We are accustomed to look upon this merely as the familiar name of a Scottish clan. But in reality the Grantes or Grentes were resident in Normandy from the earliest times, and held their heads high among their contemporaries. According to William de Jumièges, Gilbert Grente married, about 985, a daughter of Hugh de Montfort-sur-Rille, who was the niece of Richard Sans Peur; and in 1010, La Chesnaye (vol. 7) tells us that * * * de Marguerie allied himself to the Dukes of Normandy by taking to wife a daughter of this house, evidently Gilbert’s child. Further, it is to be noted that “Hugh de Grente-maisnil is said to have been so called from his seat in Normandy, built by Grento (Grentonis Maisnel, in Latin Mensis)."—Sir Henry Ellis. His coat of arms was, however, wholly different from that of the Grentes, who, in open defiance of the laws of blazonry, bear Argent on a fesse Azure, a cross moline Gules. They are still represented in Normandy, where they claim to have held the estate of Saint-Pierre-Azis, or Azise, in the bailifry of Coutances, “from time immemorial.” Charles de Grente, Comte de Grécourt, was the first President and King’s Advocate of the Parliament of Normandy.

Robert Grante is among the additions made by M. de Magny to the Dives Roll; but I have not succeeded in finding any trace of him in Domesday. Hugo Grando, de Scoca, This name is hard to explain. I subjoin a communication on the subject with which I have been favoured by one of our first antiquarian authorities: “His name was probably mangled by the Italian clerks of the Exchequer, who compiled the Survey of Berkshire from the local returns, but there can be little doubt that his name is written Hugo-de-Grando-de-Scoca, and that it was taken from some place on the other side of the Channel." - R. E. Chester Waters. who is there entered as an under-tenant in Berkshire, can scarcely have been of the same family; but we may rightfully claim Grento, who held both in Devonshire and Shropshire; in the latter county of Roger Fitz Corbet at Worthin. Roger Grente witnesses a deed of John Le Strange in 1161.—Eyton's Salop. “Grento de Everwic” is found in the Rotulus Magnus Pipæ of 31 Hen. I.—the earliest record that we possess after the date of Domesday; and Peter Fitz Grente, perhaps his son, held half a fee of William de Percy in Yorkshire. - Liber Niger. William Grent was of Buckinghamshire in the reign of John. - Rotuli Curiæ Regis. For a family that could boast of kinship with the Conqueror, it is obvious that their position in his new kingdom was very far from brilliant.

The subsequent notices are difficult to identify, for “Grant,” as often as not, stands for Le Grand, a name very frequently found in Normandy. On the earliest of the Spencer tombs in their burial place at Brington Church, Northants, lies the elaborate effigy of a Graunt heiress, married to Sir John Spencer, whose coat of arms, as blazoned on the heraldic mantle looped across her breast, almost exactly corresponds with that of one of the Norman Le Grands. She bore Ermine, on a chevron gules, three bezants; while he, styled Sieur de Sainte- Marie-d’Herbetot and various other manors in the district of Pont-Audemer, bore D'hermine au chevron de gueules charge de trois molettes d'éperon.

The Scottish families of this name are Celtic. The first of the Grants is said to have been Gregory, Sheriff of Inverness in the days of Alexander II., who reigned 1214-49. This would give them a very respectable antiquity of nearly six centuries and a half; but there is an old joke current in Scotland respecting a former Lord Seafield, who was not disposed to rest content with it. He aimed at establishing a far loftier and more remote origin; and this seemed to him easy of accomplishment All that was required to rest it on incontestable authority was the alteration of one little letter in the family Bible. Accordingly, under his manipulation, “Giant” became “Grant,” and he could read with perfect complacency in the sixth chapter of Genesis how “there were Grants on the earth in those days,” born of angels and the daughters of men.

Graunt: from Le Grand. They may be traced back in Normandy till 985, but such pedigrees are suspicious, as the name is descriptive of height of stature, and was not a surname. There is no mention of a Grant in Domesday, unless that of Hugo Grando de Scoca, an under-tenant in Berkshire, be taken as one; but Grent de Everwick is found in the reign of Henry I. In the printed edition of Leland the name is Gaunt.