Scottish clan Clan Grant. During the Wars of Scottish Independence, feudal tenures were introduced by Robert the Bruce that harnessed and controlled the prowess of clans by the award of charters for land in order to gain support in the national cause against the English. For example, the Clan MacDonald were elevated above the Clan MacDougall, two clans who shared a common descent from a great Norse-Gaelic warlord named Somerled of the 12th century. Clanship was thus not only a strong tie of local kinship but also of feudalism to the Scottish Crown. It is this feudal component, reinforced by Scots law,
Scottish clan that separates Scottish "clanship" from the "tribalism" that is found in aboriginal groups in Australasia, Africa and the Americas. Civil Wars divided the clans. As the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms broke out in the mid 17th century, the Covenanters were supported by the powerful Clan Campbell and Clan Sutherland, and were opposed by the royalist House of Huntly (Clan Gordon). Clan support for the royal house of Stuart was based mainly on the political values of clanship. Clan support for Charles I had more to do with being against the Covenanting movement than that of supporting an absentee