General Notes

REFN: 2938AN
REFN: P2939
Thought by some to be Malcolm Beg, but disputed by recent research ers.
This article is quite old:
Though genealogies have been published showin g a Hungarian ancestry for
this family, it has been "proved, by conclusive ev idence, that these
statements respecting the origin of the Drummond family ar e purely
apocryphal. The word Drummon, Drymen, or Drummin, is used as a local name
in several counties of Scotland, and is derived from the Celtic word
druim, a ridge or knoll. The firsrt person who can be proved to have
borne th e name was one Malcolm of Drummond, who, along with his brother,
named Gilber t, witnessed the charters of Maldouen, third Earl of Lennox,
from 1225 to 127 0. But this Malcolm was simply a chamberlain to the Earl.
Mr. Drummond states that he was made hereditary thane or seneschal of
Lennox, which is quite uns upported by evidence; and he asserts that
Malcolm's estates reached from the shores of the Gareloch, in
Argyll, across the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling into
Perthshire, which Mr. Fraser has shown to be an entire mistake. Instead
of the Barony of Drymen, or Drummond, having been granted to Prince
Maurice by Malcolm Canmore in 1070, the lands belonged to the Crown
previou s to the year 1489, when for the first time they were let on lease
to John, f irst Lord Drummond, and afterwards granted to him as feu-farm.
The earliest c harter to the family of any lands having a similar name was
granted in 1362, by Robert Stewart of Scotland, Earl of Strathern, to
Maurice of Drummond, of the dominical lands, or mains of Drommand and
Tylychravin, inthe earl of Stra thern. It is doubtful if he ever entered
into possession of these lands; but it is clear that, whether he did so
or not, they did not belong to the Drummo nd family previous to the grant
of 1362, but were part of the estates of the Earl of Strathern, and that
they are wholly distinct from the lands and lords hip of Drummond
afterwards acquired by John Drummon, who sat in Parliament 6t h May, 1471,
under the designation of Dominus De Stobhall, and, sixteen years later,
was created a peer of Parliament by James III."
"It thus appears tha t the founder of the Drummond family was not a
Hungarian prince, or even gent leman, but Malcolm Beg, chamberlain to the
Earl of Lennox."
The Great Histor ical Families of Scotland, James Taylor
The research into his family is contin uing, and there is some thought
that Malcolm of Drummond and Malcolm Beg were contemporaries, but not the
same man.