GRANT, Mary ¹

   User ID: Q134

  Research Notes:

MARY GRANT - ONE OR TWO MARRIAGES?

In the Pedigree section of The Chiefs of Grant the wife of Donald Grant of Inverlaidnan is not named at all. A similar tack is followed in the website, thepeerage.com.

In the clanmacfarlanegenealogy website Donald's wife is noted as Mary, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Grant of Cluniemore & Cluniebeg, Tutor of Grant, where her marriage with Donald Grant is Mary's second marriage, after her first marriage to Patrick 'McAlpine' Grant, 6th of Rothiemurchus. The webpage adds a note as source:

"Mary, daughter of Col. Grant, of Mulbayne. son of Sir John Grant, of Grant, by Mary, daughter of Lord Ogilvie and Deskford. (The Baronetage of England: Or The History of the English Baronets ..., Volume 5 By William Betham)"

The website www.stirnet.com, in Grant07, also shows the wife of Donald Grant of Inverlaidnan as Mary, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Patrick grant, son of Sir John of Grant, but does not include any other marriage of Mary Grant.

However, in another webpage of the same site, Grant02, Mary, daughter of Patrick Grant of Cluniemoir, son of Sir John Grant 6th of Freuchie, by Patrick's wife Sybil Mackenzie, is shown as married to Patrick Grant 6th of Rothiemurchus (b.1665 d.1741). No mention is made of another marriage there.

So there is a degree of uncertainty about Mary Grant. Yet with the facts as we know them, it appears we can rule out the notion that Mary Grant, daughter of Patrick Grant of Cluniemoir, married Donald Grant of Inverlaidnan as her second husband, because

1 Patrick Grant, 6th of Rothiemurchus, was born in 1665 and died certainly before 1744, possibly about 1741.

2 This Patrick Grant had a second wife, Rachel Grant, married circa 1734-5.

3 Donald Grant of Inverlaidnan's first son was born circa 1654-5.

4 Donald Grant himself died in 1676.

The dates do not fit a second marriage.




MULBEN

In 2014, in the clanmacfarlanegenealogy website, Donald's wife was noted as Mary, daughter of Patrick Grant of Mulbayne. It is likely the website was using as source the source quoted above, where 'Mulbayne' is the designation of Mary's purported father:

"Mary, daughter of Col. Grant, of Mulbayne. son of Sir John Grant, of Grant, by Mary, daughter of Lord Ogilvie and Deskford. (The Baronetage of England: Or The History of the English Baronets ..., Volume 5 By William Betham)"

The Sir John Grant referred to was Sir John Grant, 6th of Freuchie whose marriage contract to Mary, daughter of Sir Walter Ogilvy of Deskford, was dated 11 December 1613. According to The Chiefs of Grant, the couple had seven sons and three daughters. During his father's lifetime, that is until 1622, Sir John was designated Sir John Grant of Mulben, Mulben being a barony acquired by the Grants in the 16th century which became later a part of the Regality of Grant, as the barony of Freuchie was. John Grant, 4th of Freuchie, had also been designated 'of Mulben', during his father's lifetime.

Sir John Grant died on 1 April 1637 after a short illness; as a result, his testament was drawn up hurriedly before his rather sudden death. Mary Ogilvy, his widow, renounced in her son, James' favour her right of executry, and he became sole manager of the estates. She retained, for her liferent settlement, the lands secured to her by the contract of excambion of 1634, including Mulben. Later, in 1644, in return for a sum of money paid to her by the laird, his mother renounced in his favour her liferent interest in the lands provided to her in the barony of Mulben, but a few days later, assisted by the Earl of Seaforth, she had second thoughts, believing she had been treated badly by her son.

After her death about 1647, James Grant made arrangements individually for his siblings, whose interests had not been dealt with in their father's testament. In the details provided by The Chiefs of Grant, between pages 269 and 277, about this course of action, almost seven pages are devoted to the saga of James Grant's brother, Alexander Grant, whose dissatisfactions and machinations, including legal action and a shooting, over the laird's offer of land in Mulben caused the laird such headache:

"As Alexander Grant continued to possess the Mains of Mulben, it may be inferred that the Laird was not disposed to resent this action of his brother, yet the latter did not cease from troubling. The Laird lent him one thousand four hundred and eighty merks in 1657, but appears to have been glad, in 1662, to cancel not only this debt but also several feu-duties, and every other claim he had upon his brother, on condition that Alexander would remove from the lands which he held in Mulben. The agreement was made at Forres on 8th January 1662. Alexander thereby became bound to remove before the 24th of that month, or forfeit the benefit of the cancellation. A notarial instrument, dated the 25th January 1662, narrates that on that day John Gregorie in Kyntra appeared at Mulben as the Laird's procurator, bearing in his hands this condescendence, and requiring its fulfilment. Whereupon Alexander Grant immediately passed to the mill, turned out the millers, and gave the Laird's procurator possession of the mill. The tenants' houses were then successively visited, the tenants ejected, and informed by Alexander Grant that they were no longer his servants, and had nothing more to do with him, save to pay him what they owed to him, and that now they were the tenants of the Laird of Grant." (page 273)

And so it went on.

It is difficult to see, therefore, why Mary Grant would be called the 'daughter of Col. Patrick Grant of Mulbayne' when, from what we know, there was no-one of that personal name and designation. Moreover, no other source is provided. If 'Mulbayne' or 'Mulben' is the signifier, and she was the granddaughter of Sir John Grant, 6th of Freuchie, then it is more likely her father was that laird's son, Alexander, who did have daughters, but whose name was more than an embarrassment to his family:

"As opposed to the discontent displayed by Alexander Grant, the Laird received from his other brothers and unmarried sister a testimony of his kindness towards them. It was evoked by the conduct of their brother Alexander, whose views of his own ill-treatment they not only did not share, but strongly reprobated." (page 275) ^{2 3 4 5 6}

Mary married Donald GRANT of Inverlaidnan, son of John GRANT in Dalrachnie in Duthil, Factor in Glencarnie and Elspet GRANT.¹ (Donald GRANT of Inverlaidnan was born about 1625 and died in May 1676.)

  Marriage Notes:

No primary sources have been found for the marriage of Donald Grant of Inverlaidnan and Mary Grant.

See Research Notes for Mary Grant's file (ID:Q134) for further information and discussion.