrated in a church.”

As so often, there is enough of an element of truth in this to prevent it being classed as a lie. However, we have only to look at the number of Papal dispensations to allow marriages eg between those too closely related for the rules of the Catholic Church for us to see that the clear intended implication that the church was not involved is untrue. And, later on, this is demonstrated in the Parish Registers where marriages were one of the main items entered. Even today priests will and do perform marriage ceremonies in all sorts of places. The author is trying to imply something which just is not true. The falsehood of the other insinuation is demonstrated both by Maud Grant and Andrew Stewart and by Maud Comyn and Ian Roy Grant.

Spelling

On Page 3 we find: “Where possible modern spelling has been used.”

This turns out not to be true. “Macbeth” is mentioned – which is fair enough – but then on page 109 there is a lapse into studied obscurantism with the reference to “Mac Beath Mac Findlaidh”. Should we suppose that ‘Mac Beath’ is the same as “Macbeth”? Does the author even know himself? Notice that “Macbeth” is in fact a name: it is not “Mac Beth” – albeit it is composed of these elements – so the ersatz Gaelic is wrong (in any case it should really have been Macbethad); if one wanted to play with “Finlay” then ‘Findláech’ (in the nominative) should really be rendered in the genitive.

This is an insult to any Gaelic speaker and misleading to anyone who is not.

The Comyn Skull

On Page 4 is an entirely apocryphal tale about “a younger son” of a Grant of Stratherrick falling in love with a daughter of a MacGregor chief and then running away to hide in Huntly’s cave near what is now Castle Grant. Where this story comes from, I have no idea not least because it is not referenced (poor form) – but the reader should note (i) that there are no names and (ii) this story is not recorded in any Grant history. I don’t believe it, not least because there are no ‘spare’ Grant sons. And, of course it has nothing to do with the Comyn Skull (for which see the page on this site).

It is claimed that the Grants were “newly arrived” in Stratherrick – which is untrue because they were in Stratherrick from c1150…. before they were Grants! The Comyns only gained any foothold in the north east of Scotland c1214 and it took time for them to extend their landholdings.

The idea that a Grant would find refuge in Huntly’s cave is fatuous. It is true that (i) the core of Castle Grant was a Comyn stronghold and (ii) an early Grant chief married a Comyn girl, but if a young Grant needed to run away to his grandparents for safety there would be no need to hide out in a cave! [There are other problems with this Macgregor fantasy, too tedious to dissect here….]

The story half echoes the story told about the Grant heiress Maud and her liaison with Andrew Stewart which is in the MS histories (but is somewhat garbled). [The most likely scenario is that Sir John Grant had a son, also John when the Grants acquired their half of Inverallan (1316). Andrew and Maud were already married. When Sir John’s son died before his father, Maud became the senior heiress – so Andrew stood to become chief de jure uxoris. The clan would not accept this, so he needed to hide. Eventually the clan came to accept him – initially as heir apparent – on the condition that he adopted the name Grant.]

Next is a highly garbled version of the true story which the author claims to be “problematic”. Err…. no it is not (see the page on this site), but the author cannot cope with the chiefly line – he has mixed up two different Patricks, which is doubly ironic because on page 27 the Patrick who WAS murdered is there in the list of chiefs.

The propensity to slipshod copying (and a failure to reference) is paraded by reference to

Eaglais Thomhaldidh, Kincardine Church and a well, Tobar Thomhaldaidh, both lie on a ridge called ‘Ibhir Thomhaldaidh’.

Errr… the church is NOT on a ridge (actually it is something of a hollow; the ridge is about a mile away) and for the sake of a 4-mile journey the author could have ascertained all this for himself, so it is an especially bizarre claim to make. It turns out to be a misquote from Chapter X of Forsyth’s “In the Shadow of Cairngorm” (1899) in where he says:

Kincardine Church is called by the old people "Eaglais Thomhaldidh."

A well near the Church is called "Tobar Thomhaldiadh’ and a ridge of land in Wester Tulloch bears the name of "Imir Thomhaldidh."

This is largely echoed by JM Matthieson “Place Names of Strathspey” (March 1952) in the TGSI 1953 (Volume XLI 1951/2, p221) who offers “Iomaire” for “Imir” and prefers the forms “Tomaldach” (nominative) and “Thomaldaich” (genitive).

The best bet is that "Imir Thomhaldidh" was in effect glebe/grange land reserved for the support of the church.

