Lamont

By the 15th century the direct line of the chiefs is believed to have failed, passing to the Lamonts of Inveryne, styled 'Lamont of Lamont'.  They established their chief seats at Castles Toward and Ascog, until those castle’s destruction by the Campbells in the 17th century.  Sir James Lamont, chief in 1643, declared for the royalist cause in direct confrontation with his powerful Campbell neighbours.  After a long stand off, the Lamonts laid waste to Campbell lands at Kilmun after Montrose's victory at Inverlochy, 1645.  1646 brought reprisals as the Campbells besieged the Castles of Toward and Ascog.  Sir James Lamont surrendered the castles, having apparently reached honourable terms.  However these were not adhered to by all, with Sir James imprisoned at Dunstaffnage for five years, massacres of clans people and the destruction of the castles.  The Lamont massacres were sited at the Marquess of Argyll’s trial in 1661 following the Restoration of the Stuarts.  A memorial commemorating the event was erected on the site by the Clan Lamont in 1906.  Latterly the chiefs took up residence at Ard Lamont, where in 1893 the last of the clan lands were sold to the present chief in Australia.  The Lamont tartan has undergone a process of absorption by the Campbells except that the lines centred on the green are white only and not alternating white and yellow, and they do not have the black guards shown in the Campbell tartan.  Interestingly, an 1819 Bannockburn Pattern Book counts some Lamont varieties under 'Forbes - Fine Plaids'.