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,
William III, Earl of Ross when Robert was High Steward of Scotland, but to no avail. William, Earl of Ross, died on 9 February 1372 at Denley in Ross-shire, the last of the O’Baleon earls of Ross. He was succeeded by his daughter Euphemia and her husband Walter de Lesley. William, 5th Earl of Ross, married first Mary (Máire), a daughter of Angus Og of Islay (Aonghus Óg Mac Domhnaill), (d. 1314×1318/c.1330), chief of Clan Donald (Clann Domhnaill). They had one son and two daughters: William III, Earl of Ross William (or Uilleam) III, 5th Earl of Ross (d. 1372) was a fourteenth-century Scottish nobleman.