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,
Clan Stirling when Prince James, son of James II of Scotland rebelled against his father and Sir William Stirling of Keir was one of his supporters. Sir William Stirling's descendant, Sir Arhibald Stirling of Keir was a prominent lawyer who supported the king during the Scottish Civil War and on the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The Stirling of Garden branch of the clan descend from this Sir Archibald Stirling. He was also appointed to the Supreme Court with the title Lord Garden. His third son, James Stirling (1692 – 1770), was a prominent mathematician. During both the Jacobite rising of