[The scholarly consensus seems to have been that “Thomhaldidh” should be the name of a saint, despite Matthieson advising us (p222) that “I do not know of any such name in the Saints’ Calendars.” I have now resolved the problem, set out in a brief paper “Kincardine Parish Church” on my academia site. The problem has been that the “name” is not a name as such. It is a nickname whose core meaning is “the Glutton”.]

For the correct understanding of the Comyn Skull see the page on this site about the feud between the Grants and the Comyns.

Manuscript Histories

In his introduction to his survey of the MS histories (page 6) there is a reference to “these 18th Century tales”. This demonstrates is that the author did not read them properly. The Monymusk Text refer to “John Kay who yet lives”. The Tullochgorm Text has more accurately “John Roy…” The context demonstrates that this is a reference to John Grant, 5th of Freuchie who died in 1622. So, while the various versions of the texts were brought up to date as events occurred, they are NOT “18th Century tales”: the mother text was written BEFORE 1622. Moreover the occurrence of names like “Colobella” (for “Gunhilda”) and “Wishilla” (for “Hextilda”) prove that the c1620 author was relying on previous WRITTEN texts so old that he could not decipher them accurately (it is impossible to make such mistakes on the basis of oral transmission). So the author’s disdain for these texts is itself to be disdained.

On page 6 it is acknowledged that the Cromdale Text was written by Rev. James Chapman, but on page 7 we are told that Fraser claimed that the Monymusk Text was written by…… Chapman!! The reader is invited to read both texts on this site to see how fatuous such a claim is. On page 7 also is the bizarre claim:

“James Chapman seems to have used the Monymusk and Baronage texts for sources of the Cromdale Text above”

Errr…. Just how silly can one man be? The Cromdale Text was written c1728, but the Baronage Text can be dated to c1773 – so, apparently Chapman was able to refer to a text not written until 50 years LATER, well after he, Chapman, was dead!

So we have reached page 7 and already I am more than exasperated.
But we must grit our teeth and push on.

DNA

The author’s failure to understand DNA, is well documented already (see the pages on this site). On p14 we find:

“The most important findings of the Clan Grant DNA project shows that ancestors of the Grant Chief, who generously gave his sample, have a different DNA profile that originated in Scandinavia and Northern Germany before migrating to Saxony and Denmark.”

This sentence makes no sense. I have no idea what he is trying to say – but, whatever it is, it is not true. Sir James was indeed one of the, perhaps “the”, very earliest clan chief(s) to agree to participate – at my personal encouragement. His Y-DNA is not related to Scandinavia for the simple reason that he is a Royal Stewart, who were kings on the English/Welsh border in immediately sub-Roman times before finding exile in Brittany. It is the Allanach Grants who still carry the R1a1 Viking signature of the Clan Chiefs before Andrew Stewart. Sadly the author, parroting Fraser refuses to acknowledge this.

Before discussing other markers which he claims date to 1350 BC, he tells us

  • The Grant results belong to a different group, R1b-P312….

  • Haplogroup R1b-P312 dated to around 3,500BC, a very common European group of peoples

  • Branching off at this point [300BC] R-M269

Although these dates are treated as secure by several sophomore DNA project administrators, in reality they are not (again see the pages on this site).

Such has been the mass movement of peoples in Europe since 300 BC, never mind 1350BC, that the author’s claims are utterly baseless. Nevertheless, in an effort to make as many people as possible share his confusion, he tries to insinuate (p16) that the Grants are somehow related to a Norman family de Hauteville who have never been linked to any Grant before. He says “R-M269 is Auslag married Ragnar Lodbrok” Errr… no it is not. The SNP R-M269 is on the Y Chromosome and so is certainly NOT “Auslag”. [Earlier, on p14 this was recognised this principle, so we can see how flaky the thinking process is.] It is then claimed that Ragnar is a mythical person (however much he has been mythologised, he was real) before giving him real world descendants – including the de Hautevilles!

So this is a false syllogism following a standard form:

  • The Grant chief has R-M269

  • The de Hautevilles had R-M269

  • Ergo the Grant chiefs must descend from the de Hautevilles.

All this notwithstanding (i) the claim that R-M269 was formed in 300BC, (ii) he cannot prove that Ragnar carried this SNP and (iii) this SNP is very common! Fatuous. As he does not cite his references in a way that can be checked, I cannot say whether the author has made this up himself or relied on some other fantasist. The best he COULD have said would be “R-M169 includes Ragnar Lodbrok”. His loose phraseology has led him to think that Ragnar Lodbrok is the initiator of that SNP and thence to the false syllogism.

Any readers interested might consider visiting wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_Hauteville_family to see the de Hauteville arms – which are clearly not related to the Grants in any way.

The author does cite private correspondence with Geoff Grant, one of the FTDNA Grant project administrators, as a reference. That by itself tells us all we need to know. Geoff Grant is so insecure about the scientifically unsupportable dogmatic lines he takes in this regard that within hours of my posting to let project members know about this website he removed me from the project in an attempt to prevent members learning the truth – a copybook anti-science example of cancellation culture and totally counter to the USA’s supposed espousal of free speech (see article on this site).

The Picts

On page 17 he says “About 600AD as the Pictish Kingdoms developed”. Errr… no. The various Pictish tribes coalesced as the kingdom of the Picts c300AD. [For details see my papers (i) about the origins of the Picts and Scots and (ii) about the Pictish king lists.]

Heraldry

On page 20 there is reference to a genuine mistake made in the Lindsay Armorial when the Grant arms are recorded as having a blue ground rather than a red one. The author fails to understand what went on and fails to note that this blazon is now that of MacArthur of that ilk.

For a full discussion of Grant and associated heraldry see my “Scottish Clans….” (Vol 2 chapter D3) which, of course, the author did not deign to read. Nor is any mention made any other aspect of the Grant blazon (see on this site). It comes as no surprise then that there is no understanding of the relationship between the Grant arms and those of Munster. [In reality this is the legacy of William Grant, younger son of Gregory, who sought service under the English crown in Ireland (see my book). He differenced his arms from that of his father by tincture (this before formal rules of cadency were established).]

Note that the author makes no attempt to explain why the Grant blazon is what it is and how and why the variants have occurred – nor the linkage to the other Siol Alpin clans – which, by themselves, demonstrate that the Arms were first adopted c1060.

Cadets

Excessive reliance on Fraser has led to a failure to identify the origins of several of the cadet lines and some error. The good news is that several of these origins can be found on this site (and it is planned to add to them in due course). There is no value in the fairly random list of names for several of the cadet lines.

  • Here is a laugh: on page 82 we find reference to “James Chamberlain Grant”. Errr…. No. His name was NOT “Chamberlain”. This was, of course, James Grant who served the Clan Chief as chamberlain.

  • A much more serious error is on page 92 it is claimed that “Ian (John) Mor received charters 8th December 1509 for the lands of Glenmoriston and Glenurquhart.” What nonsense! John More was indeed granted a charter for Glenmoriston, but there were two separate charters for Glenurquart: the lower part of the Glen was granted to the Clan Chief, while the upper half was granted to his second legitimate son John Grant who became 1st of Corrimony.

  • The shallowness of the research is illustrated by remarks about Tullochgorm (page 100): “Early information was compiled by Rev. John Charles Grant, the Manse, Nottingham..” who was still alive in 1914. Errr….. no. George Grant, the chieftain of Tullochgorm of the time compiled the Tullochgorm Memoirs (available on this site) in 1752. So whatever the Rev. John Charles Grant compiled was NOT “early”.

  • The origins of the (also illegitimate) Dalvey line (p85) are also incorrect. Duncan of Gartinbeg, the progenitor, was the son of Chief Ian Roy Grant and a lady’s maid at Castle Grant, more likely a teenage indiscretion, but possibly a matter of consolation after the death of his beloved wife Bigla Beg. [Duncan was thus a half-brother of Sir Duncan and of Patrick the progenitor of Tullochgorm. It is interesting to note that the two half-brothers were given neighbouring estates.] See pages on this site.

Monymusk

I will close this “review” by jumping forward to page 109 where there is a particular example of garbling which is worth examining because of how illustrative it proves to be. I hope the reader who is interested enough to read the whole item will find it indicative of so many of the problems which suffuse the book. It requires a LOT of unpicking.

Here is the relevant extract:

There was a religious house at Abersnethick in 623AD (Annals of Ulster) two of the abbots being Ulneas/Ulnius of Nér and Nechtan (679AD). In 1120 there were Culdee Communities. Malcolm 1st built a tower for the church at Monymusk to mark his victory at the battle of Lumphanan a monument to the defeat of Mac Beath Mac Findlaidh.

A remarkable 7th Century survival, the Monymusk reliquary…..…. Bishop Ulnius of Ner preached at the priory in 620 and died there in 630…. The reliquary was carried by the Scottish army at Bannockburn.

First let us notice that King Malcolm 1st was killed in 954 over 100 years BEFORE the battle of Lumphanan where Macbeth was killed.

Second “Ulnius” is described both as Abbot and as Bishop!! Next we should note that there never was any “Ulnius” this is a transcription error by the author for “Uinius”.

Next to help us orient ourselves we should note the claim that the Monymusk reliquary dates to the 7th Century (that means the 600s to you and me). However the Wikipedia page which the author cites as a reference says it was made c750 while the National Museums of Scotland not only say that the reliquary as it is today dates to the 10th to 12th centuries but also dismiss the idea that it was carried into battle at all, never mind Bannockburn, as  “wishful thinking by scholars in the 19th century”. The insouciant author recycles this wishful thinking as fact.

Abersnethick: So now we can consider Abersnethick. In the cited Annals of Ulster under the year 623 we find: “Repose…… of Finnia, abbot of Ner.” Note that this says NOTHING about Abersnethick.

www.angelforce.scot/saints/finian says:

St Finian or Finan, Bishop (AD 660)

This feast is noted both in the Breviary and Martyrology of Aberdeen, as well as in other Scottish calendars. It is thought that he was one of four missionaries brought to north-east Scotland by St Kentigern. St Finan founded four churches - at Lumphanan, Migvie in Logie-Coldstone, Dunscroft near Gartly and Abersnitack near Monymusk.

At Migvie there is a fine sculptured stone on the site of St Finnan's Church. This stone, which is elaborately carved with a cross and other symbols, is of a later period than the Saint, probably 9th century, and it, together with St Finnan's Well nearby, are the only reminders of this early missionary in the Logie-Coldstone district, St Finnan's Fair, held annually in February, has long since been abandoned.

Another 'Finnan's Well' exists at Dunscroft near Gartly, while in bygone days St Finnan's Fair 'was an annual event at Banchory for St Finnan. Later in life St Finnan was consecrated Bishop. He died in the year 662.

Notice that Bishop Uinia/Finia died 39 years AFTER Abbot Finia.

Except for the reference to Kentigern, this makes good sense. A Pictish evangelist called Uinia (whose name was Gaelicised as “Finia/Finian/Finan” and whose name in modern Welsh would be Gwyn (meaning “white” or “holy” – so it may have been a name adopted when he took holy orders) who was trained at Abernethy (then in Fife, see below) founded churches in a relatively small area and was eventually consecrated as bishop, dying in 662.

[Although it is reasonable to suppose that his family’s conversion was by St Rule’s army of evangelists dating to shortly after 565 it is not impossible that Uinia’s family had been Christian for a couple of generations before that if they had been converted by St Kessog who was certainly present with Arthur at the battle of Lamb Hill near Auchterarder and may well have preached at Abernethy following Arthur’s victory there (at the “City of the Legion”) c508.]

Basis for the confusion: When I consulted an expert on the matter and asked about “St Finan” his first question was “Which one?” There has been a lot of work done which is made available on the website “Saints in Scottish Placenames”.

saintsplaces.gla.ac.uk says:

There are several possible commemorations to a saint called Finan, or similar, in the vicinity of Fetternear, as there are also to a saint Nechtan, whose name also appears in AU associated with Nér: AU 679.4 Dormitatio Nectain Neir. It is not clear what is the name lying behind Uineus, but in Gaelic it may have been realised either as Finnian or Fínán, and in Scots, Fin(n)an. The feast day of Nechtan of Nér is Jan 8, but that of Uineus is not recorded. It may also have been on Jan 8, where Mart. T. records a Finanus episcopus (Clancy 2008, 367-75).

Now here is the problem: we can nail the etymology of “Fetternear” (see Dwelly):

  • Fetter = fothair = “hill slope”
  • Near = “wild boar”

So Fetternear, which is just 3 miles from Abersnethick, is a placename meaning “hill slope of the wild boar”. The area IS a hill slope and there is no problem of principle of it having been characteristically inhabited by wild boar in Pictish and even into Gaelic times.

HOWEVER…. It is NOT feasible to regard “Near” as cognate with “Nér” the name of the monastery. Not only is “Wild Boar” not a place name (and if it were there would be no need to spell it “Nér”), it has no parallels and, if it did, would need to have been located somewhere characterised by boar. Add this to the dating discrepancy and it could not be more clear that the Finan who was the Abbot of the monastery of Nér is NOT the same person as the Uinia who was the Bishop based at Abersnethick whose see was a collection of local churches.

If we now turn to Nechtan, the Annals of Ulster (679) say: “The falling asleep of Nechtan Ner.” So we can see that Nechtan was associated with Nér and therefore NOT with Abersnethick.

It was always ridiculous anyway to try to force “snethick” from “nechtan”. In my view Abersnethick should be parsed Abers – neth – ick.

  • “Abers” is a scribal error based on a flourish on the end of “Aber”. [This is supported by the extraneous “s” on the end of “Uinea(s)”.]

  • “-ick” is a standard variant of the Pictish “-ig” meaning “burn” and

  • “neth” is found in the Abernethys in Fife and Strathspey and the “Nith” in Dumfriesshire – meaning “sparkling”.

So my conclusion is that Uinia was a Pictish monk who studied at Abernethy in Fife and was then sent to evangelise in deepest Donside, transferring the name Abernethig to his new base. [Ironically this name was otherwise entirely inapt as there is no available burn of any sort, never mind one with a mouth in the area of Abersnethick, but this is not a problem.]

As for the other Finan and his later replacement Nechtan, someone interested will need to look elsewhere for the location of “Nér”. Because we do not know where Nér was, we cannot be sure of the language of the name represented. It is possible that despite the annalists’ ignorance it was Gaelic, but if it was Pictish then it is to Welsh that they would need to look to expand Nér into something intelligible. There is a Welsh word Nêr meaning “Lord” – but again it is clear that that word is not appropriate in this context. That name is likely to have been a good deal longer (with eg one or more syllables in the middle which would have been the sort which could disappear easily (eg: bh, mh, dh etc.)). but abbreviated by the Irish monks who recorded it that way partly because that is roughly what they heard and probably because they had no clue what the name was meant to mean.

A further inhibition to locating Nér is that Columban clergy were unceremoniously turfed out of Pictland in 717 (in favour of Catholics) not to be readmitted until the 840s. So if Nér was indeed in Pictland it is near certain that the monastery there would have been closed down in 717.

So we can now catalogue the errors in this last section:

  1. Abersnethick is NOT linked to the date 623

  2. There was no monastery at Abersnethick

  3. There was no “Ulnius/Ulneas”

  4. Bishop Uinea of Abersnethick died in 662, not 623

  5. There is no connection between Abbot Nechtan and Abersnethick

  6. The Monymusk reliquary was not constructed in the 7th Century

  7. The reliquary probably did not contain the bones of “St. Colum Cille” (St Columba to you and me)

  8. Almost certainly the reliquary was never carried into any battle, never mind Bannockburn. There is no basis whatsoever for the author’s bald assertion.

The Culdees: Perhaps we should finish this examination of the treatment of Monymusk by considering the throwaway line “In 1120 there were Culdee Communities.”

Clearly the author has no idea what he is on about and we should note that this has nothing at all to do with the Grants as such. Nevertheless…

The Culdees were pre- or proto-Christian followers of Jesus who settled at an early date in England, Wales and Ireland. They tended to live in individual cell huts as hermits grouped in “dysarts”. Culdees came to Pictland as part of St Columba’s mission (565-597). However, as we have seen, in 717 Pictland was converted to Catholicism encouraged by Adomnan and Bishop Curetan/Boniface and all the Columbans, including the Culdees, were expelled.

Culdees returned to Pictland in the wake of its conquest by Kenneth MacAlpine. [The Catholics were not totally eradicated.] So the Culdees referred to will have set up at Monymusk some time after 843. This second wave tended to live more communally and they could marry, so this was not a wholly monastic life as we might recognise it.

Malcolm III was of at least sympathetic to Catholicism because he had spent so many of his formative years as an exile in Edward the Confessor’s court, but the real driving force for the recatholicization of Scotland was his second wife St Margaret Atheling whom he married after 1068. But this suppression took the form of a death of a thousand cuts.

Thus the Culdees were under pressure soon after 1070 and at Monymusk the squeeze was clearly on by 1120. But they were only finally suppressed 1245 when they were replaced by Augustinian Catholic monks. If the Catholic monastery survived to the Reformation (1560) it did not survive beyond it. www.crsbi.ac.uk looks reasonably authoritative.

Thus if the legend of the tower dating to 1057 is true then almost certainly it would have been a gift to the Culdee community.

Conclusion

I have discussed some illustrative examples only here. This treatment may be exhausting, but it is very far from being an exhaustive examination of the errors in this book. I hope the reader can see that in so many vital areas the book is NOT informative – on the contrary it sows fundamental disinformation and falsehood. It comes from a place of deep ignorance and carelessness.