Читать книгу The Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country - Fraser William Alexander - Страница 17

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The family of Luss is of high antiquity, but its origin, like that of other ancient families, is involved in obscurity and uncertainty, although their most ancient Christian names would seem to point to a Celtic extraction. Tradition has here also attempted to supply the place of well-attested history by attributing to the family of Luss a descent from the Saxon blood of the Earls of Lennox. But of such a lineage the earliest charters of that house give no indication. The saltier belonging to the armorial ensigns of the houses of Colquhoun and Lennox, which has been adduced to prove that these families have a common ancestry, has been also used, as already shown, as an argument to prove that the family of Luss originated in the same stock. But in the latter case the argument is even of less force than in the former; for that bearing has not been traced to the family of Luss before it merged in that of Colquhoun. The arms of the Colquhouns, it may be presumed, are those of Umfridus, the first of that name, rather than those of the house of Luss. It is, indeed, possible that they may have been those of Luss, as Sir Robert Colquhoun may have adopted them on his marrying the heiress of that house; but it is nothing more than a possibility; for had he adopted her arms, he would probably have quartered them with his own; nor would he have adopted them while he left her name to sink entirely.

The earliest period at which the family of Luss can be traced from authentic records is about the year 1150